Web Development
Web Development and the GDPR
Who shares or presents code has a special responsibility, because for both the uninitiated and the quality-minded such code should be of a considerable standard. European privacy legislation ups the ante.
37 Theses on CSS and Web Development
CSS Optimization Basics ends with a list of key ideas. From acknowledging that we don’t always write perfectly efficient and maintainable and understandable code to leading by example.
AMP, a Strategy
There are problems with AMP. My recommendations: Avoid AMP; or use it, exclusively, on the most relevant pages; or go all-in, for AMP-only.
The Craft of CSS
When we type down CSS like we’ve done 20 years ago, and when we work with ever more abstractions, what does that mean for our craft?
The Dangers of Being a Web Developer
Video, slides, and resources for my talk at beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf.
CSS Optimization Basics
My latest little book, covering mindsets needed for writing effective style sheets, optimization options during operation and for production, and useful resources to aid and inform the work with CSS. (Pay what you want.)
User-Centered Web Development
When we think of user focus we easily think of usability tests, following a usually strong wish to produce something that’s actually useful. For us as web developers, focus on the user has a tendency to appear distant though…
HTML, CSS, and Dependency Direction
Adam Wathan wrote one of the most interesting web development articles I’ve read in the last few months: CSS Utility Classes and “Separation of Concerns.” At least until “Phase 3” there’s much to learn about current web development…
How Declaration Repetition Developed over Time, a Statistically Insignificant Sample
We know that there’s excessive declaration repetition in the Web’s style sheets, that each declaration is on average repeated 2–3 times, often needlessly. We know that this repetition is a little less bad on tech sites…
The Compact Guide to Web Maintainability: 200 Tips and Resources
The result of reviewing, normalizing, rephrasing, sorting, and testing 134 responses to a maintainability survey that yielded more than 500 data points, to form a new guide, a new and more definite guide to web maintainability.
Static Site Tricks: Social Network Propagation with IFTTT
Automation is critical for work efficiency and productivity. Everything helps.
The Two Extremes of Writing CSS, and What We Can Learn from Them
Extremes can be useful. In practice they help get the maximum out of a given approach, and in theory they can show what we’re headed to. Compare two ways of writing CSS—like Tachyons or Atomic CSS, and 2000’s idealistic coding.
Expert Web Development: A 3rd Key Differentiator
As web developers we have decisions to make and our decisions depend on a few variables. Two that have become much more important over the years are the one of code for research or production, and the one of web site or app…
An Ode to Smashing Magazine
Excitement about a success story.
Performance of CSS Selectors Is Still Irrelevant
From my upcoming book on CSS optimization: Selector performance is not something to optimize for as the price we pay for it is, indeed, terrible: We micro-manage our work for gains that aren’t even noticeable.
On Big Picture Thinking in Web Development
Thoughts on thinking outside the box, in tech, with examples ranging from selector performance to a general development vision, to illustrate how very different issues can all reach beyond their perimeter.
CSS: The Reason Why Selectors Should Be Ordered, Too
We’ve talked a lot about declarations as declarations are at the heart of our work with direct consequences for the quality of our style sheets. We’ve not talked much about selectors, though, and that may be a mistake.
Static Site Generation with Grow: How to Set Up Syndication Feeds
Grow is a static site generator that I’ve slowly been switching to on my own projects. Here I wish to lay out how to do something with Grow that’s not overly difficult, but also not well-documented—to set up syndication feeds.
DRY CSS: How to Use Declarations Just Once, Effectively
Using declarations just once is one way to control repetition in style sheets. It’s not a silver bullet, as we’ve seen with recent data, but it’s so powerful as to make for a key style sheet optimization method.
5 Reasons Against Resets, Normalizers, Reboots
A word about one of CSS’s horsemen of the apocalypse.
The 3 Levels of Code Consistency
Consistency is a factor for code quality and one of the key reasons why we need coding guidelines. Interestingly enough there are three levels of consistency: individual, collective, and institutional.
Understandable-Simple vs. Minimal-Simple Code
Code simplicity seems to be a goal quite worthwhile, contributing to better understanding, greater robustness, and higher quality. That’s at least what comes to my mind when looking at the matter…
On Enforcing Coding Guidelines
Surprisingly a snippet from The Little Book of Website Quality Control, not the one of HTML/CSS coding guidelines, a few thoughts on enforcing coding standards.
The Cost of Frameworks, Illustrated
A visual attempt to show how for everything built for the long run, external frameworks are a pricey crutch that has to be avoided or be thrown away at the earliest time. The reasons: quality—and cost.
CSS @-Rules, an Overview
From @charset to @viewport. Or from @bottom-center to @top-right-corner.
Notification on updates: RSS feed (Web Development only).
Categories
- Adventure (26)
- Art and Design (42)
- Everything Else (80)
- Philosophy (40)
- Web Development (205)
Archives
By Year
By Month
- August 2018 (2)
- July 2018 (1)
- June 2018 (1)
- May 2018 (1)
- April 2018 (1)
- March 2018 (1)
- February 2018 (3)
- January 2018 (6)
- December 2017 (6)
- November 2017 (4)
- October 2017 (6)
- September 2017 (7)
- August 2017 (7)
- July 2017 (4)
- June 2017 (7)
- May 2017 (2)
- April 2017 (3)
- March 2017 (3)
- February 2017 (5)
- January 2017 (5)
- December 2016 (3)
- November 2016 (6)
- October 2016 (1)
- September 2016 (2)
- August 2016 (5)
- July 2016 (6)
- June 2016 (3)
- May 2016 (1)
- April 2016 (3)
- March 2016 (2)
- February 2016 (1)
- January 2016 (4)
- December 2015 (1)
- November 2015 (2)
- October 2015 (4)
- September 2015 (4)
- August 2015 (6)
- July 2015 (2)
- June 2015 (2)
- May 2015 (4)
- April 2015 (4)
- March 2015 (8)
- February 2015 (3)
- January 2015 (5)
- December 2014 (7)
- November 2014 (1)
- October 2014 (3)
- September 2014 (7)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (5)
- June 2014 (1)
- April 2014 (3)
- March 2014 (1)
- February 2014 (4)
- January 2014 (2)
- December 2013 (6)
- November 2013 (1)
- October 2013 (4)
- September 2013 (2)
- August 2013 (5)
- July 2013 (1)
- January 2013 (1)
- December 2012 (2)
- November 2012 (1)
- April 2012 (1)
- February 2012 (1)
- January 2012 (2)
- December 2011 (1)
- October 2011 (1)
- June 2011 (2)
- May 2011 (2)
- April 2011 (1)
- February 2011 (1)
- December 2010 (3)
- October 2010 (1)
- September 2010 (1)
- July 2010 (1)
- June 2010 (1)
- May 2010 (1)
- March 2010 (1)
- February 2010 (2)
- January 2010 (1)
- December 2009 (1)
- November 2009 (2)
- October 2009 (4)
- September 2009 (2)
- August 2009 (2)
- July 2009 (3)
- June 2009 (4)
- May 2009 (2)
- April 2009 (2)
- March 2009 (6)
- February 2009 (3)
- January 2009 (3)
- December 2008 (4)
- November 2008 (6)
- October 2008 (7)
- September 2008 (3)
- August 2008 (4)
- July 2008 (4)
- June 2008 (5)
- May 2008 (5)
- April 2008 (2)
- March 2008 (6)
- February 2008 (5)
- November 2007 (3)
- October 2007 (1)
- September 2007 (4)
- August 2007 (2)
- July 2007 (2)
- June 2007 (6)
- May 2007 (4)
- April 2007 (3)
- March 2007 (6)
- February 2007 (6)
- January 2007 (6)