Ignore AMP

In 2018, my recommendation was to avoid AMP, to use AMP for the most relevant pages, or to use AMP only. In 2020 my recommendation is to ignore it, because AMP largely appears meaningless now. Upgrade Your HTML II gives an opinionated idea why.

Published on December 21, 2020, filed under Development.

Website Optimization Measures, Part XI

Welcome to another round-up of possible website improvements, this time going from several types of link updates to table of contents CSS upgrades to CDN integration and privacy policy checks.

Published on December 14, 2020, filed under Development and Design.

Notes on HTML 3.2

Would it still be useful to read the HTML 3.2 specification—from 1997? A few observations.

Published on December 6, 2020, filed under Development.

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.

Published on November 17, 2020, filed under Development.

On HTML (and HTML in 2020)

What seems noteworthy about HTML, and how we’re doing on that in the year 2020.

Published on November 10, 2020, filed under Development.

People Care

It seems easy these days to lose faith in people. We’re destroying the planet, elect the least competent and least humane of our peers for presidents, kill our own people when we don’t kill people in other countries, etc.—and yet we all care.

Published on October 22, 2020, filed under Everything Else.

A Day Is a Day

On a personal preference for Inbox 0, and doing, delegating, and deferring.

Published on October 11, 2020, filed under Everything Else.

Custom Properties: Questioning “:root”

For custom properties (aka CSS variables) we got into the habit of declaring variables in a rule with a :root selector. Yet unless you’re working in an environment in which style sheets serve several document types (and roots), question this use of :root.

Published on September 21, 2020, filed under Development.

Love

Love is the essence, love is the emotion. Yet it’s striking how we talk about love, as if there was just one type of love. Aldous Huxley comes to mind, and After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.

Published on September 13, 2020, filed under Everything Else.

Website Optimization Measures, Part X

9 TILs that I applied to my personal projects.

Published on August 30, 2020, filed under Development.

The Anti-Reset (to Reset to User Agent Styles)

I advise against resets. You don’t need them. (We don’t need them.) Yet what’s the opposite of a reset? Of all resets? The anti-reset. It looks something like this—

Published on August 17, 2020, filed under Development.

Caring About Comments

Maybe you’re like me, and comments have begun to mildly scare you. Maybe you’re skeptical about popular discussion culture, too. Maybe you can relate because you, too, have found yourself write something reasonable you care about and a shitstorm broke out. And yet you and I love feedback.

Published on July 2, 2020, filed under Everything Else.

33 Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of

Web Development has its own, special vocabulary that easily consists of several thousand terms. Even if you’re an experienced developer you’re unlikely to know all of them. Still, do you like to try your knowledge? How many of the following terms do you know?

Published on June 30, 2020, filed under Development and Design.

On Disclosing Our Salaries

For a year now I’ve been toying with the idea of publicly disclosing my salary, as well as my financial assets. Not because of me, but because I’ve come to believe that this step, if taken by others, too, would be a step towards more transparency.

Published on June 18, 2020, filed under Everything Else.

The 27 Boolean Attributes of HTML

What is a Boolean, what is a Boolean attribute, how does a Boolean attribute work, and what Boolean attributes are there? Meet the Boolean attributes, from allowfullscreen to truespeed.

Published on May 19, 2020, filed under Development.

5 Tips to Get Your Dev Blog Running

If you know what you can deliver, if you keep at it, if you make it easy for your peers, if you talk about the effort, and if you measure and improve and employ a process, you’re likely to do well: thoughts on technical outreach.

Published on May 6, 2020, filed under Development and Everything Else.

The 4 Pillars of Good Embed Code

Embed code is third-party code to be integrated on websites and apps, like ads or social media widgets. There have been many problems with embed code for a very long time. This post covers the essence of what makes for good embed code.

Published on April 23, 2020, filed under Development and Design.

The Web Development Glossary (More Than 2,000 Key Terms for Developers)

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.

Published on April 7, 2020, filed under Development.

The Frameworks Paradox

The more complex a website, the bigger the need for a framework, the less effective an external framework. This is not new, and not even a paradox because an internal—homemade—HTML/CSS framework is always an option. However—

Published on April 2, 2020, filed under Development.

On the Responsibility That Comes With Good JavaScript Support

According to our data, the classic idea of making sure websites and apps work without JavaScript being enabled is dead; when we look only at support requirements, this was the end of the story. It’s not, however, when we employ a broader look at JavaScript and its misuses.

Published on March 26, 2020, filed under Development.

Highlights From “The Crowd” (Gustave Le Bon)

“Crowds are only cognisant of simple and extreme sentiments; the opinions, ideas, and beliefs suggested to them are accepted or rejected as a whole, and considered as absolute truths or as not less absolute errors.”

Published on March 11, 2020, filed under Everything Else.

Highlights From “An Introduction to Psychology” (Wilhelm Wundt)

“There cannot be the least contradiction in the idea that physical and psychical phenomena follow different laws, as long as these laws are not irreconcilable with the actual unity of the psycho-physical individual.”

Published on February 27, 2020, filed under Philosophy and Everything Else.

Round Table

I was late to discover Round Table, but joining this fine service association was one of the greatest decisions and experiences I’ve made in my life. Here’s my story co-founding and accompanying a new table, RT 233 Alster-Milchstraße, for almost four years.

Published on February 20, 2020, filed under Everything Else.

Professional Agile Leadership (PAL) Reminders and Resources

Notes, refreshers, as well as an alternative overview over Scrum.org resources for PAL certification.

Published on January 29, 2020, filed under Management.

HTML and CSS and the 2019 Web Almanac

The HTTP Archive’s Web Almanac is fantastic because it provides us with data about how we build what kinds of websites. While the release of the 2019 Almanac has been accompanied by some analysis, I had found it interesting to interpret the data, too.

Published on January 15, 2020, filed under Development.