Global Moxie

John Gruber and son. Photo by Amy Gruber. From Daring Fireball

John Gruber of Daring Fireball gives Perl Critic for BBEdit some link love today, and I couldn’t be more flattered. Gruber is the dean of all things Apple/Mac/OSX and a mighty clever Perl hacker. I’m all atwitter that he took notice of the project.

The warm-and-fuzzy feeling quickly gave way to chagrin, though, when I realized that in the last few weeks, as I pushed to complete the public beta of Big Medium 2, I allowed my Daring Fireball subscription to lapse. I’ve just remedied that today. If you’re a Mac user, a design fan, a typography geek, or just a fan of good clean writing, I recommend that you do the same. Now. Without delay.

I believe in artisanal products. In an era of the big corporation, it’s an all-too-rare pleasure to get products or services directly from the craftsman, yet the difference in quality is remarkable. Just about anything is better when it’s “made,” not manufactured, when it comes directly from a master who has invested his own sweat and cultivated experience in creating something unique and special. By supporting artisans, you support makers over manufacturers. You improve your own quality of life.

Gruber is an artisan.

He’s a prolific one-man show with incredibly high personal standards and an attention to style and detail that is altogether refreshing. A little over a year ago, Gruber left his job to strike out on his own and dedicate himself full-time to the Daring Fireball blog. He supports himself with reader contributions and light advertising. On the basis of the quality of his writing, code and insight, Gruber deserves to get rich. But his is a tough business model; it ain’t easy for artisans to get by.

If you’re a Mac geek and don’t know Daring Fireball, check it out: Read it, love it, support it. If you already read it but haven’t made a donation, please consider it. Here’s why.

• Great coverage. His daily links give you all that you need to know to keep current on all things Apple, with mighty helpings of Web- and design-related topics, too. His original essays and reviews are thoughtful, balanced, rigorous. I used to read lots of Mac-oriented sites. Now I just read Daring Fireball. Gruber saves me time and gives me quality.

• Fine writing. Gruber brings humor, style and panache to a genre of prose—tech journalism and technical writing—that typically has none of these things. He cares about the fading arts of typography and grammatical style, of the finicky details of proper punctuation. His care for the choice and presentation of words is evident, an attention to nuance that reflects his overall attention to detail and quality.

• Zero-tolerance policy for hackery. This goes hand-in-hand with being an artisan. When you care deeply about your work and hold yourself to high standards, it’s hard to stomach others whose standards are miserably low. Gruber calls out rumor mongers and sloppy journalists in his “jackass of the week” column. (It sounds mean-spirited, I know, but it’s not. It’s a public service.)

• Markdown. Gruber created an elegant syntax called Markdown for formatting text and converting it to HTML. In the last year, just about everything that I’ve written has been written in Markdown, whether it’s aimed for the web or not. I’ve discovered that Markdown promotes a kind of healthy mental hygiene. Using the syntax actually helps me to organize my thoughts better. My e-mail messages are tidy, well formatted... cleaner. I never use Word or other WYSIWYG editors anymore. Everything goes into plain-text Markdown. It’s terrific. Big Medium 2 lets you edit webpages in Markdown, as do many blog plugins and other apps.

• Other side projects. Gruber is not only a maker of prose, but of many hacks and code snippets that he gives away freely to make life easier for others who ply their trade online and inside text editors. My own Perl Critic for BBEdit is based largely on Gruber’s CSS Syntax Checker for BBEdit and TextWrangler. His SmartyPants plugin is also available for Big Medium 2 and adds “smart quotes” and other typographic niceties to your pages.

• Jeebus. The whole world should use this word as often as possible in print.

Here’s the thing. Daring Fireball is also free. You don’t have to pay a dime to enjoy any of this. I’m sure he has many loyal readers who are content to remain free riders, but don’t give into the temptation.

Artisans need our support to make ends meet and to keep producing their quality wares. If you appreciate the quality, if you recognize how it improves the quality of your life, you’re obliged to support it.