Write meaningful HTML that communicates the structure of your document before any style or additional interactivity has loaded. Write CSS carefully, reason your methodology and stick to it, and feel empowered to skip frameworks. When it comes time to write JavaScript, write not too much, make sure you know what it all does, and above all, make sure the website works without it.
The whole article is great, and really charmingly written, with some golden nuggets embedded within, like:
- You’ll find that spending more time getting HTML right reveals or even anticipates and evades accessibility issues. It’s just easier to write accessible code if it’s got semantic foundations.
- In my experience, you will almost always spend more time overriding frameworks or compromising your design to fit the opinions of a framework.
- Always style from the absolute smallest screen your content will be rendered on first, and use
@media (min-width) queries to break to layouts that allow for more real estate as it becomes available.
- If your site doesn’t work without JavaScript, your site doesn’t work.
- Always progressively enhance your apps, especially when you’re fucking with something as browser-critical as page routing.