Jens Oliver Meiert

Web Development × Engineering Management × Philosophy (3)

Articles and books on the craft of web development (with a focus on HTML/CSS optimization and maintainability), engineering management, and philosophy.

Cover: Upgrade Your HTML V.

Now Available: Upgrade Your HTML V!

The newest part of the ebook series for HTML craftspeople and minimalists, touching on past, present, and future of the greatest document language ever specified.

#579 · · , , , ,

Critical Feedback: Four Approaches and One Twist

Feedback is important so that we can learn and improve. Critical feedback is important to expose, validate, and address areas of growth and development. I believe that fundamentally, there are four approaches to critical feedback.

#578 · · ,

April 24 Is JS Naked Day

Every year on April 9 we, a part of our field, do without CSS; from this year on, on April 24, there’s an opportunity to temporarily swear off JavaScript.

#577 · · ,

Declining 1:1 Meetings Without a Message Is Rude

It happens everywhere, but it sets a bad example.

#576 · ·

Highlights From “On Liberty” (John Stuart Mill)

“The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well spoken of “the deep slumber of a decided opinion.‘”

#575 · ·

Highlights From “The Psychology of Revolution” (Gustave Le Bon)

“Men judge with their intelligence, and are guided by their characters. To understand a man fully one must separate these two elements.”

#574 · ·

Sustainability Trap

On the need to take and at the same time reassign responsibility for consumption and pollution.

#573 · ·

Exploitation

What and who is easiest to take advantage of and exploit, how is that being justified, and what can be done about it? On one piece of the puzzle what the fewest things are that need changing, to change everything.

#572 · · ,

Julia and Sybil

The early manuscript of a novel I started in 2015, and that will still take a few years to be finished.

#571 · · ,

On the Gift of OKR for Company Culture

“OKR,” short for aspiration, candor, and accountability.

#570 · ·

Building Websites and Building Websites Well

On exercises, orthogonality, and—choice.

#569 · ·

The Next Adventure

On leaving Germany again, and the next big chapter of my life.

#568 · · ,

How to Counter Provocation and Rumor

Are there effective responses to being provoked, picked on, blamed, attacked? Absolutely—but they’re not all being taught or shared a lot. A few quotes that I’ve found useful.

#567 · ·

“Web Design as a Process” in Charts: Maintenance, Decay, Tech Debt, and Big Bang Launching

Web design is a process. This process relates to the quality and completeness of a given website, as observed over time. We can chart and understand different types of this process.

#566 · · ,

Why I Like Scrumban

Over the past years, I’ve become a fan of Scrumban, a mix of Scrum and Kanban. But what is Scrumban here, and what is there to like about Scrumban?

#565 · ·

Website Optimization Measures, Part XXII

Web design is a process, running our own websites is awesome, and together it means there’s always something to tweak and improve and optimize. Select things I’ve done over the last few months.

#564 · · , ,

On the Well Astonishing Verdicts on Social Media

We may speak anything from 470,000,000 to 860,000,000 words in our lifetime. The tiniest fraction may be too much.

#563 · ·

Performance and Stay Questions in 1:1s

On a set of questions that are useful to ask every few weeks, for close alignment and connection, as well as well-being.

#562 · ·

My Web Development Wishlist 2024

Respect, UX before DX, quality output that starts with conformance, running one’s own website, and adding as much as necessary, but as little as possible to web standards—five wishes to benefit our field, our users, and us as professionals.

#561 · · ,

Stop Closing Void Elements

Some developers believe in closing all HTML elements. Some have to close all HTML elements. Others don’t believe in doing so, or aren’t forced either way. In Upgrade Your HTML IV, I wrote a little about closing void elements.

#560 · · ,

2023

My professional and personal highlights from the last year. (Happy 2024!)

#559 · ·

Incident, Mitigate, Learn

We can’t just pick two.

#558 · · ,

“HTML First” Is Not HTML First

On what is and what isn’t “HTML First.” (It’s not just a hunch: It should start with HTML.)

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Something to Know About Defensiveness

“The first rule of effective debate, argument, or heated conversation is to never, ever, get defensive.” On what we label as defensiveness, and a story that appears more complete and empathetic.

#556 · ·

26 Other Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of

From ActionScript (psst) to linearizability to the Z shell.

#555 · ·

Why Online Communication Is So Not-Great

Why is online communication so, meh? An approach that considers context, training, and world views, for a much more complicated topic.

#554 · · ,

The 9 HTML Elements That Have an Attribute of the Same Name, or: The 9 Attributes That Have an Element of the Same Name

There are nine HTML elements that have an attribute of the same name. You’ll never guess what follows next.

#553 · · ,

Letter and Spirit of Web Development

In the realm of law, there is the notion of letter and spirit of a law. It seems we could benefit from letter and spirit in web development, too.

#552 · ·

14 Tips for Becoming an Indie Author

After a few books with a publisher and a few more as an independent author, some tips and thoughts on how to publish your own books (if that’s what you’re excited about doing, too). From starting with ebooks to not writing overly much to not using AI tools—all sorts of advice you would or wouldn’t expect to get.

#551 · ·

Website Optimization Measures, Part XXI

Who hasn’t had enough of style sheet reviews, editor performance optimizations, ad removals, CTA revisions, pseudo-class refactorings, blocked AI crawlers, custom search engines, social graphics, or server log configs.

#550 · · , ,

2023: 0 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML

The latest analysis of HTML and CSS conformance of the most popular websites. The situation is only going to get better once we set higher expectations for the code we ship.

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Existence and Experience

How can something-exists experience itself?

#548 · ·

On the Uniting Power of a Commitment to HTML Conformance

HTML is the language of the Web, there’s a quality standard—expectation—for HTML, but we don’t make use of it, yet if we would, it would come with several advantages, one of them being that it could unite and propel us to master more important challenges, which would be good again for our field and the Web.

#547 · · , ,

What Happened to Separation of Concerns in Frontend Development

On a story that began around 2010, and in which web standards make separation of concerns easier—and frameworks make it harder.

#546 · · , ,

The Most Minimal Valid HTML Document

—isn’t that exciting, isn’t even new, but can use repeating in times of conformance neglect and AI-assisted coding.

#545 · · , , ,

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.

#544 · ·

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.

#543 · ·

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.

#542 · · , ,

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.

#541 · ·

The 10ish Tools I Install on Every New Mac I Get

Are there going to be surprises.

#540 · ·

WebGlossary.info

The Web Development Glossary—now also available as a website. Enjoy exploring.

#539 · · ,

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.

#538 · · , ,

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.

#537 · · ,

Cover: The Web Development Glossary 3K.

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.

#536 · · ,

Good Code Is—

On a question everyone does and does not have an answer for.

#535 · ·

Cover: The Problems With All the Good Things.

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.

#534 · · ,

Give

On one-things and lack.

#533 · · ,

Frameworks and Libraries and Leaky Abstractions

“Abstractions save us time working, but they don’t save us—”

#532 · ·

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.

#531 · · ,

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.

#530 · ·