Web Development × Engineering Management × Philosophy (7)
Articles and books on the craft of web development (with a focus on HTML/CSS optimization and maintainability), engineering management, and philosophy.
Highlights From “The Communist Manifesto” (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels)
“This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves.”
#375 · · philosophy
A Short Guide to Minimal Web Development
There’s an art and even a bit of magic around simple frontend code. Writing such code comes with a few preconditions: perhaps a firm understanding of core technologies, a lot of practice, public scrutiny, and then some. Thoughts.
#374 · · development, minimalism
Web Development and the GDPR
Who shares or presents code has a special responsibility, because for both the uninitiated and the quality-minded such code should be of a considerable standard. European privacy legislation ups the ante.
#373 · · development
37 Theses on CSS and Web Development
CSS Optimization Basics ends with a list of key ideas. From acknowledging that we don’t always write perfectly efficient and maintainable and understandable code to leading by example.
#372 · · development, css
AMP, a Strategy
There are problems with AMP. My recommendations: Avoid AMP; or use it, exclusively, on the most relevant pages; or go all-in, for AMP-only.
#371 · · development, maintainability
The Craft of CSS
When we type down CSS like we’ve done 20 years ago, and when we work with ever more abstractions, what does that mean for our craft?
#370 · · development, css
Why Being a Digital Nomad Sucks (to Me)
For countless years has it been a thing to romanticize the lifestyle of digital and global nomads, of people who live and work remotely. I believe there’s also much to question.
The Dangers of Being a Web Developer
Video, slides, and resources for my talk at beyond tellerrand in DĂĽsseldorf.
#368 · · development
CSS Optimization Basics
My latest little book, covering mindsets needed for writing effective style sheets, optimization options during operation and for production, and useful resources to aid and inform the work with CSS.
#367 · · books, development, css, optimization
User-Centered Web Development
When we think of user focus we easily think of usability tests, following a usually strong wish to produce something that’s actually useful. For us as web developers, focus on the user has a tendency to appear distant though…
#366 · · development, usability, accessibility, performance
HTML, CSS, and Dependency Direction
Adam Wathan wrote one of the most interesting web development articles I’ve read in the last few months: CSS Utility Classes and “Separation of Concerns.” At least until “Phase 3” there’s much to learn about current web development…
#365 · · development, html, css
How Declaration Repetition Developed Over Time, a Statistically Insignificant Sample
We know that there’s excessive declaration repetition in the Web’s style sheets, that each declaration is on average repeated 2–3 times, often needlessly. We know that this repetition is a little less bad on tech sites…
#364 · · development, css
Highlights From “Advice to Young Men” (William Cobbett)
“The first thing to be required of a man is, that he understand well his own calling, or profession; and, be you in what state of life you may, to acquire this knowledge ought to be your first and greatest care.”
#363 · · misc
On Loyalty
We should be protective of our greatest possession—our values.
#362 · · misc
The Compact Guide to Web Maintainability: 200 Tips and Resources
The result of reviewing, normalizing, rephrasing, sorting, and testing 134 responses to a maintainability survey that yielded more than 500 data points, to form a new guide, a new and more definite guide to web maintainability.
#361 · · development, html, css, maintainability
Oh WTF My Tone, or: On Germans Speaking English
Anecdote. When I was working at Google, shortly after I had made one of my first bigger contributions, I experienced one of my more memorable performance reviews. You’ll never guess what happened next.
#360 · · misc
Highlights From “The Elements of Style” (William Strunk Jr.)
“Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; he wishes to be told what is.”
On Material Design
When Google introduced Material Design back in 2014, I was happy; I was happy for the team and I was happy for Google to mark another milestone on the long way of improving the aesthetics of their products. But, I was also concerned.
#358 · · design
The Two Extremes of Writing CSS, and What We Can Learn From Them
Extremes can be useful. In practice they help get the maximum out of a given approach, and in theory they can show what we’re headed to. Compare two ways of writing CSS—like Tachyons or Atomic CSS, and 2000’s idealistic engineering.
#357 · · development, css
On Meeting and Leaving People
Humans are social. Cooperation got us where we are. There are several ways to get to know new people, and, in relationships, to leave them. A few thoughts.
#356 · · misc
What We Know
On some days, if you asked me about what we know, with absolute certainty, I’d respond with “only that something exists.” And if you asked me what that meant, then I’d add “to appreciate and work with what exists.”
#355 · · philosophy
On Writing 1,000 Poems
A story of venturing into an entirely different genre.
Privacy Experiments: How to Auto-Generate Random Web Traffic
I believe that privacy, which has never been about “hiding something,” is a fundamental civil right, one that is but must not be infringed on; so I once more played with randomizing personal web traffic.
#353 · · misc
Expert Web Development: A 3rd Key Differentiator
As web developers we have decisions to make and our decisions depend on a few variables. Two that have become much more important over the years are the one of code for research or production, and the one of web site or app…
#352 · · development
An Ode to Smashing Magazine
Excitement about a success story.
#351 · · development
Performance of CSS Selectors Is Still Irrelevant
From my upcoming book on CSS optimization: Selector performance is not something to optimize for as the price we pay for it is terrible: We micro-manage our work for gains that aren’t noticeable.
#350 · · development, css, performance
On Big Picture Thinking in Web Development
Thoughts on thinking outside the box, in tech, with examples ranging from selector performance to a general development vision, to illustrate how very different issues can all reach beyond their perimeter.
#349 · · development, performance, maintainability, accessibility, design
CSS: The Reason Why Selectors Should Be Ordered, Too
We’ve talked a lot about declarations as declarations are at the heart of our work with direct consequences for the quality of our style sheets. We’ve not talked much about selectors, though, and that may be a mistake.
#348 · · development, css
Static Site Generation With Grow: How to Set Up Syndication Feeds
Grow is a static site generator that I’ve slowly been switching to on my own projects. Here I wish to lay out how to do something with Grow that’s not overly difficult, but also not well-documented—to set up syndication feeds.
#347 · · development
The Scientific Irony
There’s no proof that life has meaning; therefore, life is meaningless. Wait, what?
#346 · · philosophy
DRY CSS: How to Use Declarations Just Once, Effectively
Using declarations just once is one way to control repetition in style sheets. It’s not a silver bullet, as we’ve seen with recent data, but it’s so powerful as to make for a key style sheet optimization method.
#345 · · development, css, optimization
5 Reasons Against Resets, Normalizers, Reboots
A word about one of CSS’s horsemen of the apocalypse.
#344 · · development, css
The 3 Levels of Code Consistency
Consistency is a factor for code quality and one of the key reasons why we need coding guidelines. Interestingly enough there are three levels of consistency: individual, collective, and institutional.
#343 · · development, quality
Understandable-Simple vs. Minimal-Simple Code
Code simplicity seems to be a goal quite worthwhile, contributing to better understanding, greater robustness, and higher quality. That’s at least what comes to my mind when looking at the matter…
#342 · · development, minimalism
On Enforcing Coding Guidelines
Surprisingly a snippet from The Little Book of Website Quality Control, not the one of HTML/CSS coding guidelines, a few thoughts on enforcing coding standards.
#341 · · development, management
What Happens When You Email the Companies That Are Responsible for 71% of All Greenhouse Gas Emissions
A few months ago I ran into an article referring to data from the Carbon Disclosure Project. I realized that the data may have been inaccurate and incomplete but also that it presented an avenue for us to actually do, a little.
#340 · · misc
What Happens When You Email Each of the 1,380 Members of the German and European Parliaments
Over the last couple of months I have emailed, each individually, all the 631 members of the (departing) German Bundestag as well as 749 members of the European Parliament (I was short two MEPs).
#339 · · misc
Freedom = Ć’(Money)?
No, this question is not new. However it’s one I want to ponder with you because it much seems like something truly terrible has happened over the centuries.
#338 · · philosophy
Why It Would Be Bad if Jesus Was Here
Arguing is something we have to learn. I observed this particularly in recent years when I started studying philosophy and went through courses for logic and argumentation theory. These courses…
#337 · · philosophy, misc
The Cost of Frameworks, Illustrated
A visual attempt to show how for everything built for the long run, external frameworks are a pricey crutch that has to be avoided or be thrown away at the earliest time. The reasons: quality—and cost.
#336 · · development, frameworks, quality
CSS @-Rules, an Overview
From @charset to @viewport. Or from @bottom-center to @top-right-corner.
#335 · · development, css
In Defense of Bad Luck
There seems to be something to luck, and bad luck.
#334 · · philosophy
What We Should Teach Up-and-Coming Developers
Evidently, learning is important, and learning strategies are, too, and how to generally work on ourselves, absolutely, but what else to aim for apart from understanding computer science fundamentals, reading the specs, and—coding?
#333 · · development, management
What Kills and What Saves Content Management Systems
Imagine you just moved into a new place, and realize that you lack a screwdriver to put up some of your furniture (it’s not from IKEA). You ring at your neighbors’, find one who’s home, and she…
#332 · · development
10 Photos V
The next part of the x-monthly series.
#331 · · design, photography
On Being a Philosopher
I call myself a philosopher even though some people would disagree with me being one. Why would I be a philosopher? What makes a philosopher?
#330 · · philosophy
Living Websites, Living Books
To me, websites are living objects. They require regular care and maintenance. Such care starts with monitoring, from uptime control to visual site tests, demands technical quality control, and ends with content checks…
#329 · · development, misc
Website Optimization Measures, Part VIII
Eight years. Eight years has it been since the last episode of this series, “Website Optimization Measures.” In October of 2009, I last talked about more or less random things I did on my own websites…
#328 · · development, optimization
On Adventure
While I’m not nearly as adventurous these days as in past years, the idea that adventure is about being open and curious and easily ready to try activities and localities seems sound to me. On what adventure can mean to us.
#327 · · adventure
Web Development: How Making Our Own Lives Difficult Is More Important Than We Think
Many moons ago I wrote that web developers wouldn’t need debugging tools. I was half joking and half serious. We were just coming out of the dark ages of web development, so to speak, undernourished of useful tools, frameworks, libraries…
#326 · · development, maintainability