Web Development (7)
CSS: How to Host Right-to-Left Styling
For international projects, don’t use separate style sheets for right-to-left (RTL) styling: use natural (@dir) or artificial (@id, @class) hooks instead. The only exception are unbearable performance issues due to hundreds of RTL rules…
#100 · · css, maintainability
On Solutions
Solutions require problems. If you don’t have a problem, you don’t need a solution. This is exactly why you should, whenever someone proposes a solution—which includes design and technical changes—ask what problem that solution solves…
#99 · · misc
CSS Validation and Vendor Extensions: Throw Warnings, Not Errors
If you understand valid code as a quality baseline, you validate your code. If you validate style sheets, you come across errors like “Property -moz-border-radius doesn’t exist’”…
#98 · · css, conformance
Real Web Developers Don’t Need Debugging Tools
Bottom line: Try to limit your use of web dev debugging tools—like Firebug or Chrome’s Developer Tools—in order to grow your skills.
#97 ·
“px” Is Dead, Long Live “px”
It’s over. There is no ban on px anymore. The only reason why we as web developers had to adjust coding practices were user agents that failed to meet user agent accessibility guidelines.
#96 · · css
How to Become a Solid Web Developer, the Short Version
Every once in a while people ping me on how to master web development and design. Given how much there’s still to learn for me this makes me blush. Chronically short on time I typically reply in just a few sentences…
#95 ·
WDR #4: Having Conversations in HTTP
The Web Dev Report, issue #4.
#94 ·
HTML/CSS Frameworks: Useful, Universal, Usable, Unobtrusive
A high quality HTML/CSS framework needs to have four attributes: useful, universal, usable, and unobtrusive. The four U’s.
#93 · · html, css, frameworks, quality
The 3 Ground Rules for Writing HTML
The fundamentals every web developer should know: on respecting syntax and semantics, avoiding presentational and behavioral markup, and leaving out everything that is not absolutely necessary.
#92 · · html, conformance, semantics
HTML, CSS, and Web Development Practices: Past, Present, and Future
Articles with a title consisting of more than 15,000 characters don’t need an introduction.
#91 · · html, css, maintainability
Website Optimization Measures, Part VII
In this episode: Unquoted attribute value syntax, q elements, Google Friend Connect, feed styling, work/life balance. Served in no time.
#90 · · optimization
“HTML 5” or “HTML5”?
It’s “HTML5,” not “HTML 5,” declares the most recent post on the WHATWG blog. A seemingly trivial matter, yet it’s inconsistent.
#89 · · html
The True Advantage of CSS
Despite CSS being around for a long, long time, there are still some myths around it. Reading Mike’s post on CSS evangelism again I couldn’t only relate to Mike’s concerns, I also felt reminded of…
#88 · · css, maintainability
Diagnostic Styling Reloaded
Eric cultivated the concept of “diagnostic styling,” meaning using CSS to track down problems within HTML documents. I’ve been working with diagnostic style sheets for general quality assurance…
WDR #3: Optional Tags, Unquoted Attribute Value Syntax
The Web Dev Report, issue #3.
#86 · · html
Microformats, Key Flaws
I like the idea behind microformats, but I’m not convinced of the way that idea is brought to life. I see three major flaws that appear to make microformats stand in their own way.
XHTML, RIP
Let’s end this week of morbid posts: The XHTML 2 Working Group is expected to stop their work end of 2009. “Today the Director announces that when the XHTML 2 Working Group charter expires as scheduled at the end of 2009…”
#84 · · html
“handheld” Media Type, RIP?
Website authors don’t use handheld as it’s barely supported; mobile device manufacturers don’t support handheld because it’s barely used. This is kind of the situation I think we’re facing, and it’s a problem.
#83 · · css
Let’s Make The Web Faster
Two weeks after my last outcry regarding slowness on the Web there’s a more proactive response: Google launched code.google.com/speed, subtitled “let’s make the Web faster.”
#82 · · html, css, performance
Maintainability Guide
Maintainability is important in order to deal with change. Good maintainability means making change easier and more affordable, and avoiding change that is not necessary…
#81 · · html, css, maintainability
Punctuation Cheat Sheet
Developing and working with international sites is an interesting challenge, not just because of right-to-left contents. Typographically, there are differences between many locales. To improve punctuation in Google translations I’m using a localization aid…
#80 · · design
CSS: The Maintenance Issue #1 and How You Can Avoid It
The biggest—as most unnecessary—maintenance issue in web development is, as my recent research shows, style sheet naming and integration. Web developers use inadvisable style sheet names and inadvisable ways to integrate style sheets that force them…
#79 · · html, css, maintainability
Notes on XML, Elements, and Attributes
Knowledge of the design of markup languages is something I consider beneficial for my job as a web professional. A few notes on XML design, inspired by internal and external documentation.
#78 ·
Why CSS Needs No Variables
CSS variables and constants are one of the top features web developers are asking for in web development fora, magazines, blogs, and on W3C’s www-style. Following a concept written by Daniel Glazman and Apple’s Dave Hyatt, the WebKit rendering engine…
#77 · · css
The Stupidest Style Sheet Name Ever
The last name you want to pick for your style sheet is “style.css”. Why is “style.css” such a poor CSS file name? The main reason is maintenance…
#76 · · css
CSS: Style the Non-Obvious
One of the qualities you have to acquire as a web developer is to see the non-obvious, and to use that skill to your code’s advantage. Let me explain by two simple examples.
#75 · · css
Performance of CSS Selectors Is Irrelevant
…if you like to have a strict read of Steve Souders’ recent research. We’ve still got few but now a few more numbers backing up what we always suspected, that merely optimizing selectors is micro-optimization.
#74 · · css, performance
Website Optimization Measures, Part VI
In this episode: On the utilization of Google Friend Connect, maintenance of Google Analytics, sanity checks, type attributes, charset rules, cite elements, and ICRA labels. Fresh and sexy.
#73 · · optimization
When to Split Style Sheets
Three factors influence whether it makes sense to split style sheets: probability, meaning (aka semantics), and granularity.
#72 · · css
Performance and RFCÂ 2396
RFC 2396 specifies that relative URIs like //foo get resolved as http://foo. This means, if you link a resource like https://example.com/, @ href may as well just point to //example.com/.
#71 · · performance
Arial, Helvetica
An extension of my post on Arial and Helvetica: For those who want or have to use Arial as their standard font, there is no point in mentioning Helvetica anywhere in the code, as in arial, helvetica, sans-serif.
#70 · · css
The Two Great Things About Validation (and Conformance)
There are two great things about validation: Validating helps technical understanding and thus contributes to awareness of respective specifications, and writing valid code is a sign of professionalism.
#69 · · conformance
Browser Support: The Two Metrics That Count
There are two things that matter to determine what user agents—browsers—to support on a given site: First, what popularity (percentage of market) makes a browser important to support? Second, what browsers pass that threshold?
#68 ·
5 Cool Ways to Support the W3C
I recently got a mail by someone interested in supporting the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) similar to how I do it. While replying I noticed that the information I was about to share might not be obvious to everyone, but still important…
#67 ·
HTML vs. XHTML: Why HTML Wins
Document types are cool, and there are plenty of them. There are plenty, countless discussions about the “right” document type, too. Alas, these discussions may deal with irrelevant details or miss the point.
#66 · · html
5 Tips To Deal With Right-to-Left Projects
Know what goes into your markup and what goes into your style sheets. It’s actually simple: When available, you should always use dedicated bidi markup to describe your content. CSS may not be available, and the specs actually say that…
#65 · · css
The Greatest Secret in Web Design
Alright I cheated, this isn’t a secret. Or an open secret. Or whatever. It’s that web design is a process. Good web design is an ongoing endeavor.
WDR #2: Web Developers Needed for a Website
The Web Dev Report, issue #2, this time featuring a classic situation.
#63 ·
How to Uncover Pseudo-Standardistas
There’s a growing group of developers that doesn’t help our attempts for faster, more accessible, more maintainable, and generally quality-oriented web development: pseudo-standardistas.
#62 ·
WDR #1: Versioned Style Sheets
Ladies and gents, all I present’s… the Web Dev Report, issue #1.
#61 · · css
5 CSS Tips Every Web Developer Should Know About
Of all the tips this site shares, the following ones may be special. Let’s quickly run through what might be essential for every web developer to know about CSS. Main focus: maintainability, though differently.
#60 · · css, maintainability
Website Optimization Measures, Part V
Almost half a year since the last article it’s about time to present version 5 of random website optimization measures, hopefully of use for your site as well. Short and crispy, to use a random German expression.
#59 · · optimization
An Exercise for Emerging CSS Experts: Avoid IDs and Classes
To gain more expertise with CSS, there’s a great bonus level: Try to avoid IDs and classes altogether. That’s right: Write your markup without any IDs and classes.
The Most Annoying Yet Most Important Task in Website Management
…is link checking. There are tools out there, en masse, but we still have to run after professionals who neglect online fundamentals or don’t set up redirects—and with that waste other people’s time.
#57 ·
Code Responsibly
Exactly.
#56 ·
Accessibility Heuristics
You can bolster your accessibility knowledge by internalizing heuristics and ground rules. Review the guidelines and rules provided by the W3C and IBM.
#55 · · accessibility
Web Standards at Google
As an exception, I’m writing as a Googler here: At Google, we care about web standards. Officially, that’s no news, but given repeated criticism for the code of our pages, maybe it is.
#54 · · quality
The Most Important Thing Is to Get the HTML Right
Why? Because it’s the markup that makes for most of the code of a site and is hence key to cost efficiency and maintainability; because it carries meaning and is important for accessibility; because it often has an impact on performance; and because it is the prerequisite for online success.
#53 · · html, quality, semantics, accessibility, maintainability
When Guidelines Should Be Descriptive or Prescriptive
Every time I’m putting up guidelines or conventions one of the decisions I need to make is whether the guidelines, or which parts of them, should be descriptive or prescriptive. For coding guidelines this could mean the difference between, say, “the markup should be valid” and “the markup must be valid”…
How to Share Code With Users
If you share HTML/CSS code with users: Make sure that the code is valid and that ideally, it works with both HTML and XHTML. Focusing on valid code—a step towards quality code—should be obvious. “Invalidating” other people’s sites isn’t nice…
#51 · · quality