Web browsers have become so powerful that developers are now treating them as if they were a runtime environment as predictable as any other. But the truth is that we still need to deal with many unknown factors that torpedo our assumptions. The web is where Postel’s Law meets Murphy’s Law, so we can’t treat web development as if it were just another flavor of software. Instead we must work with the grain of the web. There are tried and tested approaches to building for the web that will result in experiences that are robust, flexible, and resilient.
Jeremy Keith lives in Brighton, England where he makes websites with the splendid design agency
Clearleft. You may know him from such books as
DOM Scripting,
Bulletproof Ajax, and
HTML5 For Web Designers.
He organised the world’s first
Science Hack Day.
He also made the website Huffduffer to allow people to
make podcasts of found sounds—it’s like Instapaper for audio files. Hailing from Erin’s green
shores, Jeremy maintains his link to Irish traditional music running the community site
The Session. He also indulges a darker side of his
bouzouki-playing in the band Salter Cane.
Jeremy spends most of his time goofing off on the internet, documenting his
time-wasting on adactio.com, where he has been
writing for fifteen years.
