1 This couldn't have come at a better time

I’ve just recently moved from the University sandbox to a “real job” and discovered I know nothing (or close to it) particularly as I had never focused on web development. I was lucky in that my boss has a selection of brilliant books I’m starting to make my way through and in researching authors and their sites I found ALA (multiple times). Since adding the RSS feed to my collection (another shock – having loads of information thrown at me when it’s ready, for me to read when I’m ready) I’ve read the recent articles and learned something from every one. I’ve wanted to dive into the archives but didn’t know where to start so this article has come just in time for me. I’ll be sure to read all the suggested articles. While I’m mostly a “programmer” my boyfriend is a designer and I like to understand what he’s talking about, and in general to build my knowledge across all areas. I hope that if I know what everyone elses roles and aims are that I can do my work to best help them. So far the articles here have helped with that exactly. Thank you so much.

posted at 05:14 am on September 12, 2006 by Jessica H

2 Keep this on your homepage

Although not that interesting to familiar readers, it’s a nice write-up, which I think really helps newbies.

Perhaps it’s a good idea to keep a link to this article on your homepage in the future?

posted at 08:41 am on September 12, 2006 by Harmen Janssen

3 Please ALA, publish a book!

If these articles, together with more of ALAs finest, was published in book form, I’d buy it in a second. Thanks for a great list, it’ll make a great bookmark.

posted at 08:57 am on September 12, 2006 by Olav Bjørkøy

4 Typography

Don’t forget this excellent article on proper typesetting for the web: The Trouble With EM ’n EN . Many people use foot marks ’ and inches symbols ” to specify speech marks, hyphens instead of en dashes and three full stops … instead of ellipses. Here’s a quick ref table, (minus the spaces between the characters “& #”):

— em dash & #8212; – en dash & #8211; … Ellipsis & #8230; ‘ for an opening single quote & #8216; ’ for a closing single quote & #8217; “ for an opening double quote & #8220; ” for a closing double quote & #8221;

posted at 09:02 am on September 12, 2006 by Adam Craven

5 damn!

On the preview, it came out so well. Let’s try again:

— — em dash

– – en dash

… … Ellipsis

‘ ‘ for an opening single quote

’ ’ for a closing single quote

“ “ for an opening double quote

” ” for a closing double quote

posted at 09:05 am on September 12, 2006 by Adam Craven

7 darken my towels

This article is the equivalent of a sitcom clipshow.

posted at 07:37 pm on September 12, 2006 by Richard Anderson

8 Slash forward?

I was pleased to see that slash forward was one of the articles recommended by this primer guide. This has long been one of my favourite articles, being more of a server-side coder myself. However, I question whether the trailing slash is really as important today as it was when the article was written.

A List Apart itself hasn’t used trailing slashes (in many places) since the launch of ALA 4.0 – something that I assume is due to its dependence on the Ruby on Rails platform, which isn’t a big fan of the trailing slash. For RoR (and several other CMSes and web frameworks), using trailing slashes means more work, rather than less. This removes the claimed ‘technical advantages’ of using the trailing slash.

Anyway, as with all the articles listed in this guide, it’s a good read nonetheless. Overall, a very nice selection!

posted at 07:02 am on September 13, 2006 by Jeremy Epstein

9 Untitled

Read it for the first time a few days ago. Learnt so much from it. In my excitement missed it in your article! It’s such a brilliant read.

Something I wonder about too Jeremy. With dynamic sites, most of the time you’re not accessing directories, your requests are funneled through a processor. Seems more useful for non-dymanic sites.

posted at 10:32 am on September 14, 2006 by Adam Craven

10 Great Article

Excellent article. I’ve been reading ALA for about 6 months now and I have only seen about half of the articles mentioned in this one. I look forward to a afternoon of “work research” while i read through some of these.

posted at 02:54 pm on September 14, 2006 by Josh Schramm