Zen Coding is an open-source rapid HTML development tool that uses advanced CSS selectors to build HTML. It’s intuitive, looks fast and makes use of knowledge web developers already have. Impressively, plugins are available on Google Code for more than 8 different text editors*.
Unfortunately, my favorite, TextMate, has only partial support so far, but Coda and Espresso both have full support.
BackPress is a basic framework distilled from WordPress’ core. It handles permissions, plugin architecture, data sanitization, XML-RPC, etc, etc.
First impression after download: it’s young and lean. At this point, don’t expect a full-fledged framework like Django or CodeIgnitor. Instead, it’s a large collection of PHP5 classes that handle a lot of common problems, batteries not included.
I’m betting as BackPress rounds out it will become the separately-maintaned “engine” for WordPress. This modular approach can speed development and raise code quality, since it forces abstraction. ExpressionEngine does this with the aforementioned CodeIgniter framework. jQuery is also developed this way, versioning and distributing its Sizzle selector engine separately from the mother framework.
The timing couldn’t be better. Automattic has announced that the WordPress and WordPress MU codebases will be merged into one for the next release. That makes this an opportune time to clear the underbrush from WordPress’ very organic codebase.
See the last paragraph of the 2.9 release announcement.
Gruber says the autobuffer attribute for <video> and <audio> should not be ignored. Agreed.
“We all have a reason for showing up every day“. Jason Santa Maria shares his, along with some great copy and design.
Cool URLs don’t change, except in the real world, where they do frequently. On this constantly shifting medium of the web, curating bookmarks is like creating a sand mandala. That is, unless you’re using Pinboard’s new archive feature.
Learn how to build web apps for the iPhone: O’ Reilly’s Building iPhone Apps, an in-process book published under a creative commons license.
One serious handicap iPhone web apps will have to deal with is slow kinetic scrolling. As Loren Brichter says “If it can’t scroll, it’s useless“.
Despite less-than-perfect browser support, @font-face is clearly the future of typography on the web. If you’re looking to learn how this up-and-coming feature works, Dave Shea has some answers.
History waits for the risk-takers.