Google HTML /CSS Style Guide Review

HTML

? Omit the protocol from embedded resources. 
? Indent by 2 spaces at a time.
? Use only lowercase.
? Remove trailing white spaces.
? Use UTF-8 (no BOM).
? Explain code as needed, where possible.
? Mark todos and action items with TODO.
? Use HTML5.
? Use valid HTML where possible.
? Use HTML according to its purpose.
? Provide alternative contents for multimedia.
? Separate structure from presentation from behavior.
? Do not use entity references.
? Omit optional tags (optional).
? Omit type attributes for style sheets and scripts.
? Use a new line for every block, list, or table element, and indent every such child element.
? When quoting attributes values, use double quotation marks.

In order to remain consistent across all languages and platforms, 4-col tabs should be used.

TODOs have nothing to do in the markup. Task management is a good thing, do it.

Since HTML is bound to be semantically incomplete, a line must be drawn. I draw it after div,p,li,span,a,h1.

Omitting optional tags is murder. One does not simply self-close tags. (optional tags are inconsistent, break XML compatibility and thus many HTML parsing tools, just to save a few characters)

Consistency > all, and if you're going to pick only one quotation style, pick the same for CSS and HTML

CSS

? Use valid CSS where possible.
? Use meaningful or generic ID and class names.
? Use ID and class names that are as short as possible but as long as necessary.
? Avoid qualifying ID and class names with type selectors.
? Use shorthand properties where possible.
? Omit unit specification after “0” values.
? Omit leading “0”s in values.
? Use 3 character hexadecimal notation where possible.
? Prefix selectors with an application-specific prefix (optional).
? Separate words in ID and class names by a hyphen.
? Avoid user agent detection as well as CSS “hacks”—try a different approach first.
? Alphabetize declarations.
? Indent all block content.
? Use a semicolon after every declaration.
? Use a space after a property name’s colon.
? Use a space between the last selector and the declaration block.
? Separate selectors and declarations by new lines.
? Separate rules by new lines.
? Use single quotation marks for attribute selectors and property values.
? Group sections by a section comment (optional).


The only standard that works across everything, from SQL to Shell to any language, is underscores. Since technology is mostly about linking technologies, incompatibility for no reason is unacceptable.

I'll use spaces when I want to. Useless spacing left and right serves no purpose, unless you're using a broken font to edit code with.

Then back to the single/double quotes discussion.

Conclusion

Overall, the google style guide for HTML/CSS is not half-bad, but it makes critical mistakes on the consistency side (underscores, quotation marks and indentation).


I'll finish with their own:

Parting Words

Be consistent.

If you're writing a coding style guideline, focus on consistency above everything else.