Code as Craft—Life as Agency (6)
Articles and books on web development (with a focus on HTML/CSS optimization and maintainability), engineering management, and practical philosophy.
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
Not Releasing Late on Fridays, a Matter of Courtesy
Why don’t we, in engineering departments, prefer not to release late on Fridays—or late on others days? Occasionally, developers and stakeholders believe that’s because of a lack of confidence in our code and our systems. The true reason is not that:—
#473 · · development, management
HTML Concepts: Indicators for Layout Tables
You use tables for data, and therefore not for layout purposes (as was popular in the past). But how would you recognize a layout table? That’s what we’re looking at today in “HTML Concepts.”
#472 · · development, html
5 Eleventy Tweaks That Make My Sites Better (and Maybe Yours)
Currently setting up my third site with Eleventy, I’ve run into a few things that proved useful. Here are five of them, including centrally defined layouts, title sorting, and easier hiding of posts.
#471 · · development
One Favicon to Rule Them All
I think the situation around favicons sucks. For an HTML minimalist, the ideal world consists of this when it comes to defining a website or app icon: one image file—no code. This is the minimalist’s dream, and we aren’t there yet—or are we?
#470 · · development, minimalism
HTML Concepts: Constraint Validation
When a form element has attributes that define requirements for the element’s value, then these requirements—constraints—are being validated by the user agent. On the validation of constraints, validity states, and a link to CSS.
#469 · · development, html
CSS: “:has()” and the Lost Paradigm
On the :has() pseudo-class and the forgotten school of ID- and class-less development.
#468 · · development, html, css, minimalism
The 3-Second Frontend Developer Test
“Do you validate?” Be a frontend developer who ships valid HTML and CSS; hire frontend developers who ship valid HTML and CSS. End the time of unconditionally accepted sloppiness in professional frontend development.
#467 · · development, html, css, conformance, quality
Use the “i” Element, and Use It Appropriately
“Use em instead of i” is in the Top 25 of bad advice you can get in HTML development. The two elements have different meanings, the blunt rule ignores all context, and i is a valid element with legitimate use cases.
#466 · · development, html, semantics
Website Optimization Measures, Part XII
Content security policies. Promotions. Words. Tracking. Link types. Meta information. VG WORT. Social markup. Living the dream.
#465 · · development, optimization
HTML Concepts: The “Nothing” Content Model
There’s a content model in HTML that contains—nothing. Details on what this means, and how it relates to “empty” or void elements.
#464 · · development, html
Reasons to Listen to Whom You Don’t Agree With
Our culture has become one of canceling, of reacting to what we disagree with and whom we dislike by ignoring, unfollowing, blocking, banning, ostracizing. Camouflaged as non-violent protest, it can well be passive-aggressive intolerance of views and people.
Thoughts for the Aging Web Developer
There may come a time when you feel “too old” for web development. When you begin to feel that, here are a few thoughts. They might not be all you need but—maybe they are of use.
#462 · · development, management
CS:GO on macOS, an Amateur Setup
After a 20-year break, a collection of settings and thoughts on Counter-Strike.
#461 · · misc
2021: 98% of the Top 100 U.S. Websites Use Invalid HTML
Is frontend development in the bad shape it’s said to be? Is it hyperbole when frontend developers are accused of poor quality work? When you look at the code of the most popular websites, the answer is clear.
#460 · · development, html, css, conformance
Upgrade Your HTML III
If you care about HTML as a craft, if you consider yourself an HTML minimalist, if you believe in pushing for boundaries (and sometimes overdoing it), then this is a right book (and a right book series) for you—with 10 fresh examples from the field that get inspected and improved.
#459 · · books, development, html, minimalism, optimization
Engineering Management ×12
Ideas and principles for managing engineering teams: From “googliness” and “competence, caring, conviction” to systems and processes to communication and delegation to team focus and health to trust and humility.
#458 · · management
HTML Concepts: “Body-Ok”
“body-ok” relates to link type keywords, and denotes what link elements are okay to be used in the document body.
#457 · · development, html
Code in Quarantine
In the current paradigm, we often work with components and have a 1:1 relationship of HTML to CSS. This makes maintenance more predictable. However, it also pronounces the problem of rarely used code—which can be useful to put in quarantine.
#456 · · development
The Choice to F Up
On the things we are doing and not doing, how these things are not and cannot be accidents, and how it all revolves around choice.
#455 · · philosophy, misc
33 Additional Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of
As you know, Web Development has its own, special vocabulary that easily consists of several thousand terms. Do you like to try your knowledge again, on how many of the following 33 terms you know?
#454 · · development, design
5 Tips for Your Next Promotion or Salary Raise
How do you approach promotions and salary raises? Are these tied to a cyclical event or do they depend on your initiative? Do you invest into building your case, or do you wing it? Here are a few ideas on what can improve your position and chances.
#453 · · management
The Internet Shedding a Free-Rider Problem
With more and more software and regulation limiting the data that we pay with for contents and services, we are, in a way, requiring these contents and services to be made truly free. This doesn’t appear sustainable, and the Web is likely to change.
#452 · · misc
HTML: The 16 Content Categories and Their Elements
HTML puts elements into content categories. This article serves as a boring, brief, but updated overview over the broad and overlapping categories of HTML, and which elements fall into them.
#451 · · development, html
In Critical Defense of Frontend Development
The field of frontend development is in another crisis, largely due to an incomplete, misinterpreted definition and a bizarre mess created by “web development as a commodity” and “web development as software development.” How frontend development is more than development, and what we can (and should) do.
#450 · · development, html, css, javascript, quality, design
2020
2020 has been a strange year, a year of challenges, but overall a—good year. Personal notes, professional highlights, a few numbers.
#449 · · misc
Ignore AMP
In 2018, my recommendation was to avoid AMP, to use AMP for the most relevant pages, or to use AMP only. In 2020 my recommendation is to ignore it, because AMP largely appears meaningless now. Upgrade Your HTML II gives an opinionated idea why.
#448 · · development
Website Optimization Measures, Part XI
Welcome to another round-up of possible website improvements, this time going from several types of link updates to table of contents CSS upgrades to CDN integration and privacy policy checks.
#447 · · development, design, optimization
Notes on HTML 3.2
Would it still be useful to read the HTML 3.2 specification—from 1997? A few observations.
#446 · · development, html
Upgrade Your HTML II
If you care about HTML as a craft, if you consider yourself an HTML minimalist, if you believe in pushing for boundaries (and sometimes overdoing it), then this is a right book (and a right book series) for you—with 10 new examples from the field that get inspected and improved.
#445 · · books, development, html, minimalism, optimization
On HTML (and HTML in 2020)
What seems noteworthy about HTML, and how we’re doing on that in the year 2020.
#444 · · development, html
People Care
It seems easy these days to lose faith in people. We’re destroying the planet, elect the least competent and least humane of our peers for presidents, kill our own people when we don’t kill people in other countries, etc.—and yet we all care.
#443 · · misc
A Day Is a Day
On a personal preference for Inbox 0, and doing, delegating, and deferring.
#442 · · misc
Custom Properties: Questioning “:root”
For custom properties (aka CSS variables) we got into the habit of declaring variables in a rule with a :root selector. Yet unless you’re working in an environment in which style sheets serve several document types (and roots), question this use of :root.
#441 · · development, css
Love
Love is the essence, love is the emotion. Yet it’s striking how we talk about love, as if there was just one type of love. Aldous Huxley comes to mind, and After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.
#440 · · misc
Website Optimization Measures, Part X
9 TILs that I applied to my personal projects.
#439 · · development, optimization
The Anti-Reset (to Reset to User Agent Styles)
I advise against resets. You don’t need them. (We don’t need them.) Yet what’s the opposite of a reset? Of all resets? The anti-reset. It looks something like this—
#438 · · development, css
Caring About Comments
Maybe you’re like me, and comments have begun to mildly scare you. Maybe you’re skeptical about popular discussion culture, too. Maybe you can relate because you, too, have found yourself write something reasonable you care about and a shitstorm broke out. And yet you and I love feedback.
#437 · · misc
33 Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of
Web Development has its own, special vocabulary that easily consists of several thousand terms. Even if you’re an experienced developer you’re unlikely to know all of them. Still, do you like to try your knowledge? How many of the following terms do you know?
#436 · · development, design
On Disclosing Our Salaries
For a year now I’ve been toying with the idea of publicly disclosing my salary, as well as my financial assets. Not because of me, but because I’ve come to believe that this step, if taken by others, too, would be a step towards more transparency.
#435 · · misc
The 29 Boolean Attributes of HTML
What is a Boolean, what is a Boolean attribute, how does a Boolean attribute work, and what Boolean attributes are there? Meet the Boolean attributes, from allowfullscreen to shadowrootserializable.
#434 · · development, html
5 Tips to Get Your Dev Blog Running
If you know what you can deliver, if you keep at it, if you make it easy for your peers, if you talk about the effort, and if you measure and improve and employ a process, you’re likely to do well: thoughts on technical outreach.
#433 · · development, misc
The 4 Pillars of Good Embed Code
Embed code is third-party code to be integrated on websites and apps, like ads or social media widgets. There have been many problems with embed code for a very long time. This post covers the essence of what makes for good embed code.
#432 · · development, quality, html, javascript, design
The Web Development Glossary
What is a BHO? Goanna? Hooking? How about a principal box? Or the Ten-Second Rule? Covering more than 2,000 terms ranging from A11Y to Zsh, and including explanations from Wikipedia and the MDN Web Docs, I’m very happy to release the The Web Development Glossary.
#431 · · books, development
The Frameworks Paradox
The more complex a website, the bigger the need for a framework, the less effective an external framework. This is not new, and not even a paradox because an internal—homemade—HTML/CSS framework is always an option. However—
#430 · · development, frameworks
On the Responsibility That Comes With Good JavaScript Support
According to our data, the classic idea of making sure websites and apps work without JavaScript being enabled is dead; when we look only at support requirements, this was the end of the story. It’s not, however, when we employ a broader look at JavaScript and its misuses.
#429 · · development, javascript
Highlights From “The Crowd” (Gustave Le Bon)
“Crowds are only cognisant of simple and extreme sentiments; the opinions, ideas, and beliefs suggested to them are accepted or rejected as a whole, and considered as absolute truths or as not less absolute errors.”
#428 · · misc
Highlights From “An Introduction to Psychology” (Wilhelm Wundt)
“There cannot be the least contradiction in the idea that physical and psychical phenomena follow different laws, as long as these laws are not irreconcilable with the actual unity of the psycho-physical individual.”
#427 · · philosophy, misc
Round Table
I was late to discover Round Table, but joining this fine service association was one of the greatest decisions and experiences I’ve made in my life. Here’s my story co-founding and accompanying a new table, RT 233 Alster-Milchstraße, for almost four years.
#426 · · misc