Tribolum.com Making Light of Things

When you look upwards at the peak of human endeavour, you will undoubtedly find people who look down on you. It is as inevitable as Newtonian cause and effect. You look up to the people who look down on you.

Jakob Nielsen, self-proclaimed smarty-pants of usability and the web, draws constant fire for his inability to accept viewpoints not in line with his own. I’ve done my fair share of Nielsen-bashing myself.

In a more recent bout of lowbie-bashing, Sarah Bellham of Histology-world was listed on Zeldman (normally an honour) as the worst flash intro ever. CSS guru Eric Meyer adds another two cents worth of sarcasm.

Zeldman and Meyer are two of my greatest influences on web design. I have the books to prove it. I also know that they’re relatively nice people, having had a really brief glimpse of them at SXSW 2003.

The point I want to make is that we all start somewhere. As a community we all fling our ideas out in cyberspace. Our ideas are part of who we are and they continually evolve through the gentle chiselling of minds more experienced than your own.

It is the not the one who has conquered the peak who earns the most reverent respect of those who climb beneath. It belongs to the fellow climber who is but two steps ahead, drenched with the perspiration of hard toil and takes time to offer a hand and a smile for those who climb behind.

So take heart Sarah Bellham, for I’ve had my own run-ins with flash. It’s scary how similar we are.