The Most Important Thing Is to Get the HTML Right

Published on Sep 26, 2008 (updated Feb 24, 2026), filed under development, html, quality, semantics, accessibility, maintainability. (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

This and 133 other posts are also available as a well-behaved ebook: On Web Development. And speaking of which, here’s a short treatise just about managing the quality of websites: The Little Book of Website Quality Control (updated).

…meaning completely right when it comes to high quality web development.

Why? Because it’s the markup that serves as the foundation for all other code and is hence key to maintainability; because it carries all meaning and is important for accessibility; because it has an impact on performance; and because it is, with decent content, the prerequisite for online relevance and success.

What does that mean? While HTML syntax and semantics are not too hard, writing good HTML requires robust knowledge and experience to leave out irrelevant (optional) code and avoid maintenance traps. What mastering HTML does, then, is move complexity to styling and scripting, meaning that in order to write efficient HTML, even more solid understanding and experience of CSS and JavaScript are required in order to achieve the presentation and behavior desired.

Since documents are more numerous and expensive to change than style sheets and scripts, shifting complexity to the latter is a trade-off well worth making.

Regardless of whether you were aware, I’ve been stressing this in more than one place. Accordingly, there are other posts that explain HTML best practices in more detail, some featured in the collection of this site’s most popular posts.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)