Jens Oliver Meiert

How to Identify Your Unknown Unknowns in Web Development

Published on Jul 2, 2025, filed under (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

If you’re a web developer, you know what HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are. Although massive topics by themselves, these contain many of your “known knowns.”

You’re aware of languages like TypeScript, WebAssembly, or Rust, that touch your world but are languages you may or may not be comfortable with. Those you are not, represent some of your “known unknowns.”

And then there are concepts like, let’s say, AT-SPI, palpable content, restricted production, __qem, or qooxdoo, that maybe you’ve never heard of, even though they can relate to your work. These are some of your “unknown unknowns.”

“Cool,” you say, “what am I supposed to do with this.”

I’d respond by calling out a problem: It’s easy to learn more about our known unknowns. We can search the Web, ask the nearest AI agent, or pick up a book about the topic.

But there’s the problem that that doesn’t necessarily surface much about our unknown unknowns, which means we don’t, or not as quickly, close those gaps.

For our field, I’ve been building two resources that may at first look like great resources about our known knowns and unknown knowns—but that really shine around our unknown unknowns:

  1. the Web Development Glossary with its nearly 4,000 terms (and growing), and
  2. the Frontend Dogma web development archives, with 16,000 articles and videos (and growing)

One second: I’m not trying to sell you anything (although you could buy or sponsor), I’m just explaining a value that may not be apparent.

This web development glossary and the archives enable to browse our field in ways that few other resources allow. Wikipedia is too untailored and massive for that; the MDN glossary is not optimized for browsing, but also small in comparison; other resources, like the archives of web development magazines, are closed (limited to their topics and authors) and therefore not as diverse.

And that’s that—as a terrible marketer, I need to spend one article to explain the value of two of my biggest projects. I hope this does make clearer, however, how they can serve you.

Many thanks to Jad Joubran for asking me about the Web Development Glossary in a way that had me realize how unclear its main value may be.

About Me

Jens Oliver Meiert, on November 9, 2024.

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, 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 in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)