DWWS 3e

4 Mar 2009 5 pm eastern

Sorry I haven’t written much here, lately, but I’ve been working on the third edition of a book you may know.

Questions?

Tags: dwws, designingwithwebstandards, 3rdedition, 3e, DWWS3e, newriders, peachpit, zeldman

Filed under: DWWS, Design, Standards, Web Design, Web Standards, work, writing

27 Responses to “DWWS 3e”

Mark Wunsch said on 4 March 2009 at 6:00 pm:

Microformats??? CSS3 (progressive enrichment)??? HTML5??? Coping with IE6?

Also, i’d like to hear your take on the sort-of-resurgence of “Just build it with tables”:
http://giveupandusetables.com/
Michael said on 4 March 2009 at 6:03 pm:

First question: For owners of DWWS 1e and 2e, will there be enough new content to justify purchase of 3e?

Second: Will you continue to age backwards for the third cover à la Benjamin Button?
John Rainsford said on 4 March 2009 at 6:16 pm:

I think the question on everyone’s mind is;
what colour is the third edition cover going to be?
Malarkey said on 4 March 2009 at 6:19 pm:

Where did I leave my car keys?
Rimantas said on 4 March 2009 at 6:21 pm:

I was very disappointed by your take on XHTML vs. HTML in the second edition. Will you continue to pretend that there are no issues with XTHML or are you going to be more responsible this time? Frankly, “Top 5 Reasons Not to Switch to XHTML” chapter in the 2nd. ed. is plain lame and irresponsible. Even if you prefer XHTML it would be nice to inform less educated about real issues with this choice.
Brad Bice said on 4 March 2009 at 6:23 pm:

How much will be different from the 2nd edition? And will we see another cover color?
Ryan Merrill said on 4 March 2009 at 6:26 pm:

I think everyone wants to know how much new information will be in compared to the 1st and 2nd editions. What topics will be covered? When is the anticipated release date? And what color?

Thanks.
RayMcK said on 4 March 2009 at 10:28 pm:

Could I have a mention in the preface or maybe buried somewhere in one of the early/mid/later chapters. Doesn’t mater, any chapter will do. No particular reason. I just want to see my name in a web design book. Might as well be a classy book that’s why I was thinking about yours ; )
Joe Clark said on 5 March 2009 at 1:30 am:

No tables for layout, finally?

All-new illustrations, this time in colour?
Peter said on 5 March 2009 at 5:23 am:

I skipped the 2nd edition, but I’m looking forward to recommending 3rd if you:

* Skip the hybrid layouts altogether. It’s 2009 and we don’t need to support 4.x browsers.
* Drop any content about 4.x browsers and IE5.x (win/mac). Including hacks and workarounds. It would be nice to condemn IE6 too.
* Remember that we’re recommending this book as the Bible for our bosses, managers, colleauges. We want them to be assured we can use modern stuff and stop worrying about quotation marks in `url()` because some archaic browser chokes on them.

Thanks for your work. I learned a lot from your 1st book. :)
Evan the Web Designer said on 5 March 2009 at 7:39 am:

I’m temped to say I agree with peter, because I do, but then we’d be limiting a chunk of your audience. The non web savy part. God damn them and their stupid crappy old browsers.
Mike Whitehurst said on 5 March 2009 at 8:07 am:

Is it any good?
Eric Ellenberg said on 5 March 2009 at 8:14 am:

• Netscape in general seems like a distant memory now, and IE 5 is all but gone as well. The principles of graceful degradation will still apply to them, but I don’t see these older browsers needing much more than a mention to make the point.
• With Google indexing Flash content now, The F Word needs to be revisited. Open standards are a better choice for media-rich sites in the long run, but in some cases this can be a hard pitch.
• CSS frameworks and Javascript libraries need some attention. In particular, how the levels of abstraction they provide offer benefits in a functionally diversifying browser market. Which leads me to…
• Support for emerging standards. Microsoft wants IE 8 to have “most complete implementation of the CSS 2.1 specification in the industry,” but now more nimble browsers are implementing support for certain aspects of CSS3 and HTML5. Progressive enhancement is going to become much more important in the coming years, methinks.
• “Methinks” is silly, but it’s fun.

These are the first four things that came to mind. And Jeffrey: Thanks. Your book has helped me grow as web designer, and for that I cannot thank you enough for your hard work. Good luck with the third edition, I look forward to it.
Lauren said on 5 March 2009 at 11:01 am:

Despite the fact that “some” of us don’t code for antique browsers anymore, I still think it’s an important learning element from the book. Trying to understand something without knowing its history is pretty pointless. Newer developers can only really appreciate what we’re working towards if they understand the reasoning behind it. If you find yourself in a position where you might not find that information as enlightening, just skip the chapter. It doesn’t hurt anything by being there.

Also, I’d love more information on microformats, CSS3, and why CSS frameworks are a bad idea (personal opinion I suppose, they just make everything so bloated…learning proper CSS should be a priority over learning to work within a predefined framework).
Jeffrey Zeldman said on 5 March 2009 at 12:54 pm:

Microformats??? CSS3 (progressive enrichment)??? HTML5??? Coping with IE6?

Yes!!! Yess!!! Yes!!! Yes!!!

For owners of DWWS 1e and 2e, will there be enough new content to justify purchase of 3e?

Yes.

I think the question on everyone’s mind is; what colour is the third edition cover going to be?

I am toying with blue, red, and brown, but who knows?

Maybe glitter.

Or wood texture. I hear the kids like that.

How much will be different from the 2nd edition? And will we see another cover color?

Large chunks of the book will be substantially different. Whole chapters are going out the window, replaced by new material. (For instance, current chapters 3 and 4 are gone.) There’s a new, three-part structure, with a leaner front end, a cleaner middle where principles of semantic markup, CSS layout, unobtrusive scripting, and so on are discussed, and new, more complex layout examples in the back.

Kiss hybrid layouts goodbye. There’s more about semantics. HTML 5: what it is, where it’s at, what it means for “forward compatibility” of XHTML; microformats: concepts, languages, examples in use on cool sites and Google, limitations of microformats as a forward strategy, accessibility problems, excessive code problem. Long- and short-term prospects for emerging specifications and browsers. IE7 and IE8 (and what do we do about IE6 users?) Safari, Chrome, and Webkit. Tools. Heroes and heroines. More techniques to evangelize standards. How to sell standards internally. What to say to recalcitrant IT departments, indifferent bosses, etc.

Lots of stuff.

I was very disappointed by your take on XHTML vs. HTML in the second edition. Will you continue to pretend that there are no issues with XTHML or are you going to be more responsible this time?

I never pretended there were no issues. In the foreword, I discussed the chief objection, with links to Hixie’s article. I explained why Hixie’s problem, although real, didn’t concern me; encouraged trial of XHTML since that was my view; and encouraged readers to make up their own minds. (The “ten reasons” and “five reasons” thing was an attempt to bring mild comic relief to an amazingly boring subject.)

That said, with HTML 5 in the offing, with XHTML 2 not looking like a terrific option for most web designers, there are more issues, and this time around I’ll spend time talking about HTML 4 and HTML 5 as well as XHTML 1.
Ville Vartiainen said on 5 March 2009 at 1:23 pm:

Will you deal with the mania that is WCAG 2.0 and how to approach it?

Graceful degradation versus Progressive enhancement?

Look forward to it!
Newtoid said on 5 March 2009 at 1:48 pm:

Indigo please!!
Andreas Möller said on 5 March 2009 at 1:56 pm:

Are you going to be wearing a blue beanie again . . . ?

Best wishes,

Andreas
Andreas Möller said on 5 March 2009 at 1:58 pm:

No matter what, I’m in for it . . . !
Grant Hutchinson said on 5 March 2009 at 3:00 pm:

Are you going to require any updated screenshots of browsers displaying current sites running on vintage computing platforms? Newton? BeOS? System 7? Let me know.
Jeffrey Zeldman said on 5 March 2009 at 3:17 pm:

Are you going to require any updated screenshots of browsers displaying current sites running on vintage computing platforms? Newton? BeOS? System 7? Let me know.

Excellent, my friend. Thank you.
Narshada said on 5 March 2009 at 7:47 pm:

OK, now I’m excited – it sounds like a very worthy update. And me not quite finished the second edition yet! (I know I’m late to the party, but I brought nibbles!)

Any thoughts on touching on naming conventions for attributes as part of the semantics section? Andy Clarke produced a neat little table of naming conventions by major designers a while back.

Oh and can you work out an upgrade pricing structure for those of us with earlier editions like Adobe does with its Creative Suite? ;)
Brad Bice said on 5 March 2009 at 9:50 pm:

Awesome, I am very excited for this!
Weekly Links #43 | GrantPalin.com said on 9 March 2009 at 12:29 am:

[...] DWWS 3e Jeffrey Zeldman is working on a 3rd edition of his excellent book, Designing With Web Standards. Some discussion and requests on material to be covered. Want! [...]
Kris Marissens said on 9 March 2009 at 8:57 am:

I want to pre-order. Loving the “Is Fire hot or cold?” check :)
Jeffrey Zeldman said on 9 March 2009 at 10:35 am:

Thank you, Kris! It’s not possible to pre-order yet but I’ll start a little list and let New Riders know. Thank you again! :)
Dimka said on 14 March 2009 at 12:46 pm:

it would be helpful if you review any applications that help design with standards, also any CMS that do a good job.
Any thoughts on resolution independent sites? For example will dpi of images matter etc.
thank you

4 Mar 2009 5 pm eastern

DWWS 3e

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