I’ve currently been chipping away at Jeffrey Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards, third edition. All I can say is: “So thaaaaaaaaaaaaats why.” In the early days of the Webs, designers were like surgeons with band-aids, patching up their babies as browser developers came up with new ways of butchering their designs. Thanks to the efforts of these guys, we now have guidelines to which even Microsoft deigns to hearken. Over the past 8 months, I learned piles of hands-on HTML, CSS and PHP, but really, without some order to all that technique, I’m lucky that what I’ve been sloshing together hasn’t turned out as utter garbage.

I’m still not sure what the point of the cover’s pixelated, mustached, hipster head (say, is that you Zeldman), but I’ve most certainly been craving this refreshing walk through the disciplined halls of standardized web code and content.

I can’t get this stuff into my head quickly enough. Prescribed read? Oh heck yes: http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/