Books (About Web Development, Philosophy, and Life)
This is an overview of most of the books and booklets I’ve written (cf. Goodreads). For book recommendations, highlights, and reading-related notes, search the archives.
On Web Development II
A comprehensive ebook marking another 10 years of meiert.com, featuring 180 curated articles on web development from 2015 to 2025.
#21 · · development, html, css, management
Tara
A human-inspired, AI-generated, human-edited story about refusing to live in a dystopia—and transforming the world instead.
#20 · · misc
Rote Learning HTML & CSS
The book you never thought you wanted. The rough and raw skeleton of HTML and CSS. Elements, attributes, selectors, properties. No explanations, no examples, no context. Not a New York Times bestseller (it’s free).
#19 · · development, html, css, semantics
Upgrade Your HTML V
The newest part of the ebook series for HTML craftspeople and minimalists, touching on past, present, and future of the greatest document language ever specified.
#18 · · development, html, minimalism, optimization
The Web Development Glossary 3K
Announcing the new edition of The Web Development Glossary, including almost a thousand additional terms as well as major usability updates, like improved source and cross-reference navigation—to provide an overview of web development unlike any other book or site.
#17 · · development
The Problems With All the Good Things
When good is considered unproblematic, and everything can be shown to be problematic, then—partner up with AI.
#16 · · philosophy
Upgrade Your HTML IV
HTML forms the heart of the Web. The beautiful thing is, HTML is easy to learn. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to master. In the Upgrade Your HTML series, I’m taking examples of HTML, discuss these examples, and make them a little better. I’m excited to announce the fourth book of the series.
#15 · · development, html, minimalism, optimization
The Little Book of Little Books
The consolidated and updated version of The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines, and The Little Book of Website Quality Control!
#14 · · development, html, css, frameworks, quality
Upgrade Your HTML III
If you care about HTML as a craft, if you consider yourself an HTML minimalist, if you believe in pushing for boundaries (and sometimes overdoing it), then this is a right book (and a right book series) for you—with 10 fresh examples from the field that get inspected and improved.
#13 · · development, html, minimalism, optimization
Upgrade Your HTML II
If you care about HTML as a craft, if you consider yourself an HTML minimalist, if you believe in pushing for boundaries (and sometimes overdoing it), then this is a right book (and a right book series) for you—with 10 new examples from the field that get inspected and improved.
#12 · · development, html, minimalism, optimization
The Web Development Glossary
What is a BHO? Goanna? Hooking? How about a principal box? Or the Ten-Second Rule? Covering more than 2,000 terms ranging from A11Y to Zsh, and including explanations from Wikipedia and the MDN Web Docs, I’m very happy to release the The Web Development Glossary.
#11 · · development
Upgrade Your HTML
I’ve written a very short book on improving HTML code: Upgrade Your HTML. Upgrade Your HTML is about one thing: Picking examples of HTML in the wild, and explaining how to make that code better. Kindly. Constructively. Thoroughly, as finding a balance between detail and brevity permits.
#10 · · development, html, minimalism, optimization
199 Love Haiku
In 2016, I wrote 1,000 short poems, haiku-style. I wrote those poems to challenge myself as a writer. I launched a website for the haiku and I shared the story. Today, I’ve published the 199 haiku that a few friends and I liked the most as a book.
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.
#8 · · development, css, optimization
The Little Book of Website Quality Control
The hallmark of a professional is not the pursuit of activity, but the expertly pursuit thereof. What’s worth doing is worth doing well; and what’s done well exemplifies quality. A professional website is no exception, and there are criteria and tools to help.
#7 · · development, quality
How to Work on Oneself
Doubt led me to explore ways to grow, doubt now led me to ask my editor three times whether to publish under a pseudonym: I sketched, in what resembles an essay, how to learn, how to grow, or—How to Work on Oneself.
#6 · · philosophy
The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines
Out of the blue! My latest book, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines, is now available. It’s a brief introduction into the theory and practice of coding standards. Emphasis, as the title suggests, is on HTML and CSS, and furthermore on Google’s guidelines…
#5 · · development, html, css
Journey of J.
Mostly for planned closure, somewhat for playful curiosity, I wrote another book. Journey of J.—Around the World in 557 Days, 1,017 Photos, and 291 Personal Notes is about the long and eventful trip…
#4 · · adventure
On Web Development
I wrote another book. On Web Development. On Web Development is an ebook that collects most of the articles about web development (and web design) that I wrote between 2005 and 2015. Most articles as in most useful, most important, and also most controversial.
#3 · · development, maintainability, html, css, design
The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks
It’s out! My new book, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, is now available. I myself have been surprised by the sudden release, and while I’m still unsure about how print copies can be obtained, the book can now be downloaded for free at O’Reilly.
#2 · · development, html, css, frameworks
100 Things I Learned as an Everyday Adventurer
I wrote a new book! Not about web development, again, not about philosophy or social sciences, yet, but about all the different activities I’ve been doing over the last few years, in all my infinite free time. And what I learned in one hundred of them.
#1 · · adventure