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‘This is one line.\nThis isn’t another line. Plus, this will show the \n’

‘This gets processed faster, but variables need to be ‘.$external

“This gets processed slower but can parse $internal varialbes.”

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very handy!

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Use STATUS instead.

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start_cache, stop_cache

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eg.

$name = $this->user->get_name($id)->real_name

better than

$name = $this->user->get_name($id)

because what if we need something else later like a nickname?

$name = $this->user->get_name($id)->nickname

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Going to the root URL (as shown), actually reveals Sun ONE Web Server is being used. Come on guys… a little more polish please? Fine, the favicon is an easy one to forget but why would you let leave the root of a secure server with Sun’s standard install page? At least redirect the customers to where they should be.

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In the beginning it doesn’t hurt too much though because the main thing you’re trying to do is build a nice portfolio and gain experience. After a few years though, if your business is still making incorrect estimates then you’re toast.

Fixed Quotes Vs Hourly Rates

I’ve found clients to be much more receptive to fixed quotes. Actually, to be honest, I’ve never really tried the hourly rate thing except on smaller jobs or with regular clients who are already very happy with the value for money they get out of me.

It’s quite simple really – people need a fixed quote so they can compare apples with apples. If you say my hourly rate is $80/hr and the job could take anywhere between 20-60 hours, how does that help your client?

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Interestingly enough, most people think they have top notch HTML/CSS skills even though they don’t. Let’s take a look at some of the common mistakes when building HTML/CSS pages.

Worshiping the devil

As Internet Explorer’s market sharing keeps declining, this becomes less and less a common problem. However, in certain parts of the world, namely the Asian region, Internet Explorer still is the domanent player. Every now and then I come across with developers who think IE is still the best web browser out there and Firefox and the like are useless because they are incompatible with the Microsoft standards. No I’m not joking, these developers do actually think this way. You can bet that the web pages they build only render properly in IE.

Non-semantic markups

Another funny thing (that happens a lot in the Chinese web development community) is that most people refer to the HTML/CSS building skill as ‘DIV + CSS’. Notice the ‘DIV’ part, they seem to think that DIVs are the single most important aspect in CSS. While the ‘DIV + CSS’ notation only happens in certain regions, the actual problem exists everywhere – people abuse the use of DIVs.

Many moons ago people were very familiar with table designs (as in, use tables for page structures). After CSS became the norm, people started to realise how important it was to structure web pages using the combination of HTML and CSS. So when they found out DIVs, they found light.

Here is an example:

???TODO

The above HTML should have been simply structured this way:

???TODO

Non-semantic markups have many disadvantages:

• Complex HTML structure is more difficult to maintain and potentially triggers more human errors
• The companion CSS file grows bigger too and is even more difficult to maintain
• In some cases, a non-stylised version of the HTML would not render properly, resulting in broken pages in devices such as screen readers
• HTML elements nest too deeply, resulting in slower JavaScript selector performance

Not resetting HTML elements

Too many browser-specific hacks

Too many pixel-perfect definitions

Using JavaScript for things that can be done with pure CSS

Using legacy markup

Using inline CSS

Using non-semantic CSS selectors

Relying too heavily on quirk mode

Accessibility and usability

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