Most Popular
Loved, hated, or important weblog entries.
Contents
2020
- Upgrade Your HTML II
- On HTML (and HTML in 2020)
- Custom Properties: Questioning
:root - The Anti-Reset
- 33 Web Development Terms You May Not Have Heard Of
- The 25 Boolean Attributes of HTML
- 5 Tips to Get Your Dev Blog Running
- The 4 Pillars of Good Embed Code
- The Web Development Glossary (More Than 2,000 Key Terms for Developers)
- The Frameworks Paradox
- On the Responsibility That Comes with Good JavaScript Support
- Round Table
- How Running Your Own Website Is Much Better for You Than You Think
2019
- An HTML Optimizer’s Config for html-minifier
- When to Open Links in a New Tab
- CSS: When to Use Logical Properties
- Upgrade Your HTML (the Booklet)
- On Writing Better Markup
- The Developer’s Fallacy of Close Collaboration with Designers
- “Must Work Without JavaScript”
- Optional HTML: Everything You Need to Know
- When to use
img,img@srcset, andpictureandsource - 13 Leadership Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Image Compression: How to Super-Easily Set Up Automated Base Optimization
- The Problem with Web Development Checklists, or: The Frontend Checklist, Revised
- 3 Reasons Against Ad Blockers
- A Crime Called Favicon
- Counter the Happiness Assumption
- 199 Love Haiku (the Book)
- Print Styling, the 3 Basics
- Optional
@lang - HTML and Performance: Leave Out Optional Tags and Quotes
- Google Lighthouse and PWA
2018
- On Performance Visions, or: Performance Optimization Is a Process
- Should Designers Code
- Performance Rule #1: Do What You Need to Do—But Not More
- How to Configure Lighthouse for Balanced Quality Websites
- A Short Guide to Minimal Web Development
- AMP, a Strategy
- CSS Optimization Basics
- User-Centered Web Development
- HTML, CSS, and Dependency Direction
- How Declaration Repetition Developed over Time, a Statistically Insignificant Sample
- The Compact Guide to Web Maintainability: 200 Tips and Resources
- Oh WTF My Tone, or: On Germans Speaking English
- On Material Design
- The Two Extremes of Writing CSS, and What We Can Learn from Them
2017
- On Writing 1,000 Poems
- Expert Web Development: A 3rd Key Differentiator
- Performance of CSS Selectors Is Still Irrelevant
- On Big Picture Thinking in Web Development
- CSS: The Reason Why Selectors Should Be Ordered, Too
- The Scientific Irony
- DRY CSS: How to Use Declarations Just Once, Effectively
- 5 Reasons Against Resets, Normalizers, Reboots
- The 3 Levels of Code Consistency
- Understandable-Simple vs. Minimal-Simple Code
- What Happens When You Email the Companies That Are Responsible for 71% of All Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- Freedom = ƒ(Money)?
- Destroying Is Not Arguing, or: Why It Would Be Bad If Jesus Was Here
- The Cost of Frameworks, Illustrated
- CSS @-Rules, an Overview
- In Defense of Bad Luck
- What We Should Teach Up-and-Coming Developers
- What Kills and What Will Save Content Management Systems
- Living Websites, Living Books
- Web Development: How Making Our Own Lives Difficult Is More Important Than We Think
- Frameworks, Libraries, and the Modern Web Developer: Web Development, Overdone
- What I Learned Building Google’s Web Frameworks
- Boyscout Code
- Stop Using Resets: Visual Examples of the Practical Nonsense of Resets and Normalizers
- Why I’m Suspending Interviews with U.S. Companies
- The Simple Answer to Our Terrorism Problems
- Regarding the Fermi Paradox
- 70% Repetition in Style Sheets: Data on How We Fail at CSS Optimization
- My Top 10 Android Apps
- Foreigners Are Heroes
- Principles of Web Development
- The Great Neglect
2016
- CSS Shorthand Syntax Considered Important
- Why I Don’t Use CSS Preprocessors
- Contradictions: a Problem of Logic, a Feature of Reality?
- Stop Using the Old “Clearfix”
- Security, Obscurity: Randomizing New Tabs
- Why Philosophy Matters
- New Book(let): The Little Book of Website Quality Control
- Accelerated Mobile Pages, a Critical View
- WordPress Themes and Web Development
- The Anatomy of a Coding Guideline
- On Tailoring and Web Frameworks
- The Dilemma of the Kind Person
- New Book(let): How to Work on Oneself
- 198 Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Action
- Conditional Boycott
- The Reminder Trick
- Stream Theory
- The Law of Maintainability
- Endless Peace
2015
- New Book: The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines
- Philosophy Factoids
- Media: The Choice Between Misinformation and Uninformation
- What I’ve Hated and What I’ve Loved About Web Development
- The Problem of “Fire and Forget” in Web Design
- Several Lives
- New Book: Journey of J.
- The Law of User-Generated Code
- New Book: On Web Development
- Germany, America: On Standing by When Your Country Is Murdering People
- Web Standards: We’re F’ing It Up
- A Vision of Web Development
- Business Practices, Reframed
- On the Problems and Limits of Science
- The Two Ground Rules of Using a Framework
- Remember: April 9 is CSS Naked Day
- What to Carry When Traveling the World
- 180 Little Stories After Traveling the World for 18 Months
- The Truth About
!important - New Book: The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks
- A Population Control Primer
- On Taking Life
- Web Design and Principles
- On the Deterioration of HTML/CSS Practices
2014
- The One Assumption About Our Reality
- The Problems of Working with Web Agencies
- CSS and Specificity
- Questioning Electronic Data as Evidence
- Google and HTML/CSS Code Quality
- CSS, DRY, and Code Optimization
- On Privacy
- On America
- How to Travel the World and Stay Healthy
- How to Travel the World and Stay Safe
- HTML and Specifying Language
- How to Prepare to Travel the World
- All Code Is Not Equal: On Research and Production Code
- The Law of Travel
- The 6 Most Useful Books I’ve Ever Read
- CSS: When to Use Generated Content
- Lessons from Writing a Dream Journal
- A Word on Contemporary Web Design
- HTML Explained in 123 Tweets: The Google #htmltuesday Archive
- How to Just Quit and Travel the World
2013
- On Writing a Book with Google Docs and Amazon KDP
- How to Become an Everyday Adventurer
- CSS, HTML, and the Problem of Spec Fragmentation
- No to DRM in HTML
- New Book! 100 Things I Learned as an Everyday Adventurer
- The Curious Case of Breadcrumbs in HTML
- About Cost in Web Development
- The Meanings of Googliness
- Goodbye Google, San Francisco, California, and United States
- How to Order CSS Selectors, a Draft
2012
2011
2010
- Testing Tricks: CSS Bookmarklets
- CSS: How to Host Right-to-Left Styling
- CSS Validation and Vendor Extensions: Throw Warnings, Not Errors
pxIs Dead, Long Livepx
2009
- HTML/CSS Frameworks: Useful, Universal, Usable, Unobtrusive
- The 3 Basic Rules for Writing HTML
- HTML, CSS, and Web Development Practices: Past, Present, and Future
- The Real Advantage of CSS
- My Top 15 Android Apps
- Diagnostic Styling Reloaded
- Microformats, Key Flaws
- Let’s Make The Web Faster
- Maintainability Guide
- Punctuation Cheat Sheet
- CSS: The Maintenance Issue #1 and How You Can Avoid It
- Why CSS Needs No Variables
- The Stupidest Style Sheet Name Ever
- CSS: Style the Non-Obvious
- When to Separate Style Sheets
- Performance and RFC 2396
- 5 Cool Ways to Support the W3C
2008
- HTML vs. XHTML: Why HTML Wins
- The Greatest Secret in Web Design
- 5 CSS Tips Every Web Developer Should Know About
- An Exercise for Emerging CSS Experts: Avoid IDs and Classes
- Accessibility Heuristics
- Web Standards at Google
- The Most Important Thing Is to Get the HTML Right
- To Be Clear (on Conditional Comments and Resets)
- Best Practices for ID and Class Names
- A Few Words on HTML/CSS Frameworks
- Yes, You Can Use HTML 5
- 10 Measures for Continuous Website Maintenance
- When Validation Becomes Unimportant
- Web Design: 10 Additional Research Findings You Should Know
- Optional Tags in HTML 4
- CSS: Simple Rules for Better Organization and More Efficiency
- The World’s Best HTML Template
- Why “Reset” Style Sheets Are Bad
- CSS: All Properties from CSS 1 to CSS 3 (Index)
- Great CSS Techniques and the Simple Truth Behind Them
- The Secret of Maintainability
- “helvetica, arial”, Not “arial, helvetica”
2007
- Choke Web Development Framework 1.0
- User Agent Style Sheets: Basics and Samples
- Microformats Would Benefit from a Pseudo-Namespace
- 20 (Alternate) + 7 Additional Ways to Focus on Users
- Are You a Web Designer or a Web Decorator?
- HTML: All Elements from HTML 1 to XHTML 2.0 (Index)
- Load Time, the UX Factor: Facts and Measures
- Requirements for Website Prototypes (and Design Systems)
- Principles of Art, Design, and Decoration
- 10 Steps to Create a High-Quality Website
- Revitalizing SUS, the System Usability Scale
- .htaccess: 7 Useful Ingredients (Plus Bonus)
- 25 Excellent Usability/UX Articles and Resources
- CSS Practice: Pseudo-Namespaces in Complex Projects
- “Valid CSS” and Similar Claims Are Unprofessional
- Hire Only Web Designers with a Website
- Print Style Sheets: The Basics (for No Excuses)
- Why “Conditional Comments” Are Bad, Repeat: Bad
- QA: On Errors, and Why Paying for Errors Pays Off
- Web Design: 15 Important Research Findings You Should Know
If you could use something more voluminous, check out my books at Goodreads or at Amazon.
Perhaps my most relevant book: CSS Optimization Basics (2018). Writing CSS is a craft. As craftspeople we strive to write high quality CSS. In CSS Optimization Basics I lay out some of the most important aspects of such CSS. (Also available in a bundle with Upgrade Your HTML and The Web Development Glossary.)
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