{sample: true}
“Upgrade Your HTML”—or was this all “Downgrade Your HTML”? You’ve read ten short chapters and have encountered as many samples of HTML that were discussed and minimized.
Is this just correlation, or was there a mistake that all these upgrades resulted in less code? Is less code an upgrade all by itself?
I’m biased—I specialize in using as little code as possible and I love the idea of “minimal web development.” Yet I believe there’s a strong correlation. Sometimes, more markup leads to improvements and upgrades—for example, making sure an image gets its alt attribute. Oftentimes, it’s less code that improves matters, for less code reflects focus, improves performance, understanding, and maintainability.
As with many rules, there are exceptions, yet I don’t find it surprising that what this little book shows is that improvements often come with removing rather than adding code.
The aspect I like to close with, however, is a different one: There are always things to improve. (Even if Jesus or another amazing person joined us right here, right now, someone could find something objectionable about that.) Yet, as that statement, as the examples, as I tried to show, that’s not a negative thing, for if there’s always something to improve, it doesn’t mean that what was there before was necessarily “bad.” It’s also constructive to make suggestions for improvements, especially when there’s reason to believe that these do, indeed, solve what’s been pointed out as problems.
Making constructive suggestions around actual uses of HTML has been the idea behind this booklet. It’s likewise the idea for a series of such writings, similarly brief—for there are always things to improve, for there’s always HTML to, you name it: upgrade.
Thank you for following along, and the best wishes to you, and your HTML.
PS. If you like to learn about other HTML blunders, have a look at Manuel Matuzović’s “HTMHell.” HTMHell shares the same spirit as Upgrade Your HTML, and Manuel does a great job explaining issues with HTML, and how to avoid or fix them.