Der Teaser mit den Kopfhörern für Marsianer hat mich dazu bewegt, den Artikel “Martian Headsets” von Joel Spolsky zu lesen. Die Stellen, die mich am meisten angesprachen, haben aber nichts mit dem Mars, Kopfhörern oder auch nur mit dem eigentlichen Thema des Artikels zu tun.

• And this is where Jon Postel caused a problem, back in 1981, when he coined the robustness principle: “Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.“
• DOCTYPE is a myth. - A mortal web designer who attaches a DOCTYPE tag to their web page saying, “this is standard HTML,” is committing an act of hubris. There is no way they know that. All they are really saying is that the page was meant to be standard HTML. All they really know is that they tested it with IE, Firefox, maybe Opera and Safari, and it seems to work. Or, they copied the DOCTYPE tag out of a book and don’t know what it means.
• But, of course, if that had happened, maybe the web would never have taken off like it did, and maybe instead, we’d all be using a gigantic Lotus Notes network operated by AT&T. Shudder.
• “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.“