Posts by: Ian Barber

• Using CSS Frameworks June 8, 2009

   

  Why CSS Frameworks?

  CSS frameworks or libraries are intended to solve the same problems as any programming library - to make certain tasks easier, and to standardise repetitive work. They grew from various front end developers realising they were doing the same cross browser resets and layout setups over and over again, who refined these standard parts of their processes and released them publicly.

  These frameworks can be, and have been, used to layout production sites, but they are perfect for prototyping and 'undesigned' areas - the administration pages, web GUIs and intranets that are often left entirely to the developer in terms of the look and feel. They offer easy and straightforward ways of putting together better looking and easier to use sites, by encouraging the use of some basic principles of design.

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• Debugging Development March 16, 2009

  Programming, as much as it is about machines, is conducted by humans, and is as susceptible to human error as any process. These bugs can be frustrating, particularly when found by a client, but they can give an insight into underlying problems, and sometime suggest solutions – or at least ways of catching errors early. This article looks at four different classes of bugs: mechanical, mental, social and environmental, their causes, and some preventative steps.

  Before discussing these, it is worth noting a couple of points. Bugs and errors are problems where the result is not what the programmer had intended - where if you asked the developer whether they expected X to happen, they would say no. This is quite different from the, equally common, problem of the functionality not being what the client desired, or missing some unspoken assumption - in both those cases the wrong thing was built right, rather than the right thing being built wrong.
  It's also worth mentioning that bugs will be much more likely if a programmer is tired, hungry, unmotivated, distracted, or stressed, either from the project or in their personal life. These problems don't have a technical solution, but addressing them might yield better dividends than all the rest of the techniques put together.

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