WDRL — Edition 271: TTFB, the loading-attribute, tiny houses and work ethics.

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Hey,

The web is quite differently to when I started the newsletter in 2013 with the first edition. Back then, it was all about new features, new clever hacks and techniques how to build better websites. It was crazy at what speed we got new CSS features, and JavaScript evolved. Nowadays, it’s quite a different situation: There’s still a ton of innovation happening but if it comes to the fundamentals of what we need to build a website, we have everything we need. There are a few convenience things that we could still make use of and there are language evolvements in JS as well. But it’s more of a slow evolution of what we have compared to what HTML5, CSS3 and ES6 enabled us to do.
On Monday I talked with my old colleagues from the Workingdraft podcast for their 400th episode (out soon but only in German) and discussed this as well. It was interesting to see the history of where we come from with the web and where we are now. I’m curious what the future brings and here’s at least one new cool HTML feature that’s new: Lazyloading without JavaScript plugins.

Web Performance

• Harry Roberts explains the details of the time to first byte metric and why it matters.

HTML & SVG

• With Chrome 76 we get the loading attribute which allows for native lazy loading of images just via HTML. It’s great to have a handy article that explains how to use, debug and test it on your website today.

Accessibility

• The best algorithms available today still struggle to recognize black faces equally good as white ones. Which again shows how important it is to have diverse teams, and care about inclusiveness.

Work & Life

• Tiny houses are nice, they look comfortable, warm and just like a home we want to live in. Now there’s a study that answers whether tiny houses are really better for the environment than a usual home, and yes, they are. Not only because they’re tiny but way more importantly because the people living in them are forced to think differently about their shopping habits and how to consume energy.
• How do you justify your job in a company that has a significant influence on our world and our everyday lives and not necessarily with the best intentions? Meredith Whittaker wrote up her story of starting at Google, having an amazing time there and now leaving the company because she couldn’t justify it anymore that Google is using her work and technology to get involved into fossil energy business, healthcare, governance and transportation business — and not always with the focus on making everyones lives or our environment a better place to live but simply for profit.

Go beyond…

• Yep, so that’s what Amazon does to make even more money: Beyond providing the biggest online marketplace and being an incredibly successful internet hosting provider, they just revealed that they partnered with at least over two hundreds of law enforcement agencies around the world. Now, why does this matter for you? Mainly because they partnered with Ring, the Amazon home surveillance company providing services that are highly questionable anyways. For example, Ring has an app that allows people to post about “suspicious” people or “strangers” in their community. Of course without their consent and with the partnership it easily allows many people to do e.g. racial profiling.
• So Google will have a private auction for the Android search providers to comply with EU directives. Who would have thought that you can try to make money out of a legal compliance feature?
• Paul Hayes on trying to be plastic free for a month and why it’s hard to stick to it. It’s surprising how shopping habits need to be altered and why you need to spend your money totally different and cannot rely on online stores anymore.

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—Anselm