Jens Oliver Meiert

Minimalism

5 Ways to Reduce HTML File Size on Your Website, Step 0

The journey begins with an unpopular step.

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DeepSeek and HTML

“What is the most minimal valid HTML document?”, DeepSeek-R1 edition.

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Upgrade Your HTML V.

Now Available: Upgrade Your HTML V!

The newest part of the ebook series for HTML craftspeople and minimalists, touching on past, present, and future of the greatest document language ever specified.

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The Most Minimal Valid HTML Document

—isn’t that exciting, isn’t even new, but can use repeating in times of conformance neglect and AI-assisted coding.

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Upgrade Your HTML IV.

Upgrade Your HTML IV

HTML forms the heart of the Web. The beautiful thing is, HTML is easy to learn. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to master. In the Upgrade Your HTML series, I’m taking examples of HTML, discuss these examples, and make them a little better. I’m excited to announce the fourth book of the series.

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Minimal Dark Mode

What’s the easiest and fastest way to set up dark mode? Depending on the setup, something from one declaration to two rules.

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Minimal Social Markup

Every website and app these days relies on so-called “social markup,” metadata for a richer and prettier display in social media and messaging tools. On the absolute minimum you may need.

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Write HTML, the HTML Way (Not the XHTML Way)

You may not use XHTML (anymore), but when you write HTML, you may be more influenced by XHTML than you think. You are very likely writing HTML, the XHTML way.

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The 6 Ways of Writing HTML (and Their Combinations)

There are 6 general ways of writing HTML: unsystematic, valid, semantic, accessible, required-only, and hyper-optimized. These types make for 19 combinations—the ways we write HTML.

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One Favicon to Rule Them All

I think the situation around favicons sucks. For an HTML minimalist, the ideal world consists of this when it comes to defining a website or app icon: one image file—no code. This is the minimalist’s dream, and we aren’t there yet—or are we?

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CSS: “:has()” and the Lost Paradigm

On the :has() pseudo-class and the forgotten school of ID- and class-less development.

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Upgrade Your HTML III.

Upgrade Your HTML III

If you care about HTML as a craft, if you consider yourself an HTML minimalist, if you believe in pushing for boundaries (and sometimes overdoing it), then this is a right book (and a right book series) for you—with 10 fresh examples from the field that get inspected and improved.

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Upgrade Your HTML II.

Upgrade Your HTML II

If you care about HTML as a craft, if you consider yourself an HTML minimalist, if you believe in pushing for boundaries (and sometimes overdoing it), then this is a right book (and a right book series) for you—with 10 new examples from the field that get inspected and improved.

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Upgrade Your HTML.

Upgrade Your HTML (the Booklet)

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.

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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.

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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.

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Understandable-Simple vs. Minimal-Simple Code

Code simplicity seems to be a goal quite worthwhile, contributing to better understanding, greater robustness, and higher quality. That’s at least what comes to my mind when looking at the matter…

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A Vision of Web Development

There is one thing every web developer should aspire to: writing the most minimal, semantically appropriate, valid HTML, and then never changing it. “Never” not in a sense of denial and refusal, but in the sense of a guiding light…

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A Few Words on HTML/CSS Frameworks

Public, or open, or external, HTML/CSS frameworks are rarely a good idea. Why? Because framework developers are outside of your organization and cannot know your needs. This simple fact, the inevitable ignorance of a third party, means that—

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The World’s Best HTML Template

…again, exclusively, and as long as HTML 5 is in progress.

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