This week's detritus

358 words written by dylan
Posted March 06, 2005 @ 09:18 PM
4 comments

I've been reading Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm. I've been in search of "the one book on CSS you can recommend to someone to a CSS neophyte" for a while now, since I deal with a number of web designers who don't have a good grasp of HTML and CSS standards. Lately, the "reading assignment" has been Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing With Web Standards, but the more I read Cederholm's book the more I like his approach vis-a-vis Zeldman. Zeldman takes 20 pages to explain the reasoning behind using list tags for lists in well-formed code; Cederholm needs five. Cederholm's writing is sparse, but explains more in fewer words than Zeldman. The gurus and oracles of CSS (Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Dave Shea) have all written fantastic books over the years, but Web Standards Solutions seems like the book I should be handing these 20 year old novice designers.

Speaking of... I'm working on a longer post, a cheatsheet of everything one should know about CSS. Maybe that will bubble to the surface one of these years.

And oh, I guess I should share the site I designed for a writer friend of Susan's.

I never talk about work around here. Want to know why? Google me. One of these days one of my coworkers is going to discover this site, and I'll hear about it. So, I make it a policy to never discuss work. (OK, maybe a few years ago I did mention a couple of things, but I haven't since then.) This is sad, because there is something that happened on Friday afternoon that I would really, really love to discuss, since it would garner a knowing nod from Ben (aka One Of The Six Readers O' This Site That I Am Not Related To In Some Ways By Sexual Intercourse).

I think the digital camera is showing signs of dying -- the imager is starting to produce pictures that look like they're from a bad convenience store video camera. Just wish I had the money for a Digital Rebel. Just wish I had money for any camera, period.

Comments

  1. I also make a practice of not mentioning work on my website, just in case.

    Posted by: samantha | March 6, 2005 09:44 PM

  2. I've been avoiding writing about work, for the most part. I don't know if anyone from work reads it (though I know that most people at work don't "read", they "skim" - so chances are I'm fine-- to a point.).

    Posted by: Tara | March 7, 2005 11:59 AM

  3. What about "Web Style Guide", by Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton? (I'd paste the Amazon link, but it's too long to be useful)

    Posted by: Harry | March 12, 2005 08:23 AM

  4. Well - mista D - when I ask you about CSS it's not that I lack a general understanding... it's that I don't know what particular hack I need to make the often useless, always over convoluted, CSS to work. :) MistA B mentioned you were helping to which I replied "ah mista D - elegance over simplicity and functionality"

    I talked about work and the my satanic, data collecting company threatened to fire me. :) So, I talk about work, I just don't mention specifics.

    Do tell though - I'd love to hear about your dilbert adventures and wacky-demia :)

    Posted by: ben | March 22, 2005 07:31 AM