Archive: June 22nd, 2017

Purists versus Pragmatists

How the IETF redefined the process of creating standards.

To some visionary pioneers, such as Ted Nelson, who had been developing a purist hypertext paradigm called Xanadu for decades, the browser represented an undesirably messy direction for the evolution of the Internet. To pragmatists, the browser represented important software evolving as it should: in a pluralistic way, embodying many contending ideas, through what the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) calls “rough consensus and running code.”

Oh No! Our Stylesheet Only Grows and Grows and Grows! (The Append-Only Stylesheet Problem) | CSS-Tricks

I think Chris is on to something here when he identifies one of the biggest issues with CSS growing out of control:

The developers are afraid of the CSS.

Clippy — CSS clip-path maker

A handy tool with some pre-made CSS clip paths that you can then tweak to your heart’s desire.

And now, a brief definition of the web - The Verge

Analysing what the web is. It’s not the technology stack.

To count as being part of the web, your app or page must:

1. Be linkable, and
2. Allow any client to access it.

I think that’s a pretty good definition.

Mind you, I think this is a bit rich in an article published on The Verge:

The HTML web may be slow and annoying and processor intensive, but before we rush too fast into replacing it, let’s not lose what’s good about it.

Excuse me? Slow, annoying, processor-intensive web pages have nothing to do with the technology, and everything to do with publishers like The Verge shoving bucketloads of intrusive JavaScript trackers into every page view.

Still, we can agree on this:

Preserving the web, or more specifically the open principles behind it, means protecting one of the few paths for innovation left in the modern tech world that doesn’t have a giant company acting as a gatekeeper.

Code clarity - Anthony Ricaud

Breaking down programming tasks into smaller chunks …and naming things.

I’ll take a piece of paper and write the function names I’m going to implement. Or I’ll do it directly in my code editor, with real functions or comments.

It allows you to focus on one problem at a time. When you’re writing those function names, you are thinking about what the code should be doing. When you’re implementing the functions, you are thinking about how the code should do it.

Using CSS variables correctly - Mike Riethmuller

Mike examines the real power of CSS custom properties compared to Sass variables—they can change at runtime.

I’m convinced that in almost all cases, responsive design logic should now be contained in variables. There is a strong argument too, that when changing any value, whether in a media query or an element scope, it belongs in a variable. If it changes, it is by definition a variable and this logic should be separated from design.