+ Of Patterns and Power: Web Standards Then & Now
+IN "CONTENT Display Patterns" + (which all front-end folk should read), Dan Mall points to + a truth not unlike the one Ethan Marcotte shared last month on 24 ways. It is a truth as old as standards-based + design: Construct your markup to properly support your content + (not your design).
+ +Modular/atomic design doesn’t change this truth, it just + reinforces its wisdom. Flexbox and + grid layout don’t change + this truth, they just make it easier to do it better. + HTML5 + doesn’t change this truth, it just reminds us that the + separation of structure from style came into existence for a + reason. A reason that hasn’t changed. A reason that cannot + change, because it is the core truth of the web, and is + inextricably bound up with the promise of this medium.
+ +Separating structure from style and behavior was the web + standards movement’s prime revelation, and each generation + of web designers discovers it anew. This separation is what + makes our content as backward-compatible as it is + forward-compatible (or “future-friendly,” if you prefer). + It’s the key to re-use. The key to accessibility. The key to + the new kinds of CMS systems we’re just beginning to dream + up. It’s what makes our content as accessible to an ancient + device as it will be to an unimagined future one.
+ +Every time a leader in our field discovers, as if for the + first time, the genius of this separation between style, + presentation, and behavior, she is validating the + brilliance of web forbears like Tim Berners-Lee, + Håkon Wium Lie, and + Bert Bos.
+ +Every time a Dan or an Ethan (or a Sara + or a Lea) writes + a beautiful and insightful article like the two cited + above, they are telling new web designers, and reminding + experienced ones, that this separation of powers + matters.
+ +And they are plunging a stake into the increasingly + slippery ground beneath us.
+ +Why is it slippery? Because too many developers and + designers in our amnesiac community have begun to believe + and share bad ideas — ideas, like CSS isn’t needed, HTML + isn’t needed, progressive enhancement is old-fashioned + and unnecessary, and so on. Ideas that, if followed, + will turn the web back what it was becoming in the late + 1990s: a wasteland of walled gardens that said no to + more people than they welcomed. Let that never be so. + We have the power.
+ +As Maimonides, were he alive today, would tell us: he + who excludes a single user destroys a universe. Web + standards now and forever.
+ +Originally published at www.zeldman.com on January 5, 2016.
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