{"id":6720,"date":"2010-07-02T06:11:31","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T13:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/css-tricks.com\/?p=6720"},"modified":"2011-11-30T20:56:51","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T03:56:51","slug":"five-questions-with-jeff-starr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/css-tricks.com\/five-questions-with-jeff-starr\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Questions with Jeff Starr"},"content":{"rendered":"
I first knew of Jeff through his website Perishable Press<\/a>, which has long been a fantastic web design resource blog focusing on CSS, WordPress, and a lot of hard-to-find-elsewhere .htaccess stuff along with a good amount of Jeff’s personality (which I consider to be a prerequisite of any good blog) . As you may know, Jeff and I co-author Digging Into WordPress<\/a> together, both the book and the blog. Jeff is really a get-things-done kinda guy and I’ve always admired that about him. I thought I’d get him to do an interview where I could ask him some things I’d never asked him before.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jeff:<\/strong> That particular post was one of my lazy “note-dumps” with a quick intro and closing slapped on. Typically, I will take a post from that point and continue to flesh it out with as much relevant information as possible. This usually results in longer articles that cover more ground and\/or go into greater depth. It’s always a matter of addressing the target audience where they’re at, which is generally an educated guess. How much do you assume your readers already know? Do you begin with how to turn on the computer and work your way to the point, or just assume they’re exactly where you’re at and deliver the goods? I think a lot of my articles try too hard at catering to the least common denominator when they would probably be just as useful if I had cut directly to the point. I think finding the balance is key to writing good tutorials.<\/p>\n I do get obsessive about web-design stuff and writing about it. It’s a rush to see work come to fruition, and I like to make sure that I’m not missing anything along the way. All the details need to be accounted for. All the nuances need explained. I think maybe years in school have warped my writing style to sort of echo that academic textbook voice. I personally find that style easier to digest when dealing with lots of material, but for anything else it’s probably overkill. When I first got into writing web-design tutorials\/articles five years ago, I was literally writing for myself, entirely for the sake of learning. The more information I could lookup and include in an article the better. These days, I enjoy this sort of “encyclopedic” approach when it’s useful, but continue to try to “tone it down” and “loosen up” as much as possible. I still associate the idea of “quality” with well-produced, well-researched content, but don’t worry as much about being so comprehensive with everything. There’s just not enough time to keep up when you’re working on that level.<\/p>\n Jeff:<\/strong> I think it depends on the topic. When I write about “blogging” or “social media” for example, I don’t mess around explaining and defining everything – I just jump right in. Writing about specific code examples or techniques is the same way — you just have to assume that, if someone is checking things out on that level, they’re probably savvy with the basics. On the other hand, when you’re exploring broader topics, such as how to secure a website, readers of all levels may be reading, so it’s more important to explain everything. Also important when writing is the idea of “breadth” vs “depth.” Stuff can be very broad in scope and deep in explanation and nobody will read it because it just looks scary, or it can be so pointed and shallow that people will dismiss it outright as spam. Personally I enjoy writing from the other two perspectives: “broad and shallow” or “focused and deep.” Either of these approaches tend to make for great articles. For example, I recently did a post that covers 76 WordPress techniques<\/a> that is extremely popular. Nothing too deep there, but it sure covers a lot<\/strong> of stuff. You see amazing content like this from Smashing Magazine<\/a>, Six Revisions<\/a>, and Nettuts<\/a> all the time. Likewise, there are posts that fall into the “focused and deep” category. For me, that’s<\/em> where the quality is — a well-focused article that deeply explores its topic. That’s the kinda stuff that I like to read, so that’s the kinda stuff I try to write.<\/p>\n As for tech books, I love ’em and think they’re useful, but they all seem to follow the same general format: boring intro, cover the basics, slog through some theory and then spit out some examples. And it’s always written in that stiff “academic-textbook” voice that puts so many readers to sleep. These books can be awesome learning tools, but there’s no reason they all need to be so plain, boring and predictable. I think this is one of the reasons why we chose to self-publish and go the DIY route for Digging into WordPress<\/a>. If you look at the difference between what we’ve created and how it would’ve been with a major publisher, you totally get why we made that decision. Whether or not taking risks, being creative, and changing things is right for other<\/em> tech books depends on too many factors to even think about.<\/p>\n Jeff:<\/strong> Haha, yes compared to your single-line style of writing CSS, I can see how organizing by line-length<\/a> would seem tedious. But for me, writing my CSS that way makes it easier on the eye and easier to maintain. Everything is so neat and organized that if something — even the smallest little thing — is out of place, it really stands out. A quick scan through one of my stylesheets and you know immediately whether or not it’s complete or needs work in certain places. But not just for CSS, I get obsessive about any<\/em> code that I’m working with, whether it’s HTML, PHP, JavaScript, or even HTAccess. I’m just an extremely organized person, both online and off. It isn’t always beneficial in the “real” world, but when it comes to working with code, pixels, and writing, strong organizational skills make it possible to get more done in less time. I think organization is fundamental to how the digital world operates. Essentially, the Web is nothing more than a complex organization of binary data. I think that the more organized you are, the closer you get to the true “essence” of the Web.<\/p>\n I have to admit though, working with you on the DiW site<\/a> has given me a new appreciation for writing out CSS declaration blocks in single line format. It does seem a little quicker when scrolling through longer files, and so I have been integrating single-line declarations into my own, line-length-organized stylesheets. Good examples for when a single-line declaration is going to work better than the separate-line approach include simply styled elements such as strong<\/tt>, em<\/tt>, code<\/tt>, a<\/tt> and so on. I think punctuating stylesheets with different coding styles improves readability and maintainability. Instead of just miles of similarly formatted code, you get these nice breaks that help to divide the document into readable\/scannable sections.<\/p>\n*<\/span>Chris:<\/strong> Your writing style is extremely comprehensive. For example, you recently wrote an article about CSS border rules<\/a>. It’s not an overview or tutorial, but more of an encyclopedic approach documenting these properties. Is this a conscious choice? Or just “your style”?<\/h4>\n
*<\/span>Chris:<\/strong> The “target audience” issue I find interesting in our field of tech writing. It was a question we got asked a lot while writing our book: “what level audience level is it for?”, to which I typically responded, “well, uhm, sort of intermediate but there is value in it for all levels.” Then on this blog, I tend to waver around quite a bit in terms of what skill level any particular article is best suited to.<\/h4>\n
What is your approach on Perishable Press? Do you try and keep it targeted the same level reader all the time? And perhaps more interestingly, do you think tech publications in general would be more successful if they remained consistent in their skill level targeting?<\/h4>\n
*<\/span>Chris:<\/strong> Organization is another attribute I associate with you. For example there is a classic series on Perishable Press about obsessive CSS formatting. In one of them you claim to order your CSS rules by their line length, which I have to admit I find borderline insane, mostly from a maintenance perspective. Although I do also find it visually appealing. Do you still do it like that? Anything new? Where does that obsessive organization come from?<\/h4>\n
*<\/span>Chris:<\/strong>So what’s the “day job”? I know you work in some kind of lab. Does that involve any web work or is that relegated to freelance and side projects? Any future plans?<\/h4>\n