And yet I’ve been around long enough to have witnessed the switch from sites that worked in broken browsers to those that comply with web standards. I remember Mr Zeldman’s original Designing with Web Standards. I remember the different designs that A List Apart (For People Who Make Websites) went through. And learning all about picking the correct doctype. I remember the huge succes of Dave Shea’s CSS Zen Garden. (Wanted to get noticed as a designer? Better made sure you were on there.)

I also remember Cameron Moll’s That Wicked Worn Look series, as well as the sudden popularity of Gotham and Clarendon, and Dan Cederholm’s passion for ampersands. And the enthusiasm surrounding ‘true’ web fonts. (Heck, I even remember downloading Microsoft’s Core Fonts for the Web bundle, way back when it still existed.)

I’ve seen the move away from needless and obtrusive scripting, the massive ditching of wrongly used Flash, and the rise of JavaScript frameworks like jQuery. The rise of tons of design-related blogs that turned out did little but collect links to articles elsewhere, too. And of design-related sites that got it right from the very beginning, of which Dribbble seems, to date, the most successful example.

And, despite the buzz surrounding HTML5 and CSS3, I’ve seen little things really move, these last few years. (Except maybe seen people move to Twitter and away from blogging.) Until came responsive web design, surrounded with what bears striking resemblance to the momentum that made possible the switch toward web standards, now so long ago. And reading on web design, even for non-professionals, became interesting again.

I’m just saying.

Note: I think I just stole Jason Santa Maria’s line. Also, pretty much every sentence of the first four paragraph starts with ‘I’. Which isn’t too bad for an entry ‘on the subject of me’, I guess.

Yes, there are plenty of cases in which a mobile app is definitely the way to go (such as a truly device-specific application, something involving any ‘on-board’ cameras, and what not), but a consistent browsing experience across both mobile and desktop devices that allows to reach out to a far greater number of people, is undoubtedly the future of the ‘true’ web.

Good thing to see some sites taking the first steps in the right direction, though.

Update: I should not forget to mention Media Queries, a CSS Zen Garden-like initiative showcasing some of the possibilities responsive web design has to offer. Now all we need is some bigger fish to be added to its list!

It’s about the separation of presentation from structure, which will allow us to do amazing things. Like redesign an entire site in hours instead of months. Stop authoring and debugging stupid, browser-specific markup. And support non-traditional browsers and devices, from Palm Pilots™ to screen readers, without building multiple versions of every page. All pretty good stuff.

Thanks to Roger Johansson for reminding.

The popularity of small (and touch-sensitive) displays has now brought with it a similar shift: away from the large-screen-centered and often fixed-width layouts, and toward what was labeled responsive design.

In short, responsive web design is the combination of a fluid-width layout, scalable images and video, and the smart use of media queries to optimize ‘full-blown’ web pages for display on screens of any size.

Ethan Marcotte, responsible for the original A List Apart article, has now released a book of the same title, which could very soon become mandatory literature for everyone somehow involved in web design.