Link archive: July 26th, 2017

Web Publications for the Open Web Platform: Vision And Technical Challenges

Given my experience publishing Resilient Web Design as a web book, I think I should take a good look at this nascent spec.

What we envision for Packaged Web Publications is similar to the goals and techniques of Progressive Web Apps: breaking the boundaries between web sites and mobile apps, an emphasis on “offline” paradigms, and so on. The time is right to broaden the scope and power of the web to include publications.

Improbable Botany by Wayward — Kickstarter

Improbable Botany is a brand-new science fiction anthology about alien plant conquests, fantastical ecosystems, benevolent dictatorships and techno-utopias.

This is the book plants don’t want you to read…

The illustrations look beautiful too.

Bruce Lawson’s personal site  : Eulogy for Flash

Web developers aren’t going to shed many tears for Flash, but as Bruce rightly points out, it led the way for many standards that followed. Flash was the kick up the arse that the web needed.

He also brings up this very important question:

I’m also nervous; one of the central tenets of HTML is to be backwards-compatible and not to break the web. It would be a huge loss if millions of Flash movies become unplayable. How can we preserve this part of our digital heritage?

This is true of the extinction of any format. Perhaps this is an opportunity for us to tackle this problem head on.