Developing with Web Standards

Chapter Two: Philosophies and Techniques

The web is a mere 5,000 days old. By comparison, the first 5,000 days of television are almost unrecognizable as what we consider “television” today. Similarly, twenty years after its introduction, cinema was still a novelty. Not so the web, which is now used by roughly a quarter of the world’s population. But for all its impact on news, business, politics, and culture, the web is still in its infancy, and we’re still only beginning to understand how it works as a medium. On the surface, the fundamental ways in which users interact with websites—via pages, links, and forms—haven’t changed much in over a decade. But despite this seeming stasis, a great deal has happened to the practice of web development ...