The Best Of The Internets

ES6 in WebKit (October 2015)

This is an update on where things stand with the ECMAScript 6/2015 spec in WebKit. Currently in Safari for El Capitan & iOS9:

  • Classes
  • Promises
  • Map, Set, WeakMap, WeakSet, for…of loops, and
  • Symbols

Coming soon:

  • let, const, and class block scoping
  • a portion of the Reflect API
  • some of the current module specification
  • Tail calls
  • Default parameter values
  • Default destructuring values
  • Arrow functions, and
  • a portion of the internationalization API

For an excellent overview of ES6 support, consult this handy chart.

Shadow DOM (6 October 2015)

The latest draft of the Shadow DOM spec has been published. Check it out and give the team some feedback.

Why words are a design issue

Gemma Church on why the words you choose matter. I wholeheartedly agree. Your website is a conversation with your customers, which means words are central to it.

Collateral Damage

Just like JavaScript, CSS, and images, you are not guaranteed that your web fonts are going to reach (or be appreciated by) your users. I know I constantly run into web font-related performance issues with Wired on my iPhone, even on a speedy WiFi connection, so I’m not at all surprised users are looking to block them.

How do you deal with this? Don’t hide your content until the fonts arrive. Assume they never will.

What forces layout/reflow. The comprehensive list.

A good overview of layout and reflow triggers in JavaScript. It’s worth noting that this resource can be made more complete with contributions from the WebKit and Microsoft Edge teams (hopefully forthcoming).