Several months ago, when I turned serious about CSS-based design and structural markup, I joined the css-discuss list. Most of the known names were there and I could learn a lot just by reading what other people said. Here and there, I responded to other people’s troubles.
It was fine until I got into a very busy period, working dozens of hours a day. Sheer amount of daily e-mails from the list, which can go from 40 to over 100 takes up at least 1-2h a day, if you really want to read and understand what is said. I just don’t have that time.
I tried several things.
- Keep collecting. Read on weekends.
Worked right until the moment I realized my girlfriend was about to kill me. I worked my a*s of on working days, and read (and learned) on the weekends. You get the picture. - Scan through, move the ones that seem useful to Good ones sub folder. Read when time permits.
Problematic when you copy just one or two e-mails in a longer thread and can’t grasp the problem at hand after 2–3 weeks. Also, I now have a folder with over 150 e-mails, just barely scratched. - Re-edit good ones, changes subject to smth meaningful. Copy to Cleaned library folder. Delete all else.
This worked OK for a while. It still takes 20–50 mins/day, but that is bearable. Just until I had so much work that I missed 3 days of doing this and I had to work on 200 e-mails. Also, there is no way I could contribute to the list by doing this.
I can only admire people that actually have time to copy the problematic code, find a solution and post an answer. People like Mike Landis, Zoe Gillenwater, Big John & Holly Bergevin and many more I just can’t remember at the moment.
I don’t how they manage to do it, but they deserve eternal gratitude.
How do you do it?
I have spend the past 2 months determined to read every post. It has been a full time job. But it has been worth it because I am much more knowledgeable about CSS now and I will be able to use CSS technology in all my next websites. Basically it has been similar to going to school — except it costs nothing, except time and dedication. I read every post and I edit each post into a text file with only the essential info that I find might help me in the future. For example, I have a folder (on my mac) called “bugs and hacks”. In that folder I have divided it into a section for ie, a section for opera, a section for netscape…etc. Anytime a post comes along with an issue relevent to a bug, it is filed into the appropriate folder. If the same bug appears many times in a month, I just file it once of course. If I encounter any CSS problems in my websites I just go to my collection of edited posts and I usually find the answer. I have a folder for almost any css topic imaginable. Of course it has taken several months to compile a useful collection. I have just started a new edited CSS post collection for 2004 now and most of the posts from 2003 will be important enough to be moved over to my 2004 collection. I now have enough info in my css folder to write a book or teach a course. I have backed it up on a Zip disk because it represents 2–4 months of work, filing and reading. I make sure that I understand everything being discussed in the post before I file it or there is no sense filing it.
But of course reality sets in…I now have a client who needs a website done and he is getting concerned about the fact nothing has progressed on the site for 2 months! At this point I think I will have to just scan only the posts that I feel I need to read and I will finally have to ignore the rest unfortunately. I have enjoyed being a part of css-discuss but I must say it is a full time job if you would like to keep up with each and every post. I don’t know how Eric Meyer does it. Aleksandar, thanks for writing about how you deal with css-discuss — that gave me soem good ideas and good insite into other methods. I too am grateful to Big John and Holly Bergevin, Mike Landis, Zoe Gillenwater, Steve Clay, Jukka K. Korpela, Adam Kuehn, Timothy J. Luoma, Wojtek the Moose, Philippe Wittenbergh, Bob Easton, Tom Livingston and of course Eric Meyer but I better stop naming names because I am sure I am missing someone. Now back to css-discuss and work too!
Michael Ryznar
http://www.ryznardesign.com
The CSS Discuss Wiki can be quite useful as well:
“The css-discuss Wiki is a companion to the Css Discuss mailing list. Among other things the wiki serves as a collective long term memory for the list participants.”