Incident, Mitigate, Learn

We can’t just pick two.

Published on December 28, 2023, filed under Development and Management.

“HTML First” Is Not HTML First

On what is and what isn’t “HTML First.” (It’s not just a hunch: It should start with HTML.)

Published on December 21, 2023, filed under Development.

Something to Know About Defensiveness

“The first rule of effective debate, argument, or heated conversation is to never, ever, get defensive.” On what we label as defensiveness, and a story that appears more complete and empathetic.

Published on December 17, 2023, filed under Everything Else.

26 Other Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of

From ActionScript (psst) to linearizability to the Z shell.

Published on December 12, 2023, filed under Development.

Why Online Communication Is So Not-Great

Why is online communication so, meh? An approach that considers context, training, and world views, for a much more complicated topic.

Published on November 26, 2023, filed under Philosophy and Everything Else.

The 9 HTML Elements That Have an Attribute of the Same Name, or: The 9 Attributes That Have an Element of the Same Name

There are nine HTML elements that have an attribute of the same name. You’ll never guess what follows next.

Published on November 20, 2023, filed under Development.

Letter and Spirit of Web Development

In the realm of law, there is the notion of letter and spirit of a law. It seems we could benefit from letter and spirit in web development, too.

Published on November 14, 2023, filed under Development.

14 Tips for Becoming an Indie Author

After a few books with a publisher and a few more as an independent author, some tips and thoughts on how to publish your own books (if that’s what you’re excited about doing, too). From starting with ebooks to not writing overly much to not using AI tools—all sorts of advice you would or wouldn’t expect to get.

Published on November 8, 2023, filed under Everything Else.

Website Optimization Measures, Part XXI

Who hasn’t had enough of style sheet reviews, editor performance optimizations, ad removals, CTA revisions, pseudo-class refactorings, blocked AI crawlers, custom search engines, social graphics, or server log configs.

Published on November 4, 2023, filed under Development and Design.

2023: 0 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML

The latest analysis of HTML and CSS conformance of the most popular websites. The situation is only going to get better once we set higher expectations for the code we ship.

Published on October 31, 2023, filed under Development.

Existence and Experience

How can something-exists experience itself?

Published on October 22, 2023, filed under Philosophy.

On the Uniting Power of a Commitment to HTML Conformance

HTML is the language of the Web, there’s a quality standard—expectation—for HTML, but we don’t make use of it, yet if we would, it would come with several advantages, one of them being that it could unite and propel us to master more important challenges, which would be good again for our field and the Web.

Published on October 18, 2023, filed under Development.

What Happened to Separation of Concerns in Frontend Development

On a story that began around 2010, and in which web standards make separation of concerns easier—and frameworks make it harder.

Published on October 5, 2023, filed under Development.

The Most Minimal Valid HTML Document

—isn’t that exciting, isn’t even new, but can use repeating in times of conformance neglect and AI-assisted coding.

Published on October 2, 2023, filed under Development.

Valve, Counter-Strike, macOS, and How Not to Relaunch Software

Yesterday, on September 27, Valve released Counter-Strike 2, replacing the game’s predecessor, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) on Valve’s Steam platform. But.

Published on September 28, 2023, filed under Everything Else.

The Good Things About All the Problems

On things we cannot meaningfully discuss, and the sequel to The Problems With All the Good Things that may never be.

Published on September 24, 2023, filed under Philosophy.

Website Optimization Measures, Part XX

Definition issues. Aging content. Debugging. Social graphics. CTAs. DNS entries. SVGs. Filler words. PHP. There’s always something worth tending to.

Published on September 20, 2023, filed under Development and Everything Else.

Sustainability and Tech and Us

In tech, we’re exceptionally bad at sustainability. While those of us who focus on sustainability, performance, as well as code minimalism are already contributing to improvements, we can do more. A few thoughts.

Published on September 17, 2023, filed under Development.

The 10ish Tools I Install on Every New Mac I Get

Are there going to be surprises.

Published on September 14, 2023, filed under Development.

WebGlossary.info

The Web Development Glossary—now also available as a website. Enjoy exploring.

Published on August 23, 2023, filed under Development and Design.

Website Optimization Measures, Part XIX

Dull maintenance drudgery (?), this time covering dependencies, link checks, keyboard navigation, contrast, hidden UI elements, multi-language tag handling, image compression, IndieAuth, and AI crawling.

Published on August 22, 2023, filed under Development and Design.

200 Web-Based, Must-Try Web Design and Development Tools

A couple of web-based and free tools to test and improve accessibility, performance, security, conformance, colors and images and typography, SEO and SEM and—more. With an opinion about link lists, and appreciation for well-maintained tool collections.

Published on August 8, 2023, filed under Development and Design.

The Web Development Glossary 3K—More Than 3,000 Terms and Concepts for the Well-Rounded Developer

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.

Published on July 27, 2023, filed under Development.

Good Code Is—

On a question everyone does and does not have an answer for.

Published on July 23, 2023, filed under Development.

New Book: “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.

Published on July 11, 2023, filed under Philosophy.