Upgrade Your HTML (the Booklet)

Published on November 4, 2019 (↻ May 26, 2024), filed under Web Development (RSS feed for all categories).

I’ve written a very short book on improving HTML code: Upgrade Your HTML.

Upgrade Your HTML is about one thing: Picking examples of HTML in the wild, and explaining how to make that code better. Kindly. Constructively. Thoroughly, as finding a balance between detail and brevity permits. For all web developers, though the less you’ve looked at HTML optimization so far, the more you may take out of the booklet.

Good tricks to achieve […] better HTML.

…say readers at SitePoint.

This book is part of a series: Explore Upgrade Your HTML at Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play Books, and Leanpub.

Description

HTML is super-popular. Everyone can write HTML. Or can they? In the spirit that everything can be tweaked and optimized, Upgrade Your HTML is a first light book in a playful series to review and improve real-life examples of HTML.

Not shyly but always constructively does Jens Oliver Meiert, someone who has written a lot of HTML and who makes his own life difficult so that he can write even more HTML, go through ten samples to ponder and upgrade the respective markup.

If you’re a web developer, you know HTML. Check out and follow Upgrade Your HTML to nod (or shake your head) exploring old and new problems surrounding uses of the beloved HyperText Markup Language.

→ This is the book if you enjoy the intricacies of working with HTML.

The outline:

• Acknowledgments
• Intro
• Respect the title Attribute
• Stop Escaping &
• Think Through Your Markup
• Don’t Double Boolean Attributes
• If It Can Be Done Using an HTTP Header, Use an HTTP Header
• Avoid data Images
• Don’t Use the Classic “clearfix”
• Be Clear About Attribute Functions
• Question Your Frontend Code
• Add Meaning, Prune Meaninglessness
• Outro
• Feedback
• About the Author
• About Upgrade Your HTML

❧ I’m immensely grateful for all the help from Kevin Khaw, who reviewed the booklet on technical accuracy, Merci Niebres, who greatly contributed to improving its tone, and Gabriele Kretzschmar for overall editing.

Enjoy the first edition of: Upgrade Your HTML!

About Me

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 close to W3C and WHATWG, 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 views and experiences.

If you’d like to do me a favor, interpret charitably (I speak three languages, and they do collide), yet be critical and give feedback for me to fix issues, learn, and improve. Thank you!