Stuart Langridge beautifully illustrates all of the possible scenarios within which JavaScript availability is not guaranteed. Plan accordingly.
Dispatches From The Internets
Everyone has JavaScript, right?
Web Components, accessibility and the Priority of Constituencies
Bruce Lawson is dead-on with his critique of Apple’s feedback on Web Components:
Implementation is hard. Too hard for the developers at Apple, it appears. So Web developers must faff around adding ARIA and tab index and keyboard listeners (so most won’t) and the inevitable consequence of making accessibility hard is that assistive technology users will suffer.
We (browser makers and web developers) need to be willing to put in the effort to make things better for everyone else. Sadly, few seem interested.
Thanks for calling this out Bruce!
More Weight Doesn’t Mean More Wait
This is a brilliant post from Scott Jehl about optimizing page render by getting particular about how (and when) certain assets load. He uses the real-world site Wired as a test bed for putting the ideas into practice, cutting perceived load time by a full 8.5 seconds!
The DOM Is NOT Slow, Your Abstraction Is
Abstraction can be helpful, but it also complicates things and leads to slower performance. Andrea Giammarchi provides lots of details here in examining a complex app scenario with the good old fashioned DOM vs. a handful of frameworks. Bonus points for the fact that most of the video evidence tests are being run on non-iOS devices!
No, the DOM is not your problem, the fact you brought an over-engineered abstraction on top of a deadly simple task, like a table that needs some quick update, is the real problem you don’t want to see.
If you dig Andrea’s post, you should also check out this post from the Filament Group.
Tips for Surviving Google’s “Mobilegeddon”
Today is the day Google updates it algorithm to take into account mobile-friendliness. Here are a few tips that will help you embrace mobile without tearing your hair out.
What nobody tells you about will-change
Interesting insights from Thierry Koblentz on the unintended consequences of using will-change to identify elements likely to change in the interface.
Becoming Design-Infused: 2 Necessary Mutations to Organizational DNA
A beautifully insightful piece from Jared Spool. Lots of gold in here.
It’s one thing to say design is important and to put phrases like “delivering best-of-class customer experiences” into the corporate mission statement. It’s another thing to change a corporation to truly make design a competitive advantage.
How to write cleaner CSS and smarter SASS
A few thoughts on cleaner Sass output from Anthony Dispezio. He secret? Using generic mixins in concert with @extend.
Locking the Web Open: Rethinking the World Wide Web
Hmm… distribute the Web for endurance and longevity and make it private through blockchain-esque encryption. It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t know that Marketing will go for it.
The Failed Promise of Deep Links
A beautiful piece on what it means to be a link and what they mean to us.
In the ‘90s, we got tired of systems like Compuserve, AOL and Prodigy that wouldn’t play together nicely and only let us play in pre-approved ways. We might similarly grow disenchanted with apps that don’t connect easily, or only connect in ways that we can’t shape.