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A Recap of Frontend Development in 2019
1.1.2020
I noted Trey Huffine’s 2018 version of this article in The Great Divide.
To put a point on this divide a bit more, consider this article by Trey Huffine, "A Recap of Frontend Development in 2018." It's very well done! It points to big moments this year, shows interesting data, and makes...
A Recap of Frontend Development in 2019
1.1.2020
I noted Trey Huffine’s 2018 version of this article in The Great Divide.
To put a point on this divide a bit more, consider this article by Trey Huffine, "A Recap of Frontend Development in 2018." It's very well done! It points to big moments this year, shows interesting data, and makes...
What We’re Reading, 2019
1.1.2020
There are so, so, so (so) many things to read out there on the internet. So many, in fact, that it's difficult to keep up with everything.
But, hey, we've got your back! It's our job to surface the best of the best and share it with you right here. That's why it's a good idea to subscribe to this...
A Use Case for a Parent Selector
31.12.2019
Having a "parent selector" in CSS is mentioned regularly as something CSS could really use. I feel like I've had that thought plenty of times myself, but then when I ask my brain for a use case, I find it hard to think of one. Well, I just had one so I thought I'd document it here.
A classic...
Wufoo + Zapier
31.12.2019
Wufoo has always been great with integrations. They have integrations with specific apps, like Campaign Monitor, Mailchimp, and Typekit, but they also integrate with Zapier, which is sort of like an integration inside an integration.
That's kinda meta, but the idea is actually pretty...
Embedded Content in Markdown
31.12.2019
Markdown supports HTML, so if you need to, say, embed a YouTube video, you can just copy and paste the embed code from them, drop it into a Markdown document, and you should be good to go. With YouTube specifically, there are other options. But in general, you don't need to do anything special...
Gatsby and WordPress
31.12.2019
Gatsby and WordPress is an interesting combo to watch. On one hand, it makes perfect sense. Gatsby can suck up data from anywhere, and with WordPress having a native REST API, it makes for a good pairing. Of course Gatsby has a first-class plugin for sourcing data from WordPress that even supports...
A CSS Tribute to SVG
31.12.2019
This demo from Jérémie Patonnier is incredible. Make sure to look at it in Firefox because some Chrome bug apparently prevents the entire thing from working.
The big idea is that the entire demo is one <rect> element. That's it. It is duplicated with <use> elements when needed,...
One Way to Break Users Out of the Habit of Reloading Too Much
30.12.2019
Page reloads are a thing. Sometimes we refresh a page when we think it’s unresponsive, or believe that new content is available. Sometimes we’re just mad at the dang site and rage-refresh to let it know we’re displeased.
Wouldn’t be nice to know when a user refreshes the page? Not just that,...
Making Room for Variation
30.12.2019
Say you have a design system and you're having a moment where it doesn't have what you need. You need to diverge and create something new. Yesenia Perez-Cruz categorizes these moments from essentially ooops to niiice:
There are three kinds of deviations that come up in...
What it means to be a front-end developer in 2020 (and beyond)
29.12.2019
I wrote a piece for Layout, the blog of my hosting sponsor Flywheel.
Stick around in this field for a while, and you'll see these libraries, languages, build processes, and heck, even entire philosophies on how best to build websites come and go like a slow tide.
You might witness some...
So Many Color Links
27.12.2019
There's been a run of tools, articles, and resources about color lately. Please allow me to close a few tabs by rounding them up here for your enjoyment.
Curated colors in context
Happy Hues demonstrates a bunch of color palettes in the context of the site itself. That's a nice way to do...
How Many Websites Should We Build?
27.12.2019
Someone emailed me:
What approach to building a site should I take?
Build a single responsive website
Build a site on a single domain, but detect mobile, and render a separate mobile site
Build a separate mobile site on a subdomain
It's funny how quickly huge industry-defining conversations...
7 Uses for CSS Custom Properties
27.12.2019
I find all seven of these quite clever and useful.
I particularly like using custom properties when you can sneak a variation into a place where you'd normally have to re-declare a whole big chunk of code.
.some-element {
background-color: hsla(
var(--h, 120),
var(--s, 50),
var(--l...
Why do we use .html instead of .htm?
26.12.2019
Interesting question from Andy:
Serious question. Why do we use .html instead of .htm? / @adactio @css
— Andy Clarke (@Malarkey) December 12, 2019
The most likely answer from the thread: DOS was a massive operating system for PCs for a long time and it had a three-character limit on file...
PHP Templating in Just PHP
26.12.2019
With stuff like template literals in JavaScript and templating languages, like JSX, I've gotten used to wanting to write my HTML templates in one nice chunk and sprinkling in variables wherever I need them.
I had a situation where I needed to do that in "raw" PHP the other day, so I'm just...
How to Modify Nodes in an Abstract Syntax Tree
26.12.2019
One of the more powerful concepts I've stumbled across recently is the idea of abstract syntax trees, or ASTs. If you've ever studied alchemy, you may recall that the whole motivation for alchemists was to discover some way to transform not-gold into gold through scientific or arcane methods.
ASTs...
GoGetSSL
26.12.2019
GoGetSSL is a company that sells SSL certificates. You know, those things that are required to make your site use https://, not http:// which doesn't feel like an optional choice these days with browsers making sites looks scarily insecure without it and search engines telling us is a ranking...
What to Expect from the JAMstack in 2020
24.12.2019
Brian Rinaldi interviewed a variety of folks, asking them the same questions about JAMstack development and the landscape recently:
Raymond Camden: I think we will see better competition from the bigger players.
Gift Egwuenu: I'm also looking forward to more job openings on the JAMstack.
Bryan...
Moving Rainbow Underlines
23.12.2019
I absolutely love the design of the Sandwich site. Among many beautiful features are these headlines with rainbow underlines that move as you scroll. It's not scroll-jacking — it's just a minor design feature that uses scroll position to enact a little movement.
To draw the rainbows...