Some more food for thought, following on from Shaun’s post about HTML as the foundation of web development:
There is another building block for the web, one that is more important than HTML, CSS and JavaScript combined. It all starts with URLs. Those things uniquely identify some piece of information on the web.
See, view source is a human right. Since the beginning of the web, thousands, probably millions, of users have bootstrapped their way to technical understanding through exploring the way the existing web is put together. I did. You might have done. And you, we, should be able to. And more than that, we should be encouraged to. For fun, for experience, for education, for revolution.
James is right. And he’s made a script to encourage further exploration.
welcome.js adds a friendly message to the console when it’s first opened, as well as links for users to find out more about the console, and programming in general.
Continuous web death.
The modern journalist is not an expert on the web. They and their colleagues have spent a large part of the last twenty-five years dismissing the open web at every stage. They are not the people you can trust to either accurately assess the web or to make usable websites. You can’t even trust them to make sensible decisions about web strategy. Just look at their damn websites!
We all make assumptions, it’s natural and normal. But we also need to be jolted out of those assumptions on a regular basis to help us see that not everyone uses the web the way we do. I’ve talked about loving doing support for that reason, but I also love it when I’m on a slow network, it shows me how some people experience the web all the time; that’s good for me.
I’m privileged to have fast devices and fast, broadband internet, along with a lot of other privileges. Not remembering that privilege while I work and assuming that everyone is like me is, quite possibly, one of the biggest mistakes I can make.
I think it’s worth revisiting this post by Laurie on a regular basis for a shot of perspective and inspiration.
The web saved my life and then built me a new one. A single living entity, it touches everything in the world and is always getting better — and I can help. I owe it so much; if I can help it out, make it better in any small way, how can I possibly refuse? And if I can make it easier for other people to help make it better, then my efforts are multiplied.
Andy is sticking with the indie web.
Here, I control my words. Nobody can shut this site down, run annoying ads on it, or sell it to a phone company. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t say, and I have complete control over the way it’s displayed. Nobody except me can change the URL structure, breaking 14 years of links to content on the web.
I second that emotion.