Easily digested, Bite Size Standards
I have noticed that many web professionals I talk to find themselves too busy to have the time to read lengthy, detailed tutorials or articles. That’s quite understandable when all you’re looking for is a solution to a specific problem. When you’re in that mode, you want the answer now, not after reading an article as long as those I write tend to become.
So John Oxton’s idea of presenting useful information on web standards and related topics in small, bite-sized chunks seems like a very good one. He brought together a team of experts and created Bite Size Standards, a collaborative blog that aims to offer concise web development tutorials, tips and tricks
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Bite Size Standards being brand new and all, there aren’t a whole lot of tips there yet, and a couple of those that have been published could use a little polishing to avoid comments from nitpickers like me. But breaking down useful information into small pieces is a great concept, so I still think this site is very promising.
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About the author
Roger Johansson is a Swedish web professional specialising in web standards, accessibility, and usability. More about me and this site.
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Comments
"a couple of those that have been published could use a little polishing to avoid comments from nitpickers like me".
Your nitpicking is invaluable in helping us move forward, I for one am grateful for it! :)
Thanks for the link up!
Hehe, I'll be there keeping an eye on you ;-).
It's an excellent site. I'm curious to know why they chose HTML 4 over XHTML. Maybe, it will begin something.
Don't worry Sean, we'll spell out exactly why I pushed for HTML 4 (but concise, of course).
Might turn out to be a valuable site when in search for quick mind-refreshes.
Only thing I didn't like were some articles/comments that I interpreted as: "browsers don't work as they should, so we fix things now so those browsers won't have to be improved on anytime soon". Although that may reflect reality, and often be the way we have to do it in order to make things work, I resent seeing it promoted as 'the right approach' on a site that “aims to offer concise web development tutorials, tips and tricks”.
Roger: I don't mind long blog entries, your's are perfectly fine. The only problem that I can see with long posts is that some authors may go off topic. Not having seen Bite Size Standards yet, I wonder if some topics are dealt with in full in a short post?
Georg: Is the point of your site to get browser makers to update or is your site for users?
At Bite Size we consider the latter to be true. (Of course, you have to make the 'fixes' forwards compatible, but that's a given)
Jules: The point is that they don't deal with the whole topic in full, but just that lil' tidbit in a concise and clear manner. There are enough sites out there who do everything and the kitchen sink.
James: my point is that users don't suffer if weaknesses in their browsers result in minor differences compared to what comes up in the stronger ones. I never ignore users, so I will only fix what needs to be fixed - for users, and ignore the rest.
'Progressive Enhancement' is a proper term for my approach, I think, and I don't mind a certain amount of "disgraceful degradation" in less capable browsers, that only web designers will notice when they compare details across browser-land.
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