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Stop solving problems you don’t yet have. Dublin Web Summit 2012

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a History Lesson

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Things used by people who understand the problems they solve are also used by those who do not understand those problems, or even if there is a problem.

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This is an amazing time to be a web developer.

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Frustration

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The web is a work in progress. Your job? To deal with it.

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Making things better with code

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You now have two problems

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Problem: no media query support in IE8 and below.

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Problem: lack of support for styling HTML5 semantic elements in older browsers.

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Problem: lack of support for certain CSS3 Selectors in older browsers.

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1. What is the problem? My process 2. What are my constraints? 3. Is not supporting this feature an option? 4. What current solutions exist? 5. Use a polyfill or roll my own?

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Why not just use a boilerplate?

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Stop solving problems you don’t yet have

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If you don’t know what it is doing. Why is it there?

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Do you know what is safe to delete?

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There’s no silver bullet to making a slow site fast. You must take a holistic approach. High performance runs the entire way through from the hardware it’s hosted on, through the app that builds the pages, to the server software that delivers the pages and the front end code that displays them in a browser. Drew McLellan - http://allinthehead.com/retro/361/how-to-make-your-website-fast

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Polyfills should not be a black box

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Teach problem solving before polyfilling.

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“Perch is removing my paragraphs”

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We need to teach: HTML, CSS, JavaScript

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We need to teach: Problem Solving skills

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If we train people to just copy and paste, we stop them growing, learning and contributing.

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Make sure you know why you are using a solution and what your other options are.

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Know and test for what happens if JavaScript doesn’t load.

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When teaching or writing tutorials for others explain problems before handing out the solution. Explain why as well as how.

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Thank you. @rachelandrew http://rachelandrew.co.uk http://edgeofmyseat.com http://grabaperch.com Image credits - Flickr users: artbystevejohnson, atoach, dominicspics, imagesbywestfall, koalazymonkey, pinksherbert, whatcouldgowrong, colemama