Patrick really hits the nail on the head in this piece originally written for the UK’s .net magazine. He touches on a lot of the ideas I’ve been spouting off about around here lately — in particular, the fact that sometimes less-than-perfect is “good enough,” and in fact that sometimes having your designer focus on the big picture is a lot more valuable than having your designer spend his/her time making sure ampersands are encoded and every links has a title attribute. A few choice quotes:
As an accessibilista and web standards evangelist, I admit that this prospect seems anathema to the ideology I’ve been advocating for years. However, the pragmatist in me is willing to make certain small concessions when it comes to the purity and finesse of markup and styling if these are outweighed by increased production capacity and faster turnaround times, which ultimately aid in keeping a large content-driven site accurate and up-to-date.
…web authors should see content management systems as opportunities. Just as CSS frameworks and JavaScript libraries, they are simply tools that, when judiciously applied, can greatly enhance productivity by automating repetitive and mundane tasks. The creative act of crafting appropriate templates still requires technical expertise.
…any tool which can enable us to work smarter, not harder, should be seen in a positive light.
Bravo, Patrick. One of my favorite articles in quite a little while See also the super-sexy PDF version.
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