[thelist] The myth of Common Knowledge

[Christian Heilmann]

I don't know if you discovered the same, but I recently got the
impression that less and less information is being shared on forums,
mailing lists and chats. The larger part of any discussion seems to be
about implementation issues or wishing that things were different than
they are (CSS sucks, JavaScript sucks, Browsers suck...).

I blame a misconception of "Common Knowledge" for this. Many
developers seem to be too scared to give out small tidbits as they
consider them already known. However, seeing the traffic I get on some
blogposts about very basic things like "how to remove a border around
a linked image" or "how to link an image and a text with a rollover
effect" tells me otherwise.

To counteract this issue, there were a lot of website projects in the
past (and still are around, yet dormant - bytesizestandards.com,
treehouse...) and the problem there is that maintenance of these is a
full job these days.

I propose now not to hold back with your small gems of information
(much like the tips of faq bits here) and blog about them. Simple
"Problem -> Solution -> Possible Pitfalls" posts and tag them with the
tag "webdevtrick". It is pretty easy then to track what has been
talked about via technorati.com and you could easily show a "10 latest
tricks" by re-using the RSS feeds of Technorati. I am 100% sure that
even the most seasoned developers here will find some forgotten gem in
these once they start flooding in.

More info about the idea: http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=341

What do you think?

Chris

-- 
Chris Heilmann
Book: http://www.beginningjavascript.com
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/