Web Frameworks in a Nutshell

Published on January 24, 2015 (↻ June 25, 2022), filed under (RSS feed for all categories).

My next book is coming there! “The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks.” (I dropped hints here and there.) I’m wrapping it up with the team of O’Reilly as we speak. We expect it to ship this quarter.

In the book, I share much of my experience architecting, developing, and maintaining web frameworks, as I’ve done for Google, Aperto, and GMX (though there we hadn’t called them frameworks). While frameworks come and go there are some principles that make them high quality, last longer, and easier to work with.

A recap taken from the book, which is short and sweet for I didn’t set out to write an 800-page encyclopedia, as follows.

Professional web development is about quality. Quality is not easy to define, but one part of it is tailored code. External frameworks, if without customization options, are impossible to tailor for users and a pain to tailor for developers. Internal frameworks are much easier to handle and generally the way to go. Good frameworks aim for highest quality, are tailored, usable, and extensible. Framework users should follow the documentation and not overwrite framework code. Framework developers should have principles, a prototype, quality management tools, a maintenance plan, and healthy interest in documentation. And still, things can go wrong.

So much for a first impression. I’ll keep you updated. Have a closer look.

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About Me

Jens Oliver Meiert, on November 9, 2024.

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a frontend engineering leader and tech author/publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead for companies like Google and as an engineering manager for companies like Miro, I’m a contributor to several web standards, and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development (and engineering management), but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (Please be critical, interpret charitably, and give feedback.)