Reading Digest 05

Sharing what impressed, inspired and made me think this week, even if to thank the authors for taking the time for putting their thoughts and experiences together.

Why Comments Are Stupid, a Real Example—OK, OK, the example is not very “real”, yet a good demonstration of ways to improve code readability. I usually err on the side of “too many comments”, especially when analyzing someone else's code. So it is a good reminder for me to be thoughtful about them—and perhaps improve the code itself instead. Comments are still good, if used well. If you never comment your code—ignore the article. I hate you :)

HTML vs Body in CSS—hmm, dealing with these seems more like “This is how it's done!” than actually making sense. But oh well, I guess we just need to know and remember. A nice comment about relative font sizes, though, I do need to use those rem's more.

A/A Testing: How I increased conversions 300% by doing absolutely nothing—which sounds like an April Fool's joke (a well written one!), until you read into it. Takeaway—don't waste time on trendy techniques unless you understand what you're doing, and the statistics could mislead, especially without a large user-base (which is most of us, to be honest).

Top Drupal 7 Modules: Final Edition—lately I've been leaning more towards Wordpress for “standard” sites, since there's a lot to be said about simple tools for simple jobs (“don't use a cannon to shoot small birds”). Yet I may still go back to the powerful flexibility of Drupal if a problem requires it. Then I'll probably use a lot of the modules listed here. Nice to see some good old friends mentioned—we've been through a lot together, eh?

Brands redesigned by hand, an experiment in lettering—these look great! I mean, that's really bad. They're just… wrong! This is a good demonstration why thoughtful font usage matters—even when something is beautiful, it may still be completely inappropriate for your brand.

And, finally, the golden ratio is a lie. I knew it!