Development (Archive) · Jens Oliver Meiert

Development

Where Has All the Valid HTML Gone

When we look at the state of HTML… how much of it actually is HTML?

Published on November 21, 2024, filed under Development.

8 AI Tips for Web Developers (and Their Careers)

AI is everywhere and comes with many problems and challenges. Yet as web developers, we need to adapt to a reality with AI. A few ideas on how we can make use of AI to the benefit of our work and our careers.

Published on November 12, 2024, filed under Development.

The Image Compression Challenge (Donating Money for Excess-Free Projects)

Here’s a frontend challenge. Run an image compression tool capable of near-losslessly compressing PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP, and AVIF images over one of your main projects. Share if nothing could be compressed. I donate money for each of such projects.

Published on October 30, 2024, filed under Development.

Website Optimization Measures, Part XXVII

On improvements involving Eleventy (3), Lightning CSS, Imagemin Guard, early hints, ads, creator metadata, and custom/programmable search engines.

Published on October 24, 2024, filed under Development.

Boring Web Development

Web development is boring—or should be more boring. On us tending to celebrate the wrong side of web development.

Published on October 15, 2024, filed under Development.

HTML/CSS Frameworks, in Their Own Words (by Word Cloud)

Checking in on Bootstrap, Tailwind, Foundation, Bulma, Milligram, Pure, and UIkit.

Published on October 11, 2024, filed under Development.

JS Frameworks, in Their Own Words (by Word Cloud)

Handing the microphone to React, Vue.js, Angular, Svelte, Express, Meteor, and Next.js.

Published on October 11, 2024, filed under Development.

Automatable Defensive Core Image Compression With Imagemin Guard 4 (Now With No Imagemin)

The Imagemin Guard package was just updated to move away from the unmaintained Imagemin family, and to improve code, tests, documentation, and usability. If you like to avoid unnecessary image payload, even in your repos, especially in environments where not everyone pays attention to it, this is a good update to try.

Published on October 9, 2024, filed under Development.

Untrained Engineering Managers

Web development has always had a developer training issue, but it also has one on the management and leadership side. On a challenge we’re all familiar with but rarely talk and do something about.

Published on September 27, 2024, filed under Development and Management.

Website Optimization Measures, Part XXVI

Optimizations related to the Google docs viewer, dependency management, English terms in German copy, Prettier, AWS, SEO bots, Eleventy, and DreamHost.

Published on September 19, 2024, filed under Development.

On Ticket Management

Issue tracking tools like Jira, GitHub Issues, or Bugzilla are essential for managing bugs and tasks (that is, issues). However, not everyone finds ticket management convenient or convincing. A perspective on why tickets matter, and how they can be used well.

Published on September 17, 2024, filed under Development and Management.

2024: 0.5% of the Global Top 200 Websites Use Valid HTML

The annual HTML conformance analysis, validating 200 home pages of the most popular websites. Despite improvements, there is no signal of commitment to valid output as a quality baseline to benefit end users as well as web development as a profession.

Published on September 11, 2024, filed under Development.

The HTML History and Optimization Cheat Sheet

Compare elements and specifications, check on void elements and optional tags.

Published on September 5, 2024, filed under Development.

Notes on Setting Up a Static Website With AWS (Route 53, S3, ACM)

…and whether doing so is worth it. (There are pos and cons, and they all seem pretty dramatic.)

Published on September 4, 2024, filed under Development.

Notes on Hooking Up a Website With Cloudflare

I played around with Cloudflare.

Published on September 3, 2024, filed under Development.

Why I Don’t Block AI Scrapers

“The Tortoise and the Hare,” human/AI edition.

Published on August 29, 2024, filed under Development and Everything Else.

Website Optimization Measures, Part XXV

On caching headers, capitalization, social graphics, download priorities, logical properties, Cloudflare, viewport metadata, obsolete markup, and calls to action.

Published on August 21, 2024, filed under Development and Design.

A Web Development Term a Day…

…on Mastodon, Bluesky, and Twitter/X. (With a queue lasting 10 years and growing.)

Published on August 19, 2024, filed under Development.

AI Paradox

Have you outrun your headlights yet?

Published on August 18, 2024, filed under Development and Management.

The cover of “Rote Learning HTML & CSS.”

Now Available: “Rote Learning HTML & CSS,” the Most Boring Free Ebook Ever

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).

Published on August 14, 2024, filed under Development.

A Node and Command Line Tool to Find Obsolete HTML

Ever wondered if and where you have obsolete HTML in your code base? Of course, there’s a tool for that.

Published on August 12, 2024, filed under Development.

On Mapping the World of Frontend Development

What if we had easy access to many—thousands—of the most useful, interesting, influential frontend development posts from 2000–2019? If you took care of it, how would you go about it, what challenges would you face, what would excite you? Here are some impressions, doing this work, for Frontend Dogma.

Published on July 30, 2024, filed under Development.