Code Views × World Views (5)
Articles and books on the craft of web development (with a focus on HTML/CSS optimization and maintainability), engineering management, and practical philosophy.
26 Additional Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of
Web Development has its own, special vocabulary that consists of several thousand terms. No one knows all of them. (Or do they?) Here are 26 more terms you may or may not have heard of—perhaps including AAAA or MAM or YMYL.
#523 · · development
Challenge Yourself, Even When It’s Art
The paradox of CSS art may suggest an artist had a free pass for the quality of their code. Or does it? I believe there are three possible answers to this.
#522 · · development, html, quality, design, art
2022
Release of my next book, a new apartment in downtown Hamburg, good news from the football club, a political adjustment, some travels, and preparation for a professional change—some of my highlights in 2022.
#521 · · misc
A Problem With Link Relationships
It’s easy to get excited about link relationships and similar types of metadata. But link relationships are invisible information, and some invisible information is notoriously hard to maintain—especially on things that decay, describing attributes that change.
#520 · · development, html
A Brief History of UITest.com
UITest.com just merged with Frontend Dogma, which is asking for select and random screenshots and facts about a site that I ran for 19 years to provide “web-based and free tools for web development and design.”
#519 · · development
The Reverse A-Hole Rule of Social Media
A delayed note about that point at which our defense against disagreeable viewpoints and people becomes an offense.
Website Optimization Measures, Part XVII
Encoding declarations. Conditionals. Ahrefs. ErrorDocument directives. Mastodon links. Mastodon citizenship. Bitbucket. Eleventy. Action.
#517 · · development, optimization, misc
Upgrade Your HTML IV
HTML forms the heart of the Web. The beautiful thing is, HTML is easy to learn. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to master. In the Upgrade Your HTML series, I’m taking examples of HTML, discuss these examples, and make them a little better. I’m excited to announce the fourth book of the series.
#516 · · books, development, html, minimalism, optimization
HTML Concepts: Unstyled Documents
There’s unstyled and there’s fully unstyled. And then there’s also styled “in a manner that is useful for a developer.”
#515 · · development, html, css
Website Optimization Measures, Part XVI
Spaces, HTTP headers, site generator exports, cite elements, variable fonts, social logos, no-break spaces, metadata—life is never boring when you run your own websites.
#514 · · development, optimization
10 Quick Tips for a Great Mastodon Experience
Mastodon is a great alternative to Twitter, feeling refreshingly healthy. Here are 10 things that can help you get off to a great start—from finding a suitable server and interesting people to follow, to useful tooling and mindsets.
#513 · · misc
Minimal Dark Mode
What’s the easiest and fastest way to set up dark mode? Depending on the setup, something from one declaration to two rules.
#512 · · development, css, minimalism
Vegan Web Developers
If you’re a vegan and a web developer, why not join us on a humble list of vegan web developers?
#511 · · development, misc, advocacy
Redo Websites Less Often (to Become a Better Developer)
You want to redo websites: The advantages are great, and the ability to put a website on a new foundation is a useful one to acquire. But—you also want to iterate, which means to constantly make small improvements over long periods of time. On how a bias for iteration contributes to becoming a better developer.
#510 · · development, maintainability
HTML 2022: 20 Additional Observations From Analyzing the Web Almanac Data
After the initial analysis for the HTTP Archive’s 2022 Web Almanac, here are 20 more observations about HTML as it’s being used today. From (no) doctypes to conditional comment zombies to verbose form markup to viewports to javascript: links.
#509 · · development, html
A Short Story of the Google Error Page
Why is the Google error page the way it is? Why is it so plain? What drove development and design decisions? Anecdotes and notes from the time when the page was built.
#508 · · misc
Website Optimization Measures, Part XV
Automated lossless image compression, mini dark modes, favicon references, prerender, flat image folders, modest product promotions, compact navigation, theme colors—improvements to my own projects, maybe (or maybe not) of interest to your own.
#507 · · development, optimization
HTML Concepts: Browsing Contexts
Welcome to another episode of HTML Concepts! Today, browsing contexts—what is that?
#506 · · development, html
2022: 0 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML
When you looked at the top websites in 2021, you learned that 98% of them included invalid HTML. When you do the same for the Top 100 globally, this year, would things have improved? Updated data, with a look at our field’s inability to produce valid HTML output.
#505 · · development, html, css, conformance
An Attempt at Outlining the Many Factors Influencing Developer Experience
When looking at DX naively, it can seem that it depends on only one factor—DX = ƒ(x). But Developer Experience depends on many factors, and needs to be approached holistically. A quick attempt at sketching just what factors, each of which can tip the scale.
#504 · · development
11 Tips to Read More and Read Faster (After Reading 791 Books in 9 Years)
Are you content with your reading? Here’s a collection of tried and tested ideas to help you read more—from switching to ebooks to reading everywhere to establishing routines to embracing short books to varying your reading speed.
#503 · · misc
One-Dimensional Website Optimization Considered Harmful
There are many website optimization vectors—SEO, performance, accessibility, &c.—, but optimizing on only one dimension may not only be expensive, but also counter-productive. On optimizing optimizations.
#502 · · development, optimization
Website Optimization Measures, Part XIV
About link relationships, Twitterbot, dark mode, tags, addresses, social markup, color-scheme, and—FLoC.
#501 · · development, design, optimization
Minimal Social Markup
Every website and app these days relies on so-called “social markup,” metadata for a richer and prettier display in social media and messaging tools. On the absolute minimum you may need.
#500 · · development, html, minimalism
Thoughts on an Accessibility “Get Well” Plan
Have you ever wondered how to anchor accessibility in an engineering team, one that isn’t yet producing accessible sites or apps? Some options to start with, for further refinement and discussion.
#499 · · development, accessibility
The Machine-Illustrated Life of a Frontend Developer
You may know DALL·E, what you can do with it, what others do with it, and… be intrigued by that, too. And you may wonder, how would AI depict frontend developers?
#498 · · development, misc
HTML Concepts: Focusable Areas
When you hear “focusable area,” what comes to your mind? Anchors and form elements that receive focus when being “tabbed through,” i.e., that are highlighted and that can be interacted with? That’s not a bad description!—but also not a complete one.
#497 · · development, html
“The One With the Biggest Hammer Wins”
On a game we could stop playing.
#496 · · philosophy, misc, advocacy
Write HTML, the HTML Way (Not the XHTML Way)
You may not use XHTML (anymore), but when you write HTML, you may be more influenced by XHTML than you think. You are very likely writing HTML, the XHTML way.
#495 · · development, html, minimalism
Two Approaches to Accessibility on the Web
One can distinguish two approaches to accessibility on the Web: to produce accessible websites and apps (active accessibility), and to produce accessible-making software (passive accessibility). On how largely using one approach would stand in the way of a greater vision for web accessibility.
#494 · · development, accessibility
The CSS Art Paradox
The fanciest CSS, standing on the shoulders of bloated HTML.
#493 · · development, html, css, maintainability, design, art
3 Books for Working With Reality
With or without The Complete Conversations With God, The Nature of Personal Reality, and Loving What Is?
#492 · · philosophy
4 Books to Become a Greater Person
We may be quite fine as we are, but—we can probably still cultivate our character, our values, our conduct. Summoning Character, Advice to Young Men and Young Women, Profiles in Courage, and The Continuum Concept for inspiration.
#491 · · misc
3 [+1] Books to Become a Better Developer
When a frontend developer chooses A Philosophy of Software Design, The Pragmatic Programmer, and Clean Code.
#490 · · development
4 Books to Become More Efficient and Effective
The start of a four-post mini-series about some of my favorite books, here featuring The One Thing, Getting More, Getting Things Done, and The Intelligent Investor.
#489 · · misc
HTML Concepts: Commands and Facets
On what you think they are, and something that what you think they are has.
#488 · · development, html
What Makes You a Professional Web Developer
On a starting point that involves committing to high standards (including validating, and exercising control over oneself), acting ethically, practicing, learning, taking care of oneself, and taking care of others.
#487 · · development, quality
Website Optimization Measures, Part XIII
Lessons from running multiple websites, this time covering SVGs, HTML optimization, auto-completion, semantics tricks, code styling, favicon markup, and social images. Happy Saturday.
#486 · · development, optimization
25 Additional Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of
__qems, cyclomatic complexity, homogenous migrations, NUIs, OOPIFs, and everything the web and software developer needs.
#485 · · development
On the Peculiarities of Counting the Number of HTML Elements
How many HTML elements are there? What looks like a fairly simple question, isn’t one, because there isn’t one number of HTML elements.
#484 · · development, html
Reduce the Pressure on Young and Inexperienced Developers
Lower the expectations on young and inexperienced developers, and raise the expectations on their mentoring and coaching: on running gags, unrealistic expectations, and healthier hiring.
#483 · · development, management
2021
Professional and personal highlights and data.
#482 · · misc
HTML Concepts: Form Owners
Today in “HTML Concepts”: form owners. It’s not what you are when you put a form on a page. What are form owners? In essence, form elements that so-called form-associated elements are tied to.
#481 · · development, html
Web Frameworks, Coding Guidelines, Quality Control, and the Craft of Web Development
“Good frameworks aim to be tailored, usable, and extensible”? “Coding guidelines must be communicated, enforced, and reviewed”? “No website should go without a plan for quality control”?
#480 · · development, frameworks, quality
The 6 Ways of Writing HTML (and Their Combinations)
There are 6 general ways of writing HTML: unsystematic, valid, semantic, accessible, required-only, and hyper-optimized. These types make for 19 combinations—the ways we write HTML.
#479 · · development, html, conformance, semantics, accessibility, minimalism
HTML Concepts: Common Idioms
Welcome to another brief post in the “HTML Concepts” series. Today we’re going to look at common idioms: popular design patterns for which HTML doesn’t have dedicated elements, but makes suggestions.
#478 · · development, html, semantics
The Little Book of Little Books
The consolidated and updated version of The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines, and The Little Book of Website Quality Control!
#477 · · books, development, html, css, frameworks, quality
Making the Web Developer’s Pilgrimage
Have you read the HTML specification? Have you marked highlights, taken notes, and reviewed what you learned? Have you reported issues and made suggestions to the HTML working group, giving back and improving the standard? On our field’s “pilgrimage.”
#476 · · development, html
Declaring Page Language—and Declaring Changes in Language
Popular screen readers don’t seem to pick up changes in language automatically. We may need a push on screen readers to improve detection of changes in language, and a shift of attention from declaration of page language to marking up changes in language.
#475 · · development, html, accessibility
Comparing Page Language Declaration Setups in Screen Readers
One best practice in web development is to declare the document language via the lang attribute, on the html start tag. That is useful, but also not the only option. How well are different setups supported in screen readers? A few data points.
#474 · · development, html, accessibility