I had lunch with some friends last week.  The discussion topics varied, and at some point someone mentioned the word, tricks, and it got me thinking.  I don’t know how long the trend of “X ways to do something really cool in CSS/XHTML/JS” has been going on, but there seems to be no end in sight.

Here is the thing.  While it’s fun to learn the latest way to vertically center a div on a page using jQuery, HTML5 and your mom, you’re wasting your time. You may use that what, 1-2% of the time in your projects.   Your fundamentals are what is important. Positioning, layouts, typography, spacing, etc.  Master those things.  Tricks are just tricks. Fundamentals win the game.

via esbueno