Jens Oliver Meiert
Articles on the craft of web development, particularly on HTML and CSS optimization.
Write HTML, the HTML Way (Not the XHTML Way)
You may not use XHTML (anymore), but when you write HTML, you may be more influenced by XHTML than you think. You are very likely writing HTML, the XHTML way.
2 Approaches to Accessibility on the Web
One can distinguish two approaches to accessibility on the Web: to produce accessible websites and apps (active accessibility), and to produce accessible-making software (passive accessibility). On how largely using one approach would stand in the way of a greater vision for web accessibility.
The CSS Art Paradox
The fanciest CSS, standing on the shoulders of bloated HTML.
3 Books for Working with Reality
With or without The Complete Conversations with God, The Nature of Personal Reality, and Loving What Is?
4 Books to Become a Greater Person
We may be quite fine as we are, but—we can probably still cultivate our character, our values, our conduct. Summoning Character, Advice to Young Men and Young Women, Profiles in Courage, and The Continuum Concept for inspiration.
3 Books to Become a Better Developer
When a frontend developer chooses A Philosophy of Software Design, The Pragmatic Programmer, and Clean Code.
4 Books to Become More Efficient and Effective
The start of a four-post mini-series about some of my favorite books, here featuring The One Thing, Getting More, Getting Things Done, and The Intelligent Investor.
HTML Concepts: Commands and Facets
On what you think they are, and something that what you think they are has.
What Makes You a Professional Web Developer
On a starting point that involves committing to high standards (including validating, and exercising control over oneself), acting ethically, practicing, learning, taking care of oneself, and taking care of others.
Website Optimization Measures, Part XIII
Lessons from running multiple websites, this time covering SVGs, HTML optimization, auto-completion, semantics tricks, code styling, favicon markup, and social images. Happy Saturday.
25 Web Development Terms You’ve Never Heard Of
__qems, cyclomatic complexity, homogenous migrations, NUIs, OOPIFs, and everything the web and software developer needs.
On the Difficulty of Counting the Number of HTML Elements
How many HTML elements are there? What looks like a fairly simple question, isn’t one, because there isn’t one number of HTML elements.
Reduce the Pressure on Young and Inexperienced Developers
Lower the expectations on young and inexperienced developers, and raise the expectations on their mentoring and coaching: on running gags, unrealistic expectations, and healthier hiring.
2021
Professional and personal highlights and data.
HTML Concepts: Form Owners
Today in “HTML Concepts”: form owners. It’s not what you are when you put a form on a page. What are form owners? In essence, form elements that so-called form-associated elements are tied to.
Web Frameworks, Coding Guidelines, Quality Control, and the Craft of Web Development
“Good frameworks aim to be tailored, usable, and extensible”? “Coding guidelines must be communicated, enforced, and reviewed”? “No website should go without a plan for quality control”?
The 6 Ways of Writing HTML (and Their Combinations)
There are 6 general ways of writing HTML: unsystematic, valid, semantic, accessible, required-only, and hyper-optimized. These types make for 19 combinations—the ways we write HTML.
HTML Concepts: Common Idioms
Welcome to another brief post in the “HTML Concepts” series. Today we’re going to look at common idioms: popular design patterns for which HTML doesn’t have dedicated elements, but makes suggestions.
Making the Web Developer’s Pilgrimage
Have you read the HTML specification? Have you marked highlights, taken notes, and reviewed what you learned? Have you reported issues and made suggestions to the HTML working group, giving back and improving the standard? On our field’s “pilgrimage.”
Declaring Page Language—and Declaring Changes in Language
Popular screen readers don’t seem to pick up changes in language automatically. We may need a push on screen readers to improve detection of changes in language, and a shift of attention from declaration of page language to marking up changes in language.
Comparing Page Language Declaration Setups in Screen Readers
One best practice in web development is to declare the document language via the lang attribute, on the html start tag. That is useful, but also not the only option. How well are different setups supported in screen readers? A few data points.
Not Releasing Late on Fridays, a Matter of Courtesy
Why don’t we, in engineering departments, prefer not to release late on Fridays—or late on others days? Occasionally, developers and stakeholders believe that’s because of a lack of confidence in our code and our systems. The true reason is not that:—
HTML Concepts: Indicators for Layout Tables
You use tables for data, and therefore not for layout purposes (as was popular in the past). But how would you recognize a layout table? That’s what we’re looking at today in “HTML Concepts.”
5 Eleventy Tweaks That Make My Sites Better (and Maybe Yours)
Currently setting up my third site with Eleventy, I’ve run into a few things that proved useful. Here are five of them, including centrally defined layouts, title sorting, and easier hiding of posts.
One Favicon to Rule Them All
I think the situation around favicons sucks. For an HTML minimalist, the ideal world consists of this when it comes to defining a website or app icon: one image file—no code. This is the minimalist’s dream, and we aren’t there yet—or are we?
About Me
I’m Jens Oliver Meiert, and I’m an engineering manager and author. I love trying things, sometimes including philosophy, art, and adventure.
As an expert in web development, I specialize in getting the maximum out of HTML and CSS, contribute to technical standards, and write books (like The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, On Web Development, CSS Optimization Basics, the Upgrade Your HTML series, as well as The Web Development Glossary).
In philosophy, I’m interested in metaphysics (even in How to Work on Oneself). When it comes to art, I play with photography. For adventure, I enjoy exploring places (Journey of J.) and activities (100 Things I Learned as an Everyday Adventurer). I love trying things.