Web Development Has a Short-Term Memory
Published on May聽1, 2025, filed under development. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)
This is one of 180 articles that you can also read in an ebook: On Web Development聽II.
Running Frontend Dogma, for which I鈥檝e over the past years scanned more than 50,000 articles and videos from about 30 years of web development (of which I processed more than 15,000), and currently migrating 100s of articles from meiert.com, which I鈥檝e been running for more than 20 years, I can say what I鈥檝e already given away in the title:
Web development has a short-term memory.
You cannot believe how much stuff is being said all over again, even by the same people (guilty as charged).
Now yes, there are several information management problems and there isn鈥檛 really a good way of knowing that someone else may have written the same thing. But that doesn鈥檛 make the amount of repetition any less astonishing, frustrating, humbling, and even funny.
I鈥檓 taking the route of merely sharing the observation, but I鈥檓 thinking about a way to present examples.
About Me
I鈥檓 Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I鈥檓 an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I鈥檝e worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I鈥檓 an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O鈥橰eilly, Frontend Dogma).
I love trying things鈥攊n web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)