Web Development Archive

During a workshop on accessibility and WAI yesterday, the issue of proper use of HTML headings came up.

Lots of sites fall short when it comes to using HTML headings (and other elements) properly, something that can affect accessibility, search engine ranking, as well as code maintenance [not to forget future re-use on the grand Semantic Web].

How - and where - to properly use the elements might not always be that clear, and some of the questions raised during the discussion can be rephrased as:

• Do all web sites/documents have a clearly defined heading?
• Do all documents have to specify a H1?
  
• Is it really OK to put the logo inside H1?

What follows is my 2 cents on the subject.

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Whether or not Firefox is your favorite browser:

Set a Guinness World Record
Enjoy a Better Web

I’ve already tried the Firefox 3.0 beta (now a release candidate) for a while and can confirm that it is a faster and less consuming browser, so help rid the world of MSIE.

In a recent article, IAllenkelhet.no (Norwegian) claims that a survey conducted last year revealed that while 90% of us expect web developers to have expert knowledge about HTML, a mere 35% of the developers actually do. Even fewer know much about WAI or WCAG.

Unfortunately, this is probably very close to the truth.

I believe that it might be due to the fact that many developers are highly trained and skilled professionals, for example computer scientists, software engineers, etc. Having a degree, they are expected to just “know” such a simple thing as HTML.

Sure, most probably understand the concept of opening and closing tags (although many fall short), but I doubt the majority has ever looked up the HTML spec. at W3.org, or know how to use the elements specified by the standard. Probably because HTML is considered too simple — i.e. not that interesting.

But if you aren’t interested in learning about how to use the available tools, you shouldn’t be working with them.

</rant>

The first Internet Explorer 8 beta version was released yesterday.

As far as the Acid3 test goes, it made it all the way to 10/100 before it crashed. Restarted, opened up the previous page (Acid3 test) and crashed. Restarted, opened up the previous page (Acid3 test) and crashed. Restarted, … Good start

Well, at least we’ll be able to test its CSS support (is supposed to support CSS 2.1 in its final release - yay!) - which is good news.

Update: There’s an article on Ajaxian about what’s new in IE8. Good stuff.

The Acid 3 test went public yesterday. As far as I know, IE6 wont make it to 100.

On a related note, the IE team have been listening to the critics and are changing the default behavior of IE8 to “actual standards mode”. Good news. Kudos to the IE team for caring.

Recently, I stumbled upon a comment (Norwegian) about the semantics of Web 2.0 technologies, which prompted a response.

Since the response turned out rather lengthy, and a bit off-topic, I decided to post it here. Hopefully, it can be of use to others as well.

Web 2.0

Although the Web 2.0 has been hyped as something big and new for a while now, and things such as tag clouds are a popular part of many Web 2.0 sites, Web 2.0 sites build on old technologies (+user generated content). It’s all just (X)HTML + JavaScript and CSS. No magic.

There is not much semantics to Web 2.0. The semantics of HTML is still limited to layout/presentation of information (as will HTML5’s be). Even though one can express the start/end of a paragraph or heading, one can for example not explicitly state what an article is about (except through limited meta elements), or how different “topics” — or even what kind of topics we’re talking about — are related.

There is no way to explicitly state that “this article is about X and mentions Y”.

The tag clouds of Web 2.0 are in effect just free-floating words, and do as such not bring anything new to the table (an exception is Roy Lachica’s Fuzzzy.com where tags are structured in an ontology using Topic Maps).

The Semantic Web

The last couple of years / decade, people have been working towards a more “intelligent” web (although hardly intelligent); the semantic web. Such a web, often referred to as Web 3.0, adds the possibility of expressing semantics outside the limited domain of (X)HTML (or micro formats).

This is accomplished through adding layers of metadata to the web. The semantic web is therefore an extension (not replacement) of todays web, where different technologies, like Topic Maps and RDF/OWL, allow us to express anything about any subject - in a structured, explicit and unambiguous manner. I.e.: not limited to the element set of a given vocabular.

By doing so, one can (hopefully) bring order to the chaos, and develop better applications. Luckily, the technologies are already there, and by using Topic Maps one can e.g. boost findability.

For more on the semantic web or Topic Maps, see e.g.:

• Wikipedia - Semantic Web
  
• Wikipedia - Web 3.0
• TopicMap.com - Resources

Many people seem to think that it is impossible to write high quality code using PHP. Too often, I see comments like the ones in RHO’s Cookie Monsters in the Closet:

Or maybe he (or He) was a PHP programmer?

[…]

This effectively shouts into your face “Hey, look what cool IF-statements a PHP programmer can write.”

[…]

Alright, you might object, this is a PHP programmer, so he does not know Perl too well.

Although there is a certain funny tone to it, and although I don’t take it personally enough to go on a rant about it, I want to point to this article: 10 PHP Myths Dispelled.

Simply because I hear this kind of joke way too often. And too often, people seem to think it’s a fact. (more…)