Chris Mills | Developer Relations Manager,Opera Software ASA

I had a few chances to talk to Chris and just had to make it to make it to this presentation.

Before starting he warns us that he is going to be “impossibly english” for the next 45minutes.

Opera’s MAMA project

• structural search engine
• has returned some shocking figures.
  • 2001, 0.71%
  • 2006, 2.58%
  • 2008, 4.15%
• Only 50% of sites with “standard compliant” badges validated.

Problems:

• Corporate lock-in
• Existing developers who don’t have the time to care
• Lack of respect in computer science AND design world
• Hobbyists

What can be done?

• Make better education available.
• Make changes slowly
• Filter outdated material
• High quality, free, in-one-place resources
• Resources: www.opera.com/wsc

Standard complaint sites have access to a larger market.

“Developers who don’t care” == THE BEST SLIDE EVER! (go see his slides)

WaSP web curriculum framework – Competency check lists.

I just signed up on dev.opera. I wonder how they moderate the submitted articles. It sounds like if you are interesting in submitting articles send them directly for Chris at this point. The will be redesigning the site soon to make the submission process easier.

I also had to give him a friendly jab that the first article I clicked on was just a placeholder.