The Most Annoying Yet Most Important Task in Website Management
Published on Oct聽16, 2008 (updated Feb聽5, 2024), filed under development, quality. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)
This and 133 other posts are also available as a well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.
鈥s link checking. There are tools out there, en masse, but we still have to run after professionals who neglect online fundamentals or don鈥檛 set up redirects鈥攁nd with that waste other people鈥檚 time.
Personally, even though I regularly do QA this doesn鈥檛 mean I myself am always handling this perfectly. Yet whenever I check links, it鈥檚 striking to me to see so many URLs changing. Link checking is not a fun job, and, in an ideal world, shouldn鈥檛 be necessary. It shouldn鈥檛 be, and yet it is. (RIP, links.)
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.)