Stuff & Nonsense

Aside from what people said about screen readers (which at least makes it a bit better than tables) this is still a bad layout. Here[1] is a revised edition of a book I read in 2006 about this topic how people often just replace all table elements with div elements and call it a day instead of using all the options CSS provides. Another topic was using all the tools the browsers with the best standard support gave you while still providing a more limited, but at least usable, version for browsers which hadn't implemented some features (yet). Even back then you could make pages which read well if CSS wasn't available and were visually appealing with CSS applied and today almost any browser has all these tools available. [1] https://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/transcending-css-revisited - there's a free online version available

The concern of what advancements in technology mean for web workers has recently blossomed in main circles. Jeff Croft wrote that being a web designer isn't enough to sustain a career.[1] Jeffrey Zeldman countered that argument with the notion that being an expert in the field is enough to sustain oneself, but only if you can expand on your knowledge with other skills.[2] Andrew Clarke then followed-up on both of those pieces.[3] It's an interesting time to be involved in tech, especially on the web. What comes next is simply more adaptation, what other choice to we (as workers) have? 1. http://jeffcroft.com/blog/2014/jan/03/web-standards-killed-the-html-st… 2. http://www.zeldman.com/2014/01/06/its-2014-is-web-design-dead/ 3. http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/blog/about/its-2014.-web-design-isnt-dea…

As someone who basically thinks CSS is a great idea, I have mixed feelings about this article. On the one hand it's a rather silly rant, and is downright wrong in several places. On the other hand, CSS has a number of irritating limitations. However, overall I'd say that the real problem is the dog-slow speed of inclusion of new CSS features by certain browser developers, and the even more glacial up-take of more modern browsers by a large class of users. A lot of the real problems in the article would be solved by people ditching Internet Explorer. As it is, I spend an awful lot of my time writing workarounds for its broken DOM and box model. 1. Curvy corners I'm not sure what the author's obsession with JavaScript fixes is. There are plenty of pure CSS rounded corner implementations. However, they are universally horrible, involving large amounts of junk markup and/or image backgrounds. 2. Vertical floats. What do floats have to do with vertical positioning? The problem, however, is real enough. This one is a perfect example of the "We could do this easily with tables" class of CSS layout problems. 3. Formatting for forms. In this case, the author doesn't go far enough. Laying out and styling forms with CSS is a horrible job; at work we have an entire JavaScript package to help out. As far as layout goes, though, a few floated divs tend to deal with most problems. The real problem is when you don't have control over the markup, for example when using the…

When I learnt front-end dev there were no seniors to learn from — I was part of the first generation, and we pretty much just made it up as we went. We learnt by trial and error, and by looking at each others source code. And blogs. Read web dev blogs. Much more up to date than books, and you get to see the latest ideas and take part in discussions of evolving standards. My favs: A List Apart, Adactio, Smashing Magazine, CSS-Tricks, Zeldman, Stuff & Nonsense, The Web Ahead, Mozilla Hacks, Coding Horror. https://alistapart.com https://adactio.com https://www.smashingmagazine.com https://css-tricks.com http://www.zeldman.com https://stuffandnonsense.co.uk http://5by5.tv/webahead https://hacks.mozilla.org https://blog.codinghorror.com

you might also enjoy Contract Killer, an open-source contract for web designers and developers: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/contract-killer/

I've always had a soft spot for Andy Clarke's (much older) CSS Specificity Wars poster: http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/css_specificity_wars.html

I'm surprised nobody linked to this yet? http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/images/specificitywars-05v2…

Yes, and the OP is also using the term "Mobile First" differently than my own sense of it. To me, Mobile First means developing websites targeted at smartphone screens first, that scale gracefully upward to desktop size. The 320andup boilerplate is a good example [1]. I see it also means a more general business strategy of focusing on your mobile app first, be it native or HTML5, and then your website. But could be some mixed messaging due to the multiple meanings of that term. 1. http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/320andup/

I don't like it too much. It's still based on designing for desktop first. I prefer the ones that use a mobile first approach, which is more future-proof and is supported on more devices. Also, another thing to consider is fluid-width vs fixed-width. Fluid width layouts are harder, but much more future proof. The mobile device landscape changes fast, and there are lots of sizes to design for. A fluid-width website would be much better in this case. Some of these are Gridless[1], HTML5 Boilerplate[2] and 320 and Up[3]. [1]: http://thatcoolguy.github.com/gridless-boilerplate/ [2]: http://html5boilerplate.com/ [3]: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/320andup/

I'm going to have to spend a bit of time comparing this to Andy Clarke's 320 and Up[1]. From what I can tell so far, the difference appears to be philosophical - desktop first vs mobile first. [1]: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/320andup/

I think there's a key point that hasn't been mentioned yet, that there may just be no need to deliver JavaScript to IE 6-8 at all. A lot of smart devs are already taking a similar approach with CSS, serving up a minimal 'print' stylesheet for oldIE [1] [2]. - If you're using JS for progressive enhancement on an otherwise static site, e.g. form validation, pjax, image carousels, tabs, animations... simply drop that JS for 6-8. Form validation should just round-trip to the server as it has to do anyway, pages should just link normally, other visual enhancements can be dropped. That's the progressive enhancement way after all. - If you're trying to build a single-page web app for IE 6-8 and this is your reason for wanting jQuery to work, then you're going to find those browsers have JS engines that are incredibly slow and a JS-heavy web app for oldIE is not going to deliver a good user experience even if you get it to 'work'. I think frankly this is an unrealistic goal from the get-go. The pitiful speed of JS on these browsers is something that does seem to be often overlooked. If you absolutely have to push a single-page web app to a corporate customer stuck on oldIE, Chrome Frame is a very sensible option. This has served us well and we've yet to encounter a customer who complains, as long as you give them plenty of forewarning and explanation. It can be tied down to only trigger on your site, so sysadmins really have nothing to gripe about with respect to FUD about attack…

The number one rule: Have a contract. You can find a fairly good example of a contract here: http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/content/dl/2010/05/11/contract-killer-2n… This is how I work, it's working well though I am still fairly new at this as well. After talking with the client I'll put together a proposal which details the full scope of the project and the estimated cost. When the client agrees with the proposal I'll send a contract which details my payment schedule which is generally in 3 stages: 1) 10% of my estimate is due on contract signing 2) 40% of my estimate is due before work can begin on the project 3) The remaining 50% is due on completion. Once the contract is signed I send over an invoice for the 10% deposit payment. The 50% up-front payment weeds out any clients that were never going to pay, and I don't hand over any assets until the final fee has been paid.