DREWspective

I’m sat here at work, doing my thing of producing CSS very quickly. It suddenly dawned on me, having looked through a 1300+ line CSS file that I previously created, that even I get confused by the style names I use. In different situations I tend to mix camelcase and lowercase, and the result is usually confusion (and at some point, guilt).

Wanting to be consistent and code in a specific way, I did a quick search on the Internet for established CSS naming conventions. There are none.

I did, however, find an interesting weblog post by Andy Clarke that offered suggestions for common situations. Theoretically it’s very similar to how I name elements on the pages I build, though I use different names:

#wrapper

#header

#logo

#search

#middle

#sidebar

#content

#footer

Basically I usually reserve IDs for layout elements, like the header and footer; everything else is unstyled as much as possible, and uses classes when it’s not.

For consistency, I’ve decided to follow ‘the norm’ (you’ll never hear me say that again!) by using lowercase names with hyphens for spacing. I’ve started to do it now with this CSS, and it already looks a lot more legible.

• Not done
• Not working
• No changes made
• Not fixed

I’m racking my brain as I write, but I can’t think of a single other "bug report" that gets on my thickwick more than the above. And now you’re going to find out why.

First of all, whether you’re a web developer, programmer or someone who works on some kind of long-term project, you’ve probably come across some guidelines for submitting "bugs", or as I prefer to call them, tickets.

("Bugs" always imply that something is wrong, and in recent times I’ve heard the term being used for feature requests and tweaks.)

Unfortunately, you may have been in a company, or "team", where the policy is to make these "bugs" as vague and nondescript as possible. I’ve been in three such places to date.

On several occasions I’ve been presented with a "bug" that looked something like this:

012345: product price not showing

not working - pls fix

and every time I’ve wanted to retort with

please be more vague

but I can’t do that, because I’ve been brought up on "cynical" comments already. That’s how serious this is.

So what is the problem?

The first thing is, you may have already addressed the issue at hand, whether you’re working on it or you’ve done the work. You might have spent valuable time and energy implementing a solution. But because the other person can’t see the result, they automatically decide that it hasn’t been done, rather than double-checking on their end for anything that could hinder progress.

I remember one good example from when I was relatively new to permanent work. The company had decided to use some (what was then) esoteric method of updating a site, where I would edit a file and then have to copy it using Dreamweaver to somewhere else, where another developer would do some more work on it.

Well, I had made the necessary updates to the pages, and to the best of my knowledge had followed the instructions. The next morning I received an e-mail basically telling me that none of the updates had been done, followed by a written tongue-lashing. And if that wasn’t enough, the Technical Director joined in soon after and had a dig at me as well.

That was an extreme case, which ultimately hammered the final nail in the coffin and resulted in my resignation. That’s an example of what can happen when people get lazy and make assumptions.

The second thing is, a "bug report" like "not done", "not working" etc. gives you next to no information. You don’t know what exactly is not working, what kind of problem it is, or whether it is actually working instead.  You end up wasting valuable time asking questions and gleaning information, or—worse yet—try to figure out what the problem is yourself. I’ve been in at least one company where they insisted I asked questions, but threw things right back at me (on occasion) when I did.

These kinds of statements are controlling; as long as you don’t know what the real issue is, they are controlling you. It must be handled appropriately, and if they refuse to help you, leave.

In light of the recent "earthquake" in London a couple of days ago, someone had sent a letter to the Metro highlighting the horrific damage caused to someone he knew. The letter was accompanied by a photo of a toppled over garden chair.

Short but sweet.

One disturbing phrase I’ve overheard time and time again is "get xxx to do yyy".

Before you start complaining that I’m making something out of nothing, let’s break it down to see why it’s bad.

• The first part of the sentence is "get xxx". Does that sound familiar? Almost as if a hitman’s contract has been made on you, doesn’t it seem?
  Although the implication sounds morbid, that’s exactly what it sounds like; the intention is to "get" someone. Someone has been specifically targeted for the task at hand.
• The second part is "to do yyy" - something they can’t (or in many cases, simply won’t) do. Basically it’s intended to load someone with a burden, or in most cases to pass the resonsibility on to someone else.
  Sometimes the task may be trivial, but you can bet there’ll be several more like it if you accept it.
• The whole term "get xxx to do yyy" implies controlling another person, or at least coercing them into doing what you or someone else wants, with little to no regard of how difficult it might be for them.

Let me know what you reckon.

I read a rather interesting article in one of yesterday’s free evening papers, about the rise of self-help books. They talked about "The Secret", which is apparently the motivational speaking world’s mainstream shot at cinema, as well as the number of books that had come out.

As well as ridiculing the idea that you just had to think positively to get positive results, they made an interesting comment at the end: that the only way to get rich, it seems, is to write your own self-help book.

I remember making this comment (to myself) years ago, when I was first introduced to motivational speakers and self-help coaches. I certainly thought that comment about T Harv Eker—the first high profile person whose book I bought, as a result of listening to Achievement Radio—after hearing some of his other material. He might have made millions with his businesses, but he seems to make even more money repeating the same things verbatim.

I’ve bought a number of these books in the last couple of years, most of which are from lesser-known authors. I’ve only finished a couple of them: Gifts From Eykis by Wayne Dyer is a very good read, as well as The Fine Art of Small Talk by Debra Fine. The ones about finances and getting rich are out of my league, as they tend to assume you have the money to play with already; they talk about investing and real estate near the end of the book.

Pretty much every self-help book I’ve come across has the same theme about positive thinking—that you have to think positively, stay away from negative people, etc.—and they all seem to rehash the same messages and quotes and references.

There’s another disturbing trend that some people might not notice, and if I ever write a book of my own, I vow never to follow that trend.

Attacking the person who is reading the book.

In about 80% of the books I’ve made a start on reading, there’s usually a dedicated chapter on how you are supposedly at fault for your current situation; how you are responsible for everything that happens to you; how everybody else is faultless; how you must make all the effort. That’s usually where I put the book down. (99 times out of 100, it’s chapter two. If I remember correctly: David DeAngelo’s book Double Your Dating goes right into it at the first chapter.)

Sometimes it doesn’t stop there. In a book I read by Jeff Keller, there were various digs at the reader (mostly at negative people) scattered throughout the book. Very occasionally, these digs accompany the dedicated chapter of finger-pointing.
I wrote about something like this before, concerning certain people who point fingers at the very people they’re trying to sell to, in which I mentioned that all respect for them on my end goes right out the window. It especially holds true for speakers and "self-help gurus".

I’m not saying that they don’t have a point; I would certainly agree that it is up to us as visionary people to pull through, despite others standing in our way, and i would agree that people make choices that put them in particular positions. But to throw these things in the face of the reader or listener, who came to them for help in the first place, is just plain spiteful.

These days I’ve been listening to a guy named TJ Hoisington, who put out an audiobook called If You Think You Can!. I bought it because of the incredibly powerful and energetic excerpts (and music!) I heard on Achievement Radio; this guy seemed to know what he was talking about.
I was disappointed to find that the three CD recording I purchased from Amazon was one of those seriously toned-down, generic, read-verbatim tapes you find in WH Smiths. Even more disappointing was the obligatory chapter on establishing the reader for being "at fault", which I wasn’t prepared for.

Unfortunately there’s no concrete way of avoiding such text, especially if it stops you from going any further.  But like TJ says on the Achievement Radio version of his recording: if you disagree with an idea, discard it.