2023 (2)

Give

On one-things and lack.

Published on July 9, 2023, filed under and .

Frameworks and Libraries and Leaky Abstractions

“Abstractions save us time working, but they don’t save us—”

Published on June 30, 2023, filed under .

On Working on Vacation

Working while on vacation can be a sign of extraordinary commitment and initiative. But—it can also be a sign of disorganization and poor prioritization. A few thoughts.

Published on June 15, 2023, filed under and .

48 Laws, Rules, and Principles of Web Development

In anticipation of the upcoming release of The Web Development Glossary 3K, here are four dozen laws, rules, and principles related to web and software development.

Published on June 7, 2023, filed under .

HTML Concepts: Kinds of Elements

There are six kinds of elements in HTML: void elements, raw text elements, escapable raw text elements, the template element, foreign elements, and normal elements.

Published on May 31, 2023, filed under .

Website Issues: On the Relevance of Audience Size and Impact

Website issues—relating to conformance, security, accessibility, performance, content, others—are usually treated with a particular priority, but that priority may not always be understandable, and may also be off. On the perspective we obtain when we consider and chart audience size and impact.

Published on May 19, 2023, filed under and .

CSS Naked Day and the Missing Wikipedia Page

CSS Naked Day has a message—separation of concerns. The event has been around for nearly 20 years, thousands of developers have participated, and it’s still alive. It may not be an event significant enough for Wikipedia, for which this post had been a draft—but it does seem significant for our field.

Published on May 2, 2023, filed under .

Two Underused Arguments for Writing Documentation

Validating our thinking and allowing to scale may not get enough attention.

Published on April 30, 2023, filed under and .

On Ageism

One may argue that the big “-isms” go back to speciesism, the idea that one was “better” than other living beings, or that others were inferior. With that idea warranting a post by itself, there are two things that make ageism particularly stupid.

Published on April 16, 2023, filed under .

Highlights From “The Social Contract” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

“The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.”

Published on April 14, 2023, filed under .

Highlights From “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (Max Weber)

“The modern rational organization of the capitalistic enterprise would not have been possible without two other important factors in its development: the separation of business from the household, which completely dominates modern economic life, and closely connected with it, rational book-keeping.”

Published on April 12, 2023, filed under and .

HTML Concepts: Customized Built-In Elements

HTML allows to define custom elements, elements which enable authors to “build their own fully-featured DOM elements.” One special type of custom element is the customized built-in element—a custom element built on an existing HTML element.

Published on March 25, 2023, filed under .

Website Optimization Measures, Part XVIII

Random improvements as always, this time covering ARIA roles, Apache module checks, <guid> elements, CLS rules of thumb, Eleventy, block lists, site licenses, and compression settings.

Published on March 6, 2023, filed under .

Conformance and Accessibility

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 are going to obsolete Success Criterion 4.1.1, which had been WCAG’s nod towards conformant HTML output. This is understandable, and it may even be good—to strengthen accessibility as well as conformance.

Published on February 28, 2023, filed under .

Speed Up Your Org: When to Require Approval

Organizations can be slow. One thing that makes them slow is process. One part of process consists of approvals. But approvals aren’t always needed. On default answers, and the severity and probability of failure.

Published on February 22, 2023, filed under .

My CSS Wishlist

Trim it.

Published on February 11, 2023, filed under .

26 Additional Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of

Web Development has its own, special vocabulary that consists of several thousand terms. No one knows all of them. (Or do they?) Here are 26 more terms you may or may not have heard of—perhaps including AAAA or MAM or YMYL.

Published on February 9, 2023, filed under .

Challenge Yourself, Even When It’s Art

The paradox of CSS art may suggest an artist had a free pass for the quality of their code. Or does it? I believe there are three possible answers to this.

Published on January 10, 2023, filed under and .

2022

Release of my next book, a new apartment in downtown Hamburg, good news from the football club, a political adjustment, some travels, and preparation for a professional change—some of my highlights in 2022.

Published on January 1, 2023, filed under .

If you like what you see here, check out How to Work on Oneself for a lightweight look at personal growth and development, or The Problems With All the Good Things for an AI-supported perspective on—problems.