Senior Program Manager Developer Experience and Evangelism at Microsoft
Oct. 24, 2008•0 likes•2,255 views
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7 Reasons why web development is running in circles
Oct. 24, 2008•0 likes•2,255 views
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My 15 minutes talk for the head conference, talking about reasons I found why we keep doing the same mistakes over and over again when developing for the web.
7 Reasons why web development is running in circles
1. 7 Reasons
why web development is
running in circles
Christian Heilmann | http://wait-till-i.com | http://twitter.com/codepo8
<head> 2008, London Hub, 15 minutes of fame
6. But when it comes down to it
- we are to blame.
7. I found over the years
several things to stand in our
way to be a professional
entity in the market.
8. Turf Wars
Ego
Quick Win Tutorials
Antique Recommendations
Tickbox Standards
Status Quo Fetishism
Form Over Function
9. 1 of 7:
Instead of working Turf wars
together on
solutions, people
find their
technology of
choice...
10. 1 of 7:
... and use this one Turf wars
to solve any
problem that might
ever come up -
regardless of
consequences.
11. 1 of 7:
Prejudices, truisms Turf wars
and total failure to
accept and
understand other
technologies
prevent us from
working together on
the best solution.
12. 1 of 7:
This even reflects in Turf wars
conferences.
13. 1 of 7:
There is no end to Turf wars!
end conference - we
love to be in our
own echo chambers.
14. 2 of 7:
Fighting the good Ego
fight on the web is
the most awesome
thing we can do!
15. 2 of 7:
There is no way Ego
anything that is
already done can be
good enough.
16. 2 of 7:
It is up to us and us Ego
alone to show
everybody else how
things are done.
17. 2 of 7:
Then we make sure Ego
to give it a cool
title, reap the
applause and never
re-visit it again.
32. 3 of 7:
Case Study: How we Quick
styled the menu of win
tutorials
example.com.
33. 3 of 7:
Menu systems that Quick
work and CSS win
tutorials!
technologies that
help to build them.
34. 4 of 7:
The W3C is too
Antique
slow. Recommenda
tions
35. 4 of 7:
HTML is not rich
Antique
enough to build Recommenda
tions
systems we expect
to find.
36. 4 of 7:
Overly complex
Antique
recommendations Recommenda
tions
like the DOM don’t
get revised.
37. 4 of 7:
Yet people love to
Antique
fight to the death to Recommenda
tions
defend them.
38. 4 of 7:
Most of the time
Antique
these are people Recommenda
tions!
that don’t get them
or never really
implemented them
in real world
scenarios.
39. 5 of 7:
The antique Tickbox
recommendations standards
lead to people
coming up with
their own - binding -
standards.
40. 5 of 7:
Which most of the Tickbox
time are borderline standards
ludicrous.
41. 5 of 7:
“We like YUI grids Tickbox
but we cannot use standards
them as the
government
accessibility
standards disallow
using CSS
frameworks”
42. 5 of 7:
The scariest thing Tickbox
about these kind of standards!
standards is that
they are normally
part of a 3 to 5 year
plan that cannot be
changed until the
next 5 year period.
43. 6 of 7:
Maintaining the Status
status quo in a Quo
fetishism
company secures
your job.
44. 6 of 7:
Making yourself Status
indispensable Quo
fetishism
means you cannot
be made redundant.
45. 6 of 7:
This applies to Status
subject matter Quo
fetishism
expertise: “I am the
CSS guy here”
46. 6 of 7:
But even more Status
annoying it applies Quo
fetishism
to ownership of the
infrastructure.
47. 6 of 7:
Everything we built Status
and bought over the Quo
fetishism
last years works in
Internet Explorer 6.
We cannot and will
not upgrade or
change that.
48. 6 of 7:
These are the Status
statements and Quo
fetishism
facts of work life
that hold us back.
49. 6 of 7:
Yet nobody tackles Status
those - we are too Quo
fetishism!
busy building the
perfect validating
rounded corner
solution.
50. 7 of 7:
No, I am not ranting Form
about designers over
function
here.
51. 7 of 7:
I want to point out Form
that we don’t lean over
function
towards learning
real life examples...
52. 7 of 7:
Instead we lust for Form
the next big over
function
inspirational piece.
53. 7 of 7:
Where are the Form
tutorials how to over
function
style a CMS driven
site that uses an
enterprise system?
54. 7 of 7:
Where are the Form
tutorials and talks over
function
about i18n and
JavaScript?
55. 7 of 7:
Where are the Form
showcases of how over
function
example.com was
built?
56. 7 of 7:
I think it is high time Form
to tell people how over
function
to deliver their day-
to-day jobs faster,
better and work for
the people who take
over from them.
57. Seven problems to have in
mind before we post our
next piece or give our next
talk.
58. I want to hear more from
people from the trenches.