Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman

Two reasons you might hate this book:

1. If you’re a sloppy web designer who doesn’t care about making the content of the web site you’re designing both beautiful and accessible to the widest possible audience of users, you’ll hate this book. Mr. Zeldman chose the title - “Designing With Web Standards” carefully: His book is about designing web sites using the most up-to-date standards published by W3C and ECMA, whose web sites have never represented the vanguard of graphic design. Mr. Zeldman cut his teeth in the “paper publishing” graphic design and copy writing business before the web changed everything in the 1990s. DWWS is not an encyclopedic catalog or desk reference to the fundamentals of web standards. It’s a playful Wonka-esque romp (as in Willy Wonka) through the wonders of web standards which gives copious examples of practical ways in which you can use web standards to optimize both your products and processes to result in more effective, more usable, and more attractive websites.

2. If you read W3C specifications for fun and pleasure, and keep the most recent edition of the U.S. Tax Code along with a well-worn copy of Immanuel Kant’s collected works on your bedside table, you’ll probably hate this book. To which I say, in the words of my wife: “You’re far too smart and far too serious for your own good.” The W3C specifications are publicly available on the web for you to peruse at your leisure, and every web designer should be familiar with them. But if you’re expecting a thorough desk reference to XHTML, CSS, and the Document Object Model (DOM), then this may not be the book for you. Sorry.

Jeffrey Zeldman - Designing With Web Standards

The top five reasons this book is a classic:

1. It’s a clear, witty, and often entertaining introduction to web standards from the perspective of a working web designer, as opposed to a W3C specifications wonk. XHTML controls the structure of a web page, CSS defines its presentation and DOM scripting directs its behavior. The power of web standards lies in learning how to use each standard for its intended purpose. For example, XHTML should not be used to define the presentation of web page: colors, fonts, positioning, and the rest. Au contraire, presentation is a job for CSS. This sort of thing is potentially a sterile topic, but Mr. Zeldman is an engaging writer and as I read the book the pages often seemed to turn themselves.

2. Few have a better grasp of the history, politics, and economics of web standards than Jeffrey Zeldman. As a co-founder of The Web Standards Project in 1998, Mr. Zeldman fought on the front-lines of the battle for a more elegant, usable, and accessible web. In fact, the first hundred pages or so of DWWS contain an eyewitness history of the browser wars and the emergence of web standards. Why is this important? Why bother with the nitty-gritty of early battles between Internet Explorer and Netscape? Because, in the midst of those battles, many web designers formed bad habits which web standards were designed to fix. Not to mention that it makes for great David vs. Goliath story.

3. Great explanations of real-world objections to web standards in a business setting and detailed refutations of these objections. Designing attractive standards-compliant websites is appealing in its own right as an art form, but Mr. Zeldman recognizes that even high-minded web designers need bread for their tables. Well he knows, too, that the typical business website needs a bit more panache than, say, the W3C homepage. For example, DWWS has a chapter on accessibility standards: Section 508 in the U.S., and WCAG in the European Union and most other countries. Everyone who supports human rights – including the rights of the blind, the deaf, and the disabled – should be interested in such standards. But Zeldman also shows how using accessibility standards can improve web sites’ visibility to “blind” web crawlers such as the Google search engine. And who’s not interested in that?

4. Tons of case studies. Zeldman gives us all the gory details. Like Dante in the Divine Comedy, he leads us first through web-site hell (web sites based on inelegant, non-durable proprietary technologies), then through purgatory (transitional strategies for converting web sites from sloppy proprietary HTML into well-crafted Transitional XHTML and CSS), and finally into paradise, where we are afforded the opportunity to gaze upon the beauty and utility of XHTML, CSS, and the DOM (“the trinity of web standards”). See, I told you this book was a classic of web design!

5. An emphasis on practical, standards-compliant workarounds and hacks for problems that still remain in current browser implementations. Web standards have steadily continued to win acceptance since the first edition of DWWS was published in 2002 (e.g., try this Google Trends query), and the most popular web browsers are more standards-compliant than ever. Moreover, web browser software publishers and web site designers are finding that the costs and risks of using proprietary web technologies are growing. But despite the increasing ubiquity of web standards, problems remain. Neither Internet Explorer 7.0 nor Firefox 3.0 are fully standards compliant, untold millions of Internet users still use older versions of browsers, and more and more people are accessing the web from crippled web browsers in cell phones and mobile PCs. Remember those case studies I was telling you about? Lots of them explain standards-compliant solutions for annoying quirks in supposedly standards-compliant browsers, such as different implementations of the CSS box model.

Case closed. Designing With Web Standards is well worth your time and money and highly recommended.

Many parts of the book have a conversational tone, like Don is talking to you in a Portland coffee shop, or by the campfire. For example,  the author’s note (like a preface before chapter one) says:

I never liked Jazz music because Jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theatre in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxaphone. I stood there for fifteen minutes (watching him), and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked Jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It as if they are showing you the way.

I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened…

Thomas Nelson is clearly targeting this book at a post-modern culture. Some of my friends that are agnostics, skeptics, or use-to-be-Catholic might enjoy reading this book.

This book grapples with the paradoxes of life, but you might not want to go there…

You might love God and hate this book. On the other hand, you might hate God, and love this book.

If you are looking for a book on systematic theology, careful Biblical commentary, or church history — this book is NOT what you are looking for.

ISBN 0-7852-6370-5

“Originally, I wanted to do it because of boyhood dreams. I don’t know about girls, but I think most guys look up in the sky and wish they could ride on a cloud.”

Couch’s wife, Susan, called him crazy: “It’s never been a dull moment since I married him.”

The expert hang drummer featured in this video is Manu Delago.

The hang drum comes from Switzerland. It is similar to the steel drums often associated with Caribbean Island music, but is lighter; more responsive to being played by hand, rather than a mallet. Hang means hand - from the Germanic word for hand. This modern instrument was developed very recently (@ 2000) with acoustic and metallurgical innovations — that created a very melodious percussive instrument.

You can hit it with your hands; tap it with your fingers; even make it sing by rubbing gently, similar to playing crystal drinking glasses.

I browned the sausage on Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning I got up early; whipped the eggs, and grated the extra-sharp cheddar cheese. While it baked in the oven, I wrote a short article about Bono.

Priscilla made some fruit salad. We had breakfast a little after 8:00AM. Jane and the girls enjoyed the breakfast.

We got to church early, and the girls practiced Let All Things Now Living on the violin, viola, and cello. (It’s sung to the old Welsh tune of Ash Grove.) Ralph talked about letting the little children come to Jesus, and the blessings of God’s covenant faithfulness.

We had chicken, potatoes and vegies for lunch. Then we watched City of Joy. It’s a great movie about a shanty town in Calcutta — filled with gangsters, slum dwellers, and people with leprosy. (People I could relate to.) Do you know the happiest part of the movie? The wedding celebration.

That was yesterday. It’s only a memory now. Yesterday was also a Beatles’ song. But that was yesterday, and I want to talk about Tomorrow. Smashing Pumpkins wrote a song called Today (which I don’t recommend), so let’s talk about Tomorrow.

My mother grew up in Ogilvie, Minnesota — which is a really small town along highway 23, north of the Twin Cities. Seems like a lot of kids growing up in Ogilvie felt trapped in that tiny town, and could not wait to grow up and get out of that “2 traffic-light town”. There were only a couple stores in Ogilvie, so lot’s of folks went to other towns nearby to do their shopping. To the north-east was a town called Mora, and to the south was a little town called Day. Seems like the town called Day was even smaller than Ogilvie, so maybe they went there just to get away from Ogilvie.

People in Ogilvie had a saying that was kind of funny and really makes you think about yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They would say:

“Today I’m going to Mora, and tomorrow I’m going to Day.”

Bono wrote a song about his mother’s funeral, called Tomorrow. His mom died when he was only 14, and I think that was one of the big events that set a trajectory for his life, and shaped several of his songs.

Tomorrow also talks about Jesus coming back. [ Tomorrow Lyrics - song by Bono/U2]

“Open up to the Lamb of God… To the love of He who made the blind to see … He’s coming back, I believe it, Jesus coming… I’m gonna be there.”

I know the Great Wedding Feast is coming Tomorrow, and I’m gonna be there too. Just wanted to encourage you to think about yesterday, today, and tomorrow, while it’s still today.

It’s always daytime where I’m going. It’s called it the marriage supper of the Lamb. I’m not sure if we’ll eat breakfast since there won’t be any night, but I’m sure there will be joy and feasting. No darkness. No night. Only light. Only day.

Today I’m only talking about Tomorrow, but Tomorrow I’m going to Day.

To celebrate his 48th birthday, Bono had a small dinner party at Sass’ Café in Monaco. On the guest list: Brad Pitt, Monaco’s Prince Albert II and the Edge.

Bono was born to a Roman Catholic father and a Protestant mother during a time when Ireland was sharply divided among sectarian lines. Back in 1977 (the year I graduated from high school), in the city of Dublin, Paul (Bono) and “school friends David Evans (later ‘the Edge’), Larry Mullen, Jr., and Adam Clayton formed a band that would become U2. They shared a commitment not only to ambitious rock music but also to a deeply spiritual Christianity.”

In this YouTube video clip he talks about growing up when “Ireland was divided along religious lines”. He shares a few memories and says that “young people like me were parched for the vision that poured out of pulpits of black America, and the vision of a black reverend from Atlanta — a man who refused to hate, because he knew love would do a better job.” (See M.L. King video with U2-Bono song - In the Name of Love.)

Continuing in the video clip Bono says:

“These ideas travel you know [ideas about love, instead of hate] and they reached me, clear as any tune, and lodged in my brain like a song… and may I say it was the poetry, and the righteous anger of the black church that was such an inspiration to me, a very white, almost pink Irish man growing up in Dublin…. True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedoms. Love thy neighbor is not a piece of advice. It’s a command.”

Sources:

Youtube video clip of Bono speech at NAACP gathering (posted March 2, 2007) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRY2sOiBZxI>.

“Bono.” Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 11-May-2008 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/860737/Bono>.

As I “plowed the field” this morning, this “rap song” started to formulate in my mind…

Blame it on the Thistle!
Blame it on the Thorn!
Blame it all on God, for the day I was born!

Blame it on the Soil!
Blame it on the Plow!
Blame it on the Sweat drippin from my brow!

Blame it on the Sunshine!
Blame it on the Rain!
Blame it on Anything that caused my pain!

Blame it on the Christians!
Blame it on the Jews!
Blame it on the Pagans with strange Tatoos!

Blame it on the Pilgrims!
Blame it on the Brits!
Blame it on the Indian, if the moccasin fits!

Blame it on the Cotton!
Blame it on the Hoe!
Blame it on Pharaoh who won’t let me go!

Blame it on the Railroad!
Blame it on the War!
Blame it on my Neighbor who lives next door!

Blame it on the Textbooks!
Blame it on the Schools!
Blame it on the Teachers - educatin fools!

Blame it on the Hip Hop!
Blame it on the Blues!
Blame it on the Rap Stars, going for a cruise!

Blame it on the Drug Deals!
Blame it on the Whore!
Blame it on the Gangster who robbed the liquor store!

Blame it on the Lawyer!
Blame it on the Judge!
Blame it on the News Man who blames it all on Drudge!

Blame it all on Wall Street!
Blame it on the FED!
Blame it on the Bankers - that we have no bread!

Blame it on the Movies!
Blame it all on Guns!
Blame it all on Hollywood hot crossed buns!

Blame it on the Muslims!
Blame it on the Pope!
Blame it on my Neighbor kids smoking dope!

Blame it on the Woman!
Blame it on the Snake!
Blame it all on Anything but my mistake!

There is this huge problem… the elephant in the room… that no one wants to talk about.

The problem is the same, ever since my father broke fellowship with his Father. He blamed it on his wife, and she blamed it on the snake, but as they left the garden that day, my father knew deep in his heart that he was the problem.

I am the problem.

It was a very hot day to be working the plow. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, he cursed the thistles and thorns, but knew in his heart, that he was the problem.

I am the problem. Don Miller said that on page 20 of Blue Like Jazz. How could Don know that I’m the problem, when he doesn’t even know me? It’s like God must have told him that I was the problem.

Sometimes I worry about what people think if I admit that “I’m the problem”. However, when I admit that I’m the problem, part of the problem is solved.

People think what they want to think. People believe what they want to believe. People follow rap stars like 50 Cent, or Fat Joe because they like the message, or somehow the message is helping to them to understand the chaos of the cosmos.

I discovered another thing in Blue Like Jazz — while reading on my Friday morning bus ride:

“People hardly care what you believe, as long as you believe something. If you are passionate about something, people will follow you because they think you know something they don’t, some clue to the meaning of the universe… If a rapper is passionately rapping about how great his rap is, his passion is pointed to nothing. He isn’t helping anything. His beliefs are self serving and shallow. If a rapper, however, is rapping about his community, about oppression and injustice, then he is passionate about a message, something outside himself.”

Who is Fat Joe and why is he coming to Detroit? A bro with a big smile, colorful tee shirt and better dread-locks than Jimmy Hendrix, said that Fat Joe is some kind of hip-hop rap guy from the Bronx. Yep, it looks like Gangsta Rap at it’s finest (or baddest) …

Wikipedia’s got the skinny on Fat Joe:

Fat Joe’s album The Elephant in the Room was distributed by Imperial Records, a division of Capitol Records and Terror Squad Entertainment, and released on March 11, 2008; its lead single was “I Won’t Tell” featuring singer J. Holiday. The album debuted at the sixth position on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fat Joe got in a fight with Papoose in North Carolina recently, and 50 Cent says Fat Joe’s career is already dead. So Fat Joe is coming to Detroit … and I just hope nobody gets hurt.

In June 2007, the Reverend Michael Pfleger targeted Fat Joe as among several rappers he believed promoted misogyny in his billboard campaign “Stop Listening to Trash”.

There is a lot of angry music in Detroit. On the bus ride home, one guy was really angry about the price of gas being $3.69. [Note: It went up to $3.89 two days later.] Then he started yelling: “Did Bush find the weapons of mass destruction yet?” Another guy was talking about the recent Police brutality (allegations) in Philly and said, it was so bad.. made Rodney King look like a walk in the park, compared to that. If things are bad in the City of Brotherly Love (Philly)… must be even worse in Detroit… someone else started complaining about Kwame…

Then the man who was talking the loudest said “I wish God would come back”. “Really! I hope God comes back to stop all this bull-sh__ [injustice]“. “I hope God comes back soon.” Another black gentleman, more soft-spoken (and not as angry) said he “hoped God did not come back too soon, because some people are not ready yet.” That made me think of what my friend Ralph (the preacher) said: “God is patient in His Holy Anger against corruption, injustice, oppression, sin and wickedness. God is patient and slow to anger. God is not willing that any should perish.”

When God comes back to town… he will not come into town like Fat Joe. It will be be a lot worse, but a lot better… all at the same time.

I listened to the conversations and tried to understand what makes people angry. The bus stopped a few times. A few people got off the bus, and others got on. The bus grew quieter. While a few people drifted off to sleep, I read another chapter in Blue Like Jazz.