On Saturday, I had the privilege of speaking to the DFW Adobe Users Group (DFWAUG) about CSS and modern, standards-based web design. After several weeks of mounting anxiety about my first public speaking venture, I nervously delivered a presentation entitled CSS Fluency: Speaking the Language of Cascading Style Sheets. The premise behind CSS Fluency is simple. In the programming world, there’s a common axiom, “If you can describe it, I can program it.” Although not a programming language, the same can be said for CSS. If you can learn to speak the syntax using natural language to describe style rules, then you’ve begun the journey of mastering CSS.

Much to my surprise, the talk was well-received and it seemed that everyone in the room learned something new, particularly me. The members of DFWAUG are a warm, friendly bunch of people, which really helped put me at ease and we ended up having a great conversation about CSS and web design. I’d like to thank everyone at DFWAUG for having me there on Saturday and for being a great audience and asking a lot of relevant and intelligent questions.

You can download a PDF version of the presentation although it may or may not be useful unless you were at the meeting. The example page for demonstrating the CSS techniques is also available.