Example

Thanks for visiting

OK, I want to say a few things.

First of all, thanks VERY much for visiting. Your inner intrepid adventurer has clicked a link, boldly, to you know not what; and while that sort of behavior may be risky and generally frowned upon, I applaud your courage. It deserves to be rewarded and I am sadly going to disappoint you this day. For that, I am truly sorry.

But it will get better. I have two goals with this site.

The primary goal is really a thought experiment/exercise in self-discipline. The web developer in me wants to build a site that strictly adheres to a specific set of standards and explores some concepts in which I have long been interested. Following is at least a partial, but fairly comprehensive, list:

  1. I aim for this site to be 100% valid HTML 5 at all times and on all pages. This is not because I think this is necessary, or even desirable in the modern environment. And it certainly isn't practical. It is because I think as web developers, we are often inclined to take shortcuts because of time pressures or expedience. I definitely don't have this luxury at work so this is my place to stretch out and take some pleasure in doing things right. This will likely have consequences for some, perhaps many, readers. If you are using the most current versions of either Firefox, Google Chrome or Internet Exploder, you should always see something approximating my intent. As of this writing, those versions are 6.0, 13.0.782.215 and 9.0.8112 respectively. Incidentally, I hate Internet Exploder and if at some point in the future, I am using valid markup and Internet Exploder does what it does best (fuck things up for everyone), you will just have to deal. I long to say that every day at work. This is my place to have that freedom.
  2. I aim for this site be 100% valid CSS Level 3 at all times and on all pages. This is mostly for the same reasons and with the same caveats as above.
  3. I aim for the design and layout of this site to be image free. You may get images as part of the CONTENT of this site; but no images will be used in the design, layout or navigation, ever. I certainly want the site to look good. It probably looks pretty meh right now; but I want to accomplish that without spending half my day in Photoshop.
  4. I will be using a lot of javascript, primarily in the form of jQuery; but probably to experiment with some other libraries as well.
  5. It is certainly not the case right now; but I want to move this site towards semantic markup in the coming months.
  6. I want to experiment with some content management concepts I've been kicking around internally.
  7. I want to experiment with some user interface concepts I've been kicking around internally.
  8. I want to control it all on the backend with some really cool PHP and perhaps some other languages as well.
  9. I want to hear from users on all these things. This will probably be via a forthcoming contact form and some commenting features, maybe a forum.

My secondary goal is some self-expression. In my middle-age, I find I am drawn to a growing variety of topics and I am trying to learn as much as I can about all of them. I mean to share that here.

  1. One of the main things I expect to write about will be the things I learn through the "thought experiment" above. The content of this site is mine; but the tools I employ to get it done are all open source and the code I generate in that pursuit are yours for the asking. Read my source if you like something. Ask if you don't understand it. Teach me if I've done it wrong.
  2. Politics: I get more liberal with each passing day and I am really frustrated with where we are, politically, in this country. I don't expect to solve or resolve anything. I'm just going to tell you what I think and hopefully, acquit myself well.
  3. Atheism
  4. Photography
  5. Science
  6. Books
  7. Music
  8. Other shit I think is cool

Hey, if you read all this, thanks. It means something that you paused long enough to see what this is all about.

Clark
August 29, 2011