WDRL — Edition 296: 15 years a freelancer, work-life productivity and CSS

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Hey,

This year marks fifteen years of freelancing in my life. That’s 100% of my work life and nearly half the time I live on this world. So I wrote something down on it on my blog. WDRL itself will turn 10 next year already which amazes me when I think about it. I want to say thank you to all who subscribe to my newsletter, who support me with recommendations to others, with money contributions or other things. You’re keeping this project alive and make it a usually joyful thing to send out a new edition.

To close the intro and dive into the articles, I want to share this mini documentary about my work-life in which I share how I combine web development and market gardening today as well as how to protect yourself from burn-out situations:

News

• This month a lot changed from a legal perspective for website owners: Two court rulings now decided that both using Google Webfonts as well as Google Analytics isn’t a legitimate interest and therefore can’t be active by default. You may still use these services if you ask for permission via Cookie Banner explicitly but it fails to serve the reason to use these services. Webfonts shouldn’t be replaced only by user action and analytics that are only collecting a small portion of user data are barely useful. So in future, self-host webfonts (from a performance perspective it’s also not worse than using the service), and use an analytics provider that’s matching GDPR rules.
• What’s new in PHP in 2022? A lot, according to this article by Brent from Stitcher.

Generic

• Alan Dávalos writes about the new baseline for web development in 2022: Now that Internet Explorer seems to die really in June this year, so now we should focus on low-spec Android devices, older Safari versions or slow networks.
• I’m a big fan of the paradigm “choose based on the current needs”, so when I had to prototype a recent client project on a tight budget, I made a choice that I found risky but was the best for this project: Using TailwindCSS.

UI/UX

• Digital products increasingly often depend on design systems. How can we evolve those design systems without breaking the products themselves? Brad Frost lays out the pros and cons about whether version the whole library or individual components.

Web Performance

• Simon Hearne looks at some key cache scenarios and recommend the ideal headers to set. Understanding caching is still one of the harder parts of the web and often disregarded.

HTML & SVG

• Madza shares a couple of lesser known HTML attributes that nevertheless are very helpful and may reduce JavaScript overhead.

Accessibility

• We should keep learning about accessibility and make it one of our top priorities. Melanie Sumner writes about why accessibility is still seen as a side issue and how we can change it.
• Do you know about the CSS pseudo-class :focus-visible? Pawel Grzybek explains the difference between :focus-visible and :focus.

JavaScript

• Chris Ferdinandi shares an easier way to write if … or checks with vanilla JavaScript by using Array.includes() when we need to check multiple conditions.
• Zach Leatherman shares a Web Component that enhances <details> elements with very useful behaviour that I also need nearly all the time using these HTML elements. For example keyboard actions, default closed on mobile but opened on big screens.

CSS

• This is a nice collection of Tailwind CSS components to use for free. But even if you don’t use Tailwind it’s a nice inspiration for building components.
• One thing that often gets neglected when discussing about Tailwind’s utility class approach is that it isn’t limited to that. You can use Tailwind’s directives and functions to make use of Tailwind’s presets inside your own CSS. That could go as far as writing completely your own class references and only using the styling inside your CSS file.
• Wonder what fit-content is suitable for? Here’s a quick guide leading you to the use cases.

Work & Life

• James Clear, the author of the bestseller book Atomic Habits, reminds us of how important it is to say no if you want to stay productive, healthy, and focused.
• Joel Spolsky writes about difficulties with getting started at work and why it is okay to move on one step at a time.
• If you work in web design or web development, this article might be an interesting read for you. Dan Mall reflects on the business of his design systems agency in 2021. He comes up with some inspiring conclusions.
• In a workplace that isn’t psychologically sound, you’ll find a culture where people fear being embarrassed or blamed or publicly shamed. Adam Blanchard on psychological safety.

If you like this newsletter, you can contribute to financing the project or just forward it to your colleagues and friends or share on social media. Thank you!

Anselm