The wonderful Paul Boag from Headscape interviewed me for the latest episode of Boagworld, almost certainly the best web design podcast on the planet. We talk about my “controversial” views on web standards, Blueprint CSS, and more.
Unfortunately, I hate my voice, and it sounds even worse when propped up against Paul’s sexy British accent. Oh well — I think it came off pretty decent, anyhow.
Check it out, won’t you?
001 // Yashh // 05.07.2008 // 10:05 PM
I checked the podcast interview Jeff. I was nice. I am hoping to hear more from you regarding web standards. Do keep us updated.
002 // silent // 05.07.2008 // 10:16 PM
Boagword? Isn’t it Boagworld? anyway, congratulation and keep up the good work.
003 // Jeff Croft // 05.07.2008 // 10:43 PM
Sorry, just a typo.
004 // Alex Holt // 05.08.2008 // 2:48 AM
Ha! You didn’t run your post through a spelling validator??!?!?
005 // Wolf // 05.08.2008 // 3:14 AM
I love your take on web standards.
006 // Anton // 05.08.2008 // 9:17 AM
Hey Jeff, I think you sound fine. Look at it this way, at least you don’t sound like me!
I thought it was a great conversation, at any rate. Have you ever thought about doing your own show?
@Alex Holt - Funny you mention that. What spelling validator have you ever used that would know that Boagworld is a correct version of Boagword? So silly.
007 // Alex Holt // 05.08.2008 // 11:22 AM
Listened to the full podcast today… Jeff you sound fine… as an Australian it’s hard to decide which voice sounds funnier.
Really like your pragmatic take on web standards though, i hate the way people seem to over-obsess about being standards compliant… at the end of the day.. a site has a purpose… and the primary purpose is very rarely to comply with standards.
@Anton - it’s in the dictionary on my mac (does that count?). I was joking though ;)
008 // Mike // 05.08.2008 // 11:23 AM
That was a great interview! I really enjoyed you calling Paul arrogant while talking about Blueprint.
Also, I think you sound very similar to Donnie Hoyle from “You Suck at Photoshop”. It made me really question whether Donnie is just your pen name. ;)
009 // Gabe da Silveira // 05.08.2008 // 4:02 PM
Over the past 10 years an interesting thing has happened. The Web Standards movement was created out of the insanity of the browser wars, and a fierce advocacy was begun to pull the rest of the web design world into a sustainable future. Slowly but surely this happened, and today we are finally enjoying the fruits of that labor—sure there are a few hangers on, but by and large a web professional who doesn’t know CSS is a hack.
But as CSS techniques matured, the obsession with the mantras of the standards increased (semantic markup, separation of content and presentation), and critiques by some “standardistas” became focused on ever diminishing minutae to the exclusion of whole realms of other IT concerns.
It’s not that I don’t think those issues have merit… god bless everyone debating these issues in order to develop better standards.
But anyone with any kind of rounded understanding of logic, semantics, technology or computer science knows that the division of content and presentation is only an ideal to be approached. They can never wholly be separated, so the question is to ask yourself how far you should reasonably go. If you ever had to update some old Dreamweaver site with tables nested 8 levels deep you probably have a better idea of how to strike that balance than someone who will write 4 paragraphs about how much more semantic <strong> is than <bold>.
Some of these theories of semantic markup have become so esoteric as to be useless in the real world. The concept of redesigning with only CSS changes, is ridiculous unless you are subscribing to the worldview that all websites begin and end with the markup. The value of such a worldview is questionable at best… who does it serve? How much semantic value is being generated? Is accessibility optimized? Cost of development? How’s the user experience? Are marketing goals being met? Visual design effective?
If you ask all these questions to the right people, pretty soon you find out there’s a lot more weighing on the question of what the markup should look like. And of course the seasoned professional knows that every single choice along the way is a tradeoff weighing not only today’s concerns, but years of future development as well. Once you’ve been in the trenches for a while, you start to see the tremendous value that judicious use of standards provides, and also where some of the religious creeds fall flat.
That’s why I appreciate Jeff’s prominent voice of reason in a community that can often be insular and dominated by a few loud and naïve voices with little real world experience.
010 // Jeff Croft // 05.09.2008 // 10:07 AM
Gabe: that’s one of the best comments ever posted on this site. Well done, my friend! :)
011 // Mark Wunsch // 05.09.2008 // 1:20 PM
First time poster here, long time reader. I don’t think you’re a “provocateur”. If anything, a voice of reason.
Thanks, enjoyed listening.
012 // Wolf // 05.11.2008 // 7:43 AM
Gabe, reading stuff like this make me wonder whether I should switch comments back on. If only more people took the time and effort to write a decent reply.
When the strong vs b conversation begins, it’s time to find a new conversation partner.
013 // Andrew // 05.15.2008 // 2:59 PM
Really great job in the interview. I read your weblog but was not familiar with Boagworld’s podcast. After hearing it, I’ve become quite a fan. Thanks for the tip via your little promotion.
(At Gabe: I reply with a simple, “Yes!”)
014 // James Creare // 05.21.2008 // 10:35 AM
Just listened to part of podcast Jeff, I’m from England, and their accents are quite funny, and very countryish! The English version of a Yokel!
Just got the podcast downloading now to my iPOD, to listen to on the way home from work, the small part I skipped to where you were talking about validation sounded good!
015 // Gilbert // 05.22.2008 // 11:41 PM
I’m British. Trust me, Paul does not have a sexy voice. If that’s what counts as sexy over in the US then I’m on the next flight over there.
016 // Greg Hardy // 05.29.2008 // 4:35 AM
It was a real pleasure to listen to this interview. I actually agree with you on most of the points you make so I wouldn’t call your approach a controversial one. And yes, Paul’s voice isn’t sexy at all, but perhaps I’m biased because of my gender ;)