Blog (2)
Valve, Counter-Strike, macOS, and How Not to Relaunch Software
Yesterday, on September 27, Valve released Counter-Strike 2, replacing the game’s predecessor, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) on Valve’s Steam platform. But.
The Good Things About All the Problems
On things we cannot meaningfully discuss, and the sequel to The Problems With All the Good Things that may never be.
Website Optimization Measures, Part XX
Definition issues. Aging content. Debugging. Social graphics. CTAs. DNS entries. SVGs. Filler words. PHP. There’s always something worth tending to.
Sustainability and Tech and Us
In tech, we’re exceptionally bad at sustainability. While those of us who focus on sustainability, performance, as well as code minimalism are already contributing to improvements, we can do more. A few thoughts.
The 10ish Tools I Install on Every New Mac I Get
Are there going to be surprises.
WebGlossary.info
The Web Development Glossary—now also available as a website. Enjoy exploring.
Website Optimization Measures, Part XIX
Dull maintenance drudgery (?), this time covering dependencies, link checks, keyboard navigation, contrast, hidden UI elements, multi-language tag handling, image compression, IndieAuth, and AI crawling.
200 Web-Based, Must-Try Web Design and Development Tools
A couple of web-based and free tools to test and improve accessibility, performance, security, conformance, colors and images and typography, SEO and SEM and—more. With an opinion about link lists, and appreciation for well-maintained tool collections.
The Web Development Glossary 3K—More Than 3,000 Terms and Concepts for the Well-Rounded Developer
Announcing the new edition of The Web Development Glossary, including almost a thousand additional terms as well as major usability updates, like improved source and cross-reference navigation—to provide an overview of web development unlike any other book or site.
Good Code Is—
On a question everyone does and does not have an answer for.
New Book: “The Problems With All the Good Things”
When good is considered unproblematic, and everything can be shown to be problematic, then—partner up with AI.
Give
On one-things and lack.
Frameworks and Libraries and Leaky Abstractions
“Abstractions save us time working, but they don’t save us—”
On Working on Vacation
Working while on vacation can be a sign of extraordinary commitment and initiative. But—it can also be a sign of disorganization and poor prioritization. A few thoughts.
48 Laws, Rules, and Principles of Web Development
In anticipation of the upcoming release of The Web Development Glossary 3K, here are four dozen laws, rules, and principles related to web and software development.
HTML Concepts: Kinds of Elements
There are six kinds of elements in HTML: void elements, raw text elements, escapable raw text elements, the template element, foreign elements, and normal elements.
Website Issues: On the Relevance of Audience Size and Impact
Website issues—relating to conformance, security, accessibility, performance, content, others—are usually treated with a particular priority, but that priority may not always be understandable, and may also be off. On the perspective we obtain when we consider and chart audience size and impact.
CSS Naked Day and the Missing Wikipedia Page
CSS Naked Day has a message—separation of concerns. The event has been around for nearly 20 years, thousands of developers have participated, and it’s still alive. It may not be an event significant enough for Wikipedia, for which this post had been a draft—but it does seem significant for our field.
Two Underused Arguments for Writing Documentation
Validating our thinking and allowing to scale may not get enough attention.
On Ageism
One may argue that the big “-isms” go back to speciesism, the idea that one was “better” than other living beings, or that others were inferior. With that idea warranting a post by itself, there are two things that make ageism particularly stupid.
Highlights from “The Social Contract” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
“The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.”
Highlights from “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (Max Weber)
“The modern rational organization of the capitalistic enterprise would not have been possible without two other important factors in its development: the separation of business from the household, which completely dominates modern economic life, and closely connected with it, rational book-keeping.”
HTML Concepts: Customized Built-In Elements
HTML allows to define custom elements, elements which enable authors to “build their own fully-featured DOM elements.” One special type of custom element is the customized built-in element—a custom element built on an existing HTML element.
Website Optimization Measures, Part XVIII
Random improvements as always, this time covering ARIA roles, Apache module checks, <guid>
elements, CLS rules of thumb, Eleventy, block lists, site licenses, and compression settings.
Conformance and Accessibility
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 are going to obsolete Success Criterion 4.1.1, which had been WCAG’s nod towards conformant HTML output. This is understandable, and it may even be good—to strengthen accessibility as well as conformance.
Categories
- Adventure (28)
- Art and Design (63)
- Engineering Management (17)
- Everything Else (129)
- Philosophy (63)
- Web Development (339)
Archives
By Year
Blogroll
- Barker, Michelle
- bij de Weg, Henk
- Comeau, Josh W.
- Fung, Kaiser
- Heilmann, Christian
- Krugman, Paul
- Lawson, Nolan
- Leatherman, Zach
- Meyer, Eric A.
- Ockerman, Stephanie
- Orosz, Gergely
- Osmani, Addy
- Roselli, Adrian
- Schneier, Bruce
- Shadeed, Ahmad
- Sterling, Bruce
- Van Damme, Bramus
Find adventure anywhere? Try 100 Things I Learned as an Everyday Adventurer (2013). During my time in the States I started trying everything. Everything. Then I noticed that wasn’t only fun, it was also useful. Available at Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play Books, and Leanpub.
Curious about traveling the world—and about a personal perspective? Try Journey of J. (2015). A freestyle documentary of 557 days of travel across 6 continents and 48 countries. Available at Amazon.