Author: Amy Armitage

Last year my ego was crushed because Kaanon was raving about Eric Meyer who was the Keynote speaker at Webmaster Jam Session … and he didn’t notice that I was on the list of speakers too!

What’s so great about this CSS Guru? What makes so many people attend his conferences, visit and comment his blog daily, or buy his published books?

Chad and I were fortunate enough to meet Eric last year at WMJ and he was truly wonderful, gracious and kind. He even signed a menu from our dinner for Kaanon!

Along similar lines to Richie Cunningham’s determination to break a real story (in episode #101 of Happy Days) when he got a D on his paper about a burnt out stop light from Professor Garrity, I decided to hit up Eric for an interview, but not one filled with only the geekspeak that web designers and developers can relate to. This was going to be an investigative story.. asking the hard questions..

Eric Meyer has written SIX books!

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide
Cascading Style Sheets 2.0 Programmer’s Reference
CSS Pocket Reference
Eric Meyer On CSS
More Eric Meyer on CSS
CSS Web Site Design

Just as I’m fervent about web hosting and ensuring our hosting plans have a kind and loving owner who doesn’t abuse the server ;), Eric is well regarded and respected for his passionate advocacy when it comes to web standards, particularly Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

But what don’t we know about Eric?

Did you know that Eric detests the taste of chocolate and coffee, and can’t stand carbonated fluids? That’s right – his entire career, and indeed his life, has been conducted entirely without the use of highly or even moderately caffeinated beverages.

*gasp*

How can anyone function without 8 shots of coffee prior to 9am?

Or this?

Eric: “On a related note, I’m mildly infamous for being perpetually hungry and a prodigious consumer of food. Despite this and my total avoidance of exercise, it’s nearly impossible for me to gain weight, and entirely too easy to lose it.”

See? I can get to the bare bones of a story!

Did you know..

Eric had a weekly Big Band radio show for nine years, from 1996 - 2005
Eric lives in Cleveland; however, most people assume he lives in San Francisco, or at least New York City
Eric’s college degree is a B.A. in History, with minors in English, Astronomy, and Artificial Intelligence
Eric’s wife is actually far more credentialed than he is, having obtained a Doctorate of Nursing last fall.

I just hooked you didn’t I?

What if I told you that Eric confided a secret to me that hasn’t even been blogged by him yet? Yes a LunarScoop!

Eric: “I’m a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), having been inducted in late 2006. What’s great for me is that they did so knowing full well who I was and my role in the field, instead of just coming across my name on web designers’ sites and assuming I was a designer too (I’m not). The letter of welcome actually cites me for my work in promoting standards and advancing the use of web technologies. That was a really, really great feeling.”

If that tickles your fancy then keep on reading

I contacted a few designers and developers I know (including Kaanon) and asked them what they would like to hear about from Eric Meyer.

Todd Austin (resident LP designer): With the upcoming Apple iPhone utilizing a full browser, what changes if any do you see coming regarding CSS and mobile?

Eric: To be honest, I’m not sure I see any, because I’m not sure that CSS is an appropriate tool for mobile devices. I know it’s meant to be medium-neutral, but it isn’t. It’s web-centric, which is totally understandable since the only user agents that supported CSS for years upon years were web browsers.

The more I think about the kinds of media coming available, from iPhones to 108-inch LCD displays, the less I believe that any human-readable presentation language will be sufficient to cover all those bases. I could be wrong, of course. We’ll see.

Todd: How can the industry help push universities to teach web standards, as I notice a lot of curricula is filled with old html/tables based teaching?

Eric: Stop hiring the people those curricula produce. That’s about the only thing that will work, and it’s hardly fair to the unhired, since it’s not their fault the instructors failed them so utterly. Still, and I know this probably sounds harsh, would engineering firms hire new graduates who’d been taught 18th-century engineering? Would a software company hire a new graduate who trained in COBOL? Would you do your taxes with an accountant who’d learned the tax code of the 1950s and nothing since?

Of course not. So I’m not sure why it should be different with web firms.

Beyond a hiring lockout, firms could communicate with universities that what they’re doing is outdated and needs to be fixed. Rolling in a “these students will not be ready for the workplace if you continue on your current path” might help, depending on the university.

Stefan Mischook (from killersites.com): Do you regret promoting the use of CSS hacks given the recent issues with IE7 - i.e. that it broke certain commonly used hacks?

Eric: No. I always did my best to be clear that hacks were, by their nature, fragile beasts, and could be broken by a future revision. At the same time, what else could we do? It was either hack around browser bugs, or abandon CSS as a layout tool. Neither was palatable, but the former was less unpalatable than the latter. What I regret is that the hacks were necessary at all.

Kaanon (Eric Meyer worshipper): In the beginning, inline HTML was the most commonly used way to change the way a page was displayed. CSS has now become the standard. What changes do you anticipate happening in the future?

Eric: It’s hard to say. Right now, there isn’t a lot of movement in presentational description for the web unless you count the Microsoft XAML/WPF work, which is intriguing but proprietary, not to mention more of a competitor with Flash than with XHTML/CSS/JS.

Actually, there’s not a whole lot of movement in any of the major web specifications. CSS, XHTML, and DOM have all ground to a near-halt. There are efforts to push some of them forward, but it remains to be seen how successful those efforts will be.

So I guess what I see coming is a grave risk of stagnation for the standards-based web. Mind you, I’ve had this feeling before, and so far it’s resisted obsolescence quite handily. If it does so again, then what I would anticipate is mostly gradual improvements with occasional leaps in capability. One example of the latter would be a robust layout language, whether that’s CSS Advanced Layout or some other approach. I don’t actually care so much what form it takes, so long as we get it.

Kaanon: CSS is a daunting language to learn, let alone master. Do you have any tips for web designers who have ideas in mind but have trouble learning how to implement them?

Eric: A good place to start is the css-discuss wiki, which is the distilled wisdom and experience of the css-discuss mailing list. You could always join the list itself, which is open to newcomers as well as to veterans, but it’s a high-volume list with a lifetime average of 50-60 messages per day. If you can handle the influx, it’s a great place to learn.

Failing those, there are a number of very good books on the market right now. I don’t want to play any favorites, but searching Amazon for “CSS” and reading some reviews should give you a good idea of which book might be best for you. Then, if you can, track down a copy in a local bookstore and riffle through it. If it looks like a winner, then buy it.

Kaanon: CSS is limited by how much browsers will support it. Is there a preferred browser that you use for development?

Eric: Firefox–not only for its excellent standards support, but also for extensions like the DOM Inspector, the Web Developer Toolbar, Firebug, HTML Tidy, and more. You can put together a really top-flight web development environment for free using nothing but Firefox and extensions.

Since someone will wonder, no, I don’t just code for Firefox. Once I’ve gotten things they way I want them in my development environment, I start testing in other browsers and working around any problems I find, the same as anyone else. What I don’t do is test as I go. That way lies madness.

Kaanon: In your book “More Eric Meyer on CSS” you have a review of a Cleveland restaurant “Matsu”. Does that place really exist?

Eric: Indeed it does! It’s one of the best sushi restaurants I know, and one of my favorite restaurants in the world. Everything I said in that review is true even today, three years after the book was published. The owners, Scott and Brenda Kim, are wonderful people and we’re fortunate enough to count them as friends, having gotten to know them over many years of wonderful dinners there. The only problem is that we don’t get there as often as we used to, or would like.

Christian Henning – (findmyhost.com): How can I utilize CSS on my web site for search engine optimization purposes?

Eric: Directly speaking, you really can’t. I know there are black-hat SEOs who use CSS to position search-engine spam text offscreen or turn it invisible, but that’s not optimization as I think of it (and it’s a practice that can get your site banned outright from search engines). There are real indirect benefits, however. If you use CSS for layout, you can arrange the document source so the most important text comes first in the document, regardless of where you actually place it. There’s a much higher ratio of text to markup than with table-based sites, and you also get to use semantic elements like h1 and so forth. All those small little boosts add up to SEO.

The other benefit is that by having a leaner site, you have a faster and more responsive site, which makes people more likely to link to it if they like the content. Inbound links are the biggest search engine boost known to man.

Zac Armitage (9 years old): What was the first web site you ever made about? Is it still online?

Eric: Rather than my first site, I can point you to my very first HTML document: the “Incomplete Mystery Science Theater 3000 Episode Guide” As you can see from the “last updated” date, I wrote it in late 1993. I was a big fan of the show, and took some text files that were available via Usenet to turn into a big old web page.

From early 1994 until early 2000, I was in charge of cwru.edu. That probably counts as my first site, even though I only did parts of it. It’s still online but looks nothing like it did, so while it’s still online, it’s not really the site I directed.

And now some questions from me (amy):

Amy: For budding webmasters.. What are the worst colors you can combine in website design?

Eric: Whichever two are most popular on MySpace right now. No, I kid! I think the answer is probably lime and fuchsia.

[Amy: Uh oh.. does that include ban ners?]

Eric: No, not unless you put them together on the same page.

Amy: When you started out and were examining web hosts closely, what were the major factors that influenced your choice of web host?

Eric: I never examined web hosts closely. I’ve just drifted from one to another as chance has dictated, soaring like a leaf on the wind.

[Amy: Awwwww *sigh*]

Amy: I’ve been known to audibly react to ugly sites I come across. When you visit websites that don’t comply with web standards what emotion does it evoke from you?

Eric: A rueful, regretful shake of the head. I always wonder why that person hasn’t gotten the message, and what could have been done to make sure they did. It doesn’t feel like a personal failure, but it does kind of feel like a collective failure.

Amy: What is your favorite font and size? Why?

Eric: New Century Schoolbook, 11 point, because it’s a very nice serif font at a clean size. Of course, very few people have that font, so I never use it online. One day I’d like to convince a publisher to do a book in that typeface.

Amy: We recently launched a new site design and our focus was on usability, simplicity and complying with web standards. What do you think of the new design?

Eric: It’s Web 2.0-tastic.

Under the hood, it’s fairly decent. One can always quibble over class names and specific markup structures and so on, but it degrades relatively well in a non-CSS environment and has a good content-to-markup ratio.

Amy: When I was at Webmaster Jam last year I noted a groupie reaction to you from many webmasters and also on your site. You seem to have an active and loyal community, all of whom adore and respect you. Similar to rock stars on stage having flowers and underwear hurled at them, when you are speaking at an event, what type of stuff is thrown at you? (Laptops, PDAs, notepads)

Eric: Questions, if I’ve done my job right. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything tangible thrown at me onstage, not even rotten tomatoes—those get saved for the feedback forms. No flowers, no room keys, nothing along those lines. Maybe one of these days I’ll do a rock opera based on margin collapsing and see if that changes the landscape.

Of course, if anyone wants to throw a new top-of-the-line fully decked out MacBook Pro at me onstage, I’m all for it; just make sure it’s well padded, yeah? I’d hate to have it break on landing.

[Amy: lol]

Some fluff questions (because an interview can be geeky yet entertaining at the same time):

Amy: Imagine overnight the internet is gone. OMG what would you do?! (Really.. the thought even freaks me out).

Eric: Immediately join the worldwide effort to rebuild it.

In a “no internet again, ever” world, I’d probably fall back to programming, which I used to do. If I decided to leave behind computers as the sole focus of my work, I’d have trouble choosing between a variety of interests. I might go back to school to study any of the following: meteorology, airline piloting, architectural modeling, or political science. I’d probably also devote some time to learning sumi-e and doing all of the interesting projects in Make: magazine.

Amy: Approx how many hours a day are you on your computer and does your wife ever resent how much time you’re online?

Eric: It varies wildly these days, but a good average is probably 6-8 hours. There’s occasional resentment, but not really very much. She understands that this is how I make my living.

[Amy: wow…only 6-8 hours??!]

Amy: If you’re familiar with the show Friends, Chandler is consistently being asked what it is he does for a living. My family is the same and after 6 years my father still says “What it is exactly you do?” Do you get the same line of questions when you are interacting with non-geeks you are related to or friends with?

Eric: Not any more, really. Partly that’s because I can gloss over the details and say, “I help clients improve their web sites, I write books to help individuals, and I speak at conferences”. Also, now that a lot of what I do is organizing my own conferences, that’s easy to explain.

When they ask me about the details of what I write and talk about, and I actually decide to answer, that’s when the eyes start to glaze over.

Amy: Was her name really Lola?

Eric: I deny everything, including the rumors that I met her in a club down in old SoHo.

[Amy: But just who shot who?]

Amy: You once said “In private and around people I know really well, I have a tendency to swear to an extent that would probably shock regular readers”. What is your favorite f*ck#ng curse word and why?

Eric: Well, we have to be clear about what is meant by “favorite”. The most common and satisfying one is the good old f-bomb and variations thereof, because it releases the most tension in one syllable, but it isn’t my favorite. My favorites aren’t actual cuss words, but creative substitutes I’ve picked up here and there. A few examples: “fargin’ bastige”, “son of a biscuit” and “mother pus bucket”. I think my current favorite, though, is “sweet fancy Moses!”.

Also, “what the blinking font?” is kind of a favorite, but that’s partly because I came up with it.

Amy: What about made up words? Do you have one you really like and what does it mean?

Eric: Not really, no, unless you count the swear-word substitutions I just mentioned. I do take a weird joy in appending –tastic and –rific and –licious to words, so I’ll say things like “Web 2.0-tastic” or “Flickrrific”, but I don’t do it all the time. I also enjoy mashing words together or creating pun-based alternatives to words. But I can’t think of any made-up words that I regularly use or keep as favorites.

Amy: Who is your hero?

Eric: Carl Sagan. He made complex topics understandable and interesting, and that’s something I’ve always tried to emulate in my work.

Amy: Who who who is the best web host?

Eric: The web host that has the plan which best fits your needs. How’s that for a total wuss-out?

[Amy: Eric secretly told me “off the record” it is Lunarpages ;)]

Eric: I deny everything.

Amy: Play a game with me. You HAVE to choose one of the following …

.com or .org?
Eric: .org. What can I say? I’m an old-school info-hippie at heart.

Swim with killer sharks or swim with crocodiles?
Eric: Sharks. They’re marginally more discouragable and might be induced to eat each other instead of me

Jazz music or hard rock?
Eric: Hard rock, although I love Big Band jazz and blues.

Xbox or Playstation?
Eric: Xbox. Halo. ‘nuff sed.

Deserted Island or Japanese Subway?
Eric: For a day or three, the island. For the rest of my life, I think the subway. Maybe.

FBI or CIA Agent?
Eric: FBI, because I wouldn’t have to move

Windows or Linux?
Eric: Linux. It would have more overlap with the tools I’m used to from OS X.

IE6 or IE7?
Eric: IE7 — because of the better standards support, natch

Cry or Scream?
Eric: Scream. Not sure why, though.

PHP or HTML?
Eric: PHP, because I can use it to generate HTML, so I get both.

Indianna Jones or Batman?
Eric: Batman. Cooler gadgets and fewer split lips, plus he’s insanely wealthy.

Go to Church or visit a serial killer?
Eric: Kind of depends on the church. In most cases, I’d rather the church, but there would be definite exceptions.

View source or view porn?
Eric: Tough choice, but I think view source. I’d have a higher chance of learning something.

Lose your vision or your hands?
Eric: I guess I’d lose the hands, since I want to see my children as they grow up. Also, there are decent bionic hands becoming available, whereas artificial vision systems are still fairly primitive.

Give up your computer or your TV?
Eric: No contest: give up my TV. Even if that choice meant I were also unable to watch TV shows via the computer, I’d still give up the TV without hesitation.

BestBuy or Home Depot?
Eric: Best Buy. They have cooler gadgets.

Euthanasia or painful slow death?
Eric: Euthanasia, as long as I get to choose when.

28 children or NONE?
Eric: 28 children, assuming I could afford it

Kill a dog or a cat?
Eric: Kill a cat. There’d better be a damned good reason for it, though.

Amy: Last one (I promise): Finish this sentence:

The internet is…

Eric: …the ultimate zócalo.

Amy: Thank you Eric! You are such a warm and generous person and we appreciate you taking the time to brighten up our little place in cyberspace

Eric: Thank you, Amy! I had a great time.

Amy: Omg me too! Plus I learned some cool new expressions I can use on ICQ to psyche out my staff like WTBF you mother pus bucket!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Interviews, Issue 1 - August 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed . Both comments and pings are currently closed.