Live Q&A: Guilherme Müller on HTML, 5th August at 4PM (EST)

[guilherme]

@boltronics

Hi Guilherme. Thanks for your time to answer some of our questions.

Got a HTML5 video query for you. As a GNU/Linux user, I know it can be frustrating to deal with patented codecs on the web. It would be great if Apple and Microsoft would support open video formats that are not encumbered by patents, so we don’t need to host videos in multiple formats to maximise browser compatibility.

Do you know if there have been any signs that Apple and/or Microsoft are considering support for codecs such as VP8 and VP9? Is YouTube putting any pressure on those companies to adopt royalty free standards?

Hi @boltronics, thank you for asking a question!

I’m not aware of anything about that as of yet… It would seem that’s easier to support something that is open-source… But I will keep an eye on it and let you know if I find something!

[vegi]

Oh… ok. Thank you…

[boltronics]

@guilherme Thanks!

[guilherme]

@angelamolina

@tevko what are your current opinions on tags?

That’s a tough one! We have to be careful not to add too many tags, in my opinion. Maybe the picture tag, as was mentioned here in this forum, would be a good start. The current available tags are alright, I wouldn’t change them.

[santouras]

agreed. in a perfect world things like performance would be considered a feature but unfortunately a lot of people are more interested in how many gadgets the car has rather than how fast and how reliable it is!

[kelle]

HI Guilherme! I’m wondering what you think about web components? Are they the future? If not, do you have any alternative ideas for how we can achieve better (if not complete) encapsulation in HTML/CSS?

[guilherme]

Hi @kelle! Excellent question!

I must say that I’m getting acquainted with that spec recently, but it seems very interesting! With all the preprocessors and templating engines out there, Web components can be something that brings important functionalities to the basic languages (HTML, CSS, JS). I look forward to testing them more!

[angelamolina_old]

That’s ok, being involved and listening (or reading) the conversation is still learning.

[guilherme]

@chrisofarabia

If you were going to recommend the best way for someone to learn RWD from the ground up, with a view to ensuring they have a solid structural foundation for it, what learning resources would you recommend?

I may be biased here (just a little ;)), but I highly recommend Russ Weakley’s courses on SitePoint Premium about the subject. Then, there’s the book from Ethan Marcotte, who coined the term and wrote the article that started it all, “Responsive Design”; and from Scott Jehl, “Responsible Responsive Design”, both published by A Book Apart and also available on SitePoint Premium. These are a great start / refresher for any web developer.

[kelle]

Ok slightly controversial: icon fonts vs svg — your opinion?

[angelamolina_old]

Hello Guilherme! Is there any HTML element that we should carefully consider to use as we build a website for mobile?
@guilherme this is great from @jchon3 ! With your experience in websites for web, what are your thoughts on this topic?

[Kurt_Griffith]

Tru dat. I’m an old timer, came to Web Design from the Print side, having been a creative pro since 1980 BC… Before Computers. ALWAYS having to learn new stuff. And with the web, practically by the time you learn something, the next thing comes along and makes it obsolete!

[guilherme]

@Kurt_Griffith

I know the easiest way to keep code lean and tight is to be as minimal as possible. Just the site elements and content. But there is pressure to include a lot of back end stuff like Google Analytics, Various trackers, security widgets, Social media widgets, and the like.

What are the soft of things you think are acutally useful and “ought” to go on a typical site, and what’s just cruft that makes sites sluggish and hard to maintain. The suite of “necessary” extenstions in CMS often BREAKS the poor things.

Hi Kurt,

That is really something that we have to be aware of! I think that conditionally loading assets is the way to go right now. I’ve not applied that extensively yet, but if you see like large websites like the Boston Globe did it, it can be really impressive.

In my websites, that are most of the times small, I’m trying to use SASS and Grunt to join together CSS and JS files for just two requests (one for CSS and one for JS). This already helps. As for social media, I think that there’s a plugin by the Filament group that is just 3kb.

Hope that helps!

[Kurt_Griffith]

@guilherme

there’s the book from Ethan Marcotte, who coined the term and wrote the article that started it all, “Responsive Design”

I have Ethan’s book and I can say it’s excellent. Hits just about the right balance of plain english and technical language, with code examples that WORK.

[santouras]

svg! Keep it all markup

[Benjamin_Sweetnam]

@kurt that’s why I this industry.
I’ve notice a step to more module based coding in html what are your views on this and do you see it improving how we code in general

[guilherme]

@angelamolina

Hello Guilherme! Is there any HTML element that we should carefully consider to use as we build a website for mobile?@guilherme this is great from @jchon3 ! With your experience in websites for web, what are your thoughts on this topic?

Hi @jchon3!

The only one that comes to mind right now is the table. It can be a bit tricky to work with responsive tables, something I’m testing right now in some projects, but there’s no avoiding it. In general, the rest of the HTML tags work just fine. As it was said before (unfortunately I forgot who said that), the lack of media queries is the first media query, so everything should be usable with CSS and JS off.

[alexmwalker]

Good question! I feel like there’s a general change in the air with this towards SVG

[guilherme]

Ok slightly controversial: icon fonts vs svg — your opinion?

I have to say I’m using icon fonts a lot, but almost feelling bad for it! Some people are saying that there’s already enough evidence to show that SVG is much better. But I like to test things thoroughly before using in a new project, so maybe in the next website I build I will try to use SVG more. There are so many things going on that it is hard to keep track of what works and what doesn’t.

[guilherme]

@bravokeyl

Are we going to see <picture> element in near future ?

Hi @bravokeyl!

Support is weak right now, so I wouldn’t count on it being finalized in the specification soon. But as this is an important part of responsive design (the weight of the images), this is one of the cases where I’d suggest using a polyfill (https://github.com/scottjehl/picturefill). Picturefill works well and I’ve been testing it in some projects.