Upgrade Your HTML, or: On Writing Better Markup

As HTML is so important and yet also so easy, everyone writes HTML, and everyone says they can write HTML. And with that they don’t just mean they are able to write HTML, but that they write good HTML, where “good” means “high quality.” That would be great news.

Post from October 16, 2019, filed under Web Development.

The Developer’s Fallacy of Close Collaboration with Designers

Working closely with designers makes sense and is awesome, notably for mutual understanding and efficiency. And yet there are also good reasons not to work closely with designers. For developers it’s important, for otherwise foolish, to be aware.

Post from October 1, 2019, filed under Web Development and Art and Design.

Definition of Web Developer

Web developer, n.: A person who—

Post from September 24, 2019, filed under Web Development.

“Must Work Without JavaScript”

That websites should work without JavaScript has a long professional tradition, and for apps much the same has been asked for. Yet with the success and ubiquity of scripting, how important is it to make sure sites and apps “work without JavaScript”?

Post from September 5, 2019, filed under Web Development.

Optional HTML: Everything You Need to Know

Optional HTML can be left out to improve performance, to guide code comprehension, and to hone the craft. An overview over all optional tags, rules around quotes for attribute values, and omissible attribute value defaults, as well as notes on pitfalls and tools.

Post from August 20, 2019, filed under Web Development.

When to use img, img@srcset, and picture and source

I’ve disliked srcset and the whole family of ideas around it from the start because doing the same thing for the same purpose several times has usually looked like too much DX cost for too little UX gain to me. Two angles at what to use when.

Post from July 17, 2019, filed under Web Development.

Image Compression: How to Super-Easily Set Up Automated Base Optimization

Setting up image compression tooling is easy—and for those who want to err on the safe side automatically employing lossless compression, it’s even easier with a solution from sum.cumo: Merlin.

Post from June 24, 2019, filed under Web Development.

The Problem with Web Development Checklists, or: The Frontend Checklist, Revised

Checklists are a great way to make sure nothing gets forgotten, yet they are problematic when they contain items that aren’t important. A few general thoughts and a very specific review of The Frontend Checklist—of which 33 guidelines appear useful, and 41 not (yet).

Post from June 19, 2019, filed under Web Development.

Understanding Image Compression: Tooling and Context

Image compression is an important part of performance optimization. It seems straight-forward but is a little deceptive, however, because it consists not of one but two parts—and it’s usually lack of understanding of one part that causes problems.

Post from May 22, 2019, filed under Web Development.

A Crime Called Favicon

16×16, 30×30, 32×32, 48×48, 57×57, 60×60, 64×64, 70×70, 72×72, 76×76, 90×90, 96×96, 114×114, 120×120, 128×128, 144×144, 150×150, 152×152, 160×160, 167×167, 180×180, 192×192, 195×195, 196×196, 228×228, 256×256, 270×270, 310×310, 558×558.

Post from May 9, 2019, filed under Web Development.

How Can We Make Website Maintenance Work More Visible?

The maintenance and maintainability of websites is a much neglected topic. This is problematic because: We cannot not maintain. Yet primarily we may deal with a visibility problem that we could explore more options for.

Post from April 24, 2019, filed under Web Development.

Print Styling, the 3 Basics

Many sites are not prepared for print, and yet our users print, and they save through print. Therefore: Have a print style sheet, and be it a negative one. Hide what’s not usable or useful. Always test, and tweak when you want better.

Post from April 5, 2019, filed under Web Development and Art and Design.

Optional @lang

The lang attribute is one of HTML’s global attributes. If one doesn’t simply take it for granted, it begs a number of questions—and these suggest to drop W3C requirements around it, and to demand software to do the job.

Post from March 21, 2019, filed under Web Development.

What Happened on Google+, the Web Development Archives

Following a few philosophy posts to be archived, here are past entries related to web development. Nothing more, nothing less.

Post from March 9, 2019, filed under Web Development and Art and Design.

HTML and Performance: Leave Out Optional Tags and Quotes

As experts we should know what code is optional and leave it out, and our production systems should do a better job assisting us with that. After all the years of neglecting basic HTML optimization, let’s think about taking the next step and not ship optional HTML markup.

Post from January 29, 2019, filed under Web Development.

Google Lighthouse and PWA

A review of Lighthouse’s PWA audits and the PWA category as a whole. Just in time to see it be superseded by Lighthouse 4, the major update that solves some (unfortunately not all) of those issues.

Post from January 17, 2019, filed under Web Development.

On Performance Visions, or: Performance Optimization Is a Process

It’s smart to have a vision for what one wishes to achieve for the performance of a site or app. Yet even the soundest approaches to performance visions have their problems, and in them we recognize that performance, or performance optimization, is indeed a process.

Post from December 4, 2018, filed under Web Development.

Should Designers Code

Arguments for a “no” to a recurring question: Why we may want to give designers all freedom in the world, not to be limited in what they’re trained to do best.

Post from November 23, 2018, filed under Web Development and Art and Design.

Performance Rule #1: Do What You Need to Do—But Not More

Web Performance has over the age of the Web not only turned into a discipline by itself, but also a complex one at that. While important much less so for revenue but for user experience and accessibility reasons, there’s a particular angle at performance that makes the matter very simple: the pragmatic angle.

Post from November 13, 2018, filed under Web Development.

How to Configure Lighthouse for Balanced Quality Websites

Google’s Lighthouse is a great tool even though it has some issues. Fortunately, it’s possible to configure Lighthouse to one’s own views on what matters. Here’s the config that I like to use.

Post from October 15, 2018, filed under Web Development.

A Short Guide to Minimal Web Development

There’s an art and even a bit of magic around simple frontend code. Writing such code comes with a few preconditions: perhaps a firm understanding of core technologies, a lot of practice, public scrutiny, and then some. Thoughts.

Post from September 25, 2018, filed under 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.

Post from August 31, 2018, filed under Web Development.

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.

Post from August 16, 2018, filed under Web Development.

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.

Post from July 5, 2018, filed under Web Development.

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?

Post from June 27, 2018, filed under Web Development.