Jens Oliver Meiert
meiert.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Jens Oliver Meiert, a web developer and author, writes about clean HTML and CSS, optional tags, valid markup, and minimal web development.
What HN saysCommenters recommend his 'Upgrade Your HTML' books and HTML elements index as useful minimalist references, though one questions his repetitive CSS file.
47HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
39stories submitted
961story points
2 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Optional HTML: Everything You Need to Know5 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 2Html elements5 people · first shared 2014
- 3Only 0.5% of the Global Top Websites Use Valid HTML2 people · 7 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Must Work Without JavaScript?2 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · 3 comments on HN
- 50 of the Global Top 100 Websites Use Valid HTML (in 2022)2 people · 3 points · first shared 2022 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Why css needs no variables2 people · first shared 2010
- 7Ignore AMP1 people · 426 points · first shared 2020 · 156 comments on HN
- 8A Short Guide to Minimal Web Development (2018)1 people · 277 points · first shared 2020 · 83 comments on HN
- 970% Repetition in Style Sheets: Data on How We Fail at CSS Optimization1 people · 111 points · first shared 2017 · 50 comments on HN
- 10AI will never be ethical or safe1 people · 46 points · first shared 2026 · 17 comments on HN
- 11CSS Properties Index1 people · 40 points · first shared 2011 · 2 comments on HN
- 12The Reminder Trick1 people · 5 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 13In Critical Defense of Front End Development1 people · 4 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 14The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks1 people · 3 points · first shared 2015 · 1 comments on HN
- 15A Minimal CSS Starter1 people · 3 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
sivers · 2022-06-10
Thanks to Aaron for posting this. Such a great reminder.
Anyone interested in this subject, check out a series of three very tiny books called “UPGRADE YOUR HTML” by Jens Oliver Meiert.
They give great step-by-step examples for eliminating optional tags and attributes, reducing HTML to its cleanest simplest valid form. The author is a super-expert in this specific subject, working with Google and W3C on this. His bio here: https://meiert.com/en/biography/
From LeanPub:
https://leanpub.com/b/upgrade-your-html-123
From Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08NP4GXY2/
robocat · 2017-06-26
Example of low repetition from his page:
view-source:https://meiert.com/setup/default.css
If this is worthwhile doing, a source tool to transform it would make more sense IMO.
myfonj · 2017-02-15
MDN indeed is (and should remain) the canonical resource, but projects like this could be nice additions.
https://meiert.com/en/indices/html-elements/ - another nice minimalist project with great value.
psadauskas · 2009-06-28
There isn't even a need for the <head> and <body> tags at all. This is valid HTML 4.01 Strict:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<html lang="en">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Here's our title</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheet">
<p>Here's our body
And this is valid HTML 5:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Here's our title</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheet">
<p>Here's our body
(From http://meiert.com/en/blog/20080429/best-html-template/ )
alwillis · 2025-01-25
This is very good: https://meiert.com/en/indices/html-elements/
wild_egg · 2024-02-19
Quotes are completely optional on attribute values in HTML5 if the value doesn't have certain characters like spaces which will require quoting
I've found this article a handy reference on all the stuff it's safe to leave out
https://meiert.com/en/blog/optional-html/
ezequiel-garzon · 2023-09-03
The puzzling aspect is that, contrary to what most people would assume, the B, I, EM and STRONG elements all came out under the same version (2.0) of HTML: https://meiert.com/en/indices/html-elements/
Devasta · 2023-04-11
https://meiert.com/en/blog/valid-html-2021/
Most sites still don't have valid HTML.
SPBS · 2022-11-10
Exactly what I was thinking, by omitting the <html> <head> and <body> HTML can be quite concise [1]. Additionally the closing </li> can be omitted from lists and <li> barely a step over using - for bullet points.
The worst part about HTML is the links, though. Anchor tags are awful. Having to repeatedly type <a href="..."> and closing with </a> is wayyy too boilerplate much for for something that is simply surrounded with [square](brackets) in markdown.
[1] I go to https://meiert.com/en/blog/optional-html/ for reference.
skyfaller · 2022-09-29
Another source explaining optional HTML in depth: https://meiert.com/en/blog/optional-html/
brainlessdev · 2020-08-27
The author mentions something about omitting HTML tags and links to another article of his own, which could explain this (I haven't read it yet):
https://meiert.com/en/blog/optional-html/
mathias · 2014-07-07
Please use http://meiert.com/en/indices/html-elements/ instead, as it’s based on the WHATWG HTML Living Standard rather than W3C’s versioned fork.
meowface · 2014-07-07
Here's one also by WHATWG, with all the relevant changes:
http://meiert.com/en/indices/html-elements/
TorbjornLunde · 2011-03-28
Don't overcomplicate things:
- Have only one CSS-file, unless your project is huge.
- Never use IDs
- Avoid reset CSS (espescially if you can ignore IE6/7
- If you think you need variables (like in SASS), you are probably thinking about it the wrong way
- Give classes functional names, not presentational
- Linebreaks after declaration. (Makes your CSS-file easier to navigate)
- Remember that you can use you media queries inside your CSS-file
Web designer Jens Meiert has some good articles:
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090401/why-css-needs-no-variables/
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20080515/css-organization-and-efficiency/
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20070321/css-practice-pseudo-namespaces-in-c…
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090527/css-maintenance-issue-1/
klochner · 2010-04-30
I'm not taking sides yet, but . . .
"why CSS needs no variables"
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090401/why-css-needs-no-variables/