Tags: vanilla

Using the platform

Elise Hein documents what it was like to build a website (or web app, if you prefer) the stackless way:

• use custom elements (for modular HTML without frameworks)
• use the in-browser package manager (for JavaScript packages without build tools)
• match pages with files (to avoid routing and simplify architecture)
• stick to standards (to avoid obsolescence and framework fatigue)

Her conclusions are similar to my own: ES6 modules mean you can kiss your bundler goodbye; web components are a mixed bag—it’s frustrating that Apple are refusing to allow native elements to be extended. Interestingly, Elise feels that a CSS preprocessor is still needed for her because she wants to be able to nest selectors …but even that’s on its way now!

Perhaps we might get to the stage where it isn’t an automatic default to assume you’ll need bundling, concatenation, transpiling, preprocessing, and all those other tasks that we’ve become dependent on build tools for.

I have a special disdain for beginner JavaScript tutorials that have you run create-react-app as the first step, and this exercise has only strengthened my conviction that every beginner programmer should get to grips with HTML, CSS and vanilla JS before delving into frameworks. Features native to the web are what all frameworks share, and knowing the platform makes for a stronger foundation in the face of change.

Van11y: Accessibility and Vanilla JavaScript - ES2015

Van11y (for Vanilla-Accessibility) is a collection of accessible scripts for rich interfaces elements, built using progressive enhancement and customisable.

Smashing Podcast Episode 21 With Chris Ferdinandi: Are Modern Best Practices Bad For The Web? — Smashing Magazine

I really enjoyed this interview between Drew and Chris. I love that there’s a transcript so you can read the whole thing if you don’t feel like huffduffing it.

A little bit of plain Javascript can do a lot

I decided to implement almost all of the UI by just adding & removing CSS classes, and using CSS transitions if I want to animate a transition.

Yup. It’s remarkable how much can be accomplished with that one DOM scripting pattern.

I was pretty surprised by how much I could get done with just plain JS. I ended up writing about 50 lines of JS to do everything I wanted to do.

1loc | Favorite JavaScript single line of code

Pairs nicely with HTML DOM.

HTML DOM - Common tasks of managing HTML DOM with vanilla JavaScript

This is a great way to organise code snippets—listed by use case, and searchable too!

Next time you’re stuck on some DOM scripting, before reaching for a framework or library, check here first.

Why you should learn vanilla JS first | Go Make Things

Frameworks (arguably) make building complex applications easier, but they make doing simple stuff more complex.

And that’s why I think people should learn vanilla JS first. I’ve had many students who tried to learn frameworks get frustated, quit, and focus on vanilla JS.

Some of them have gone back to frameworks later, and told me that knowing vanilla JS made it a lot easier for them to pick up frameworks afterwards.

Learn Vanilla JS

Chris Ferdinandi is a machine!

A vanilla JS roadmap, along with learning resources and project ideas to help you get started.

plainJS - The Vanilla JavaScript Repository

Some more useful snippets of JavaScript. The functions and helpers are particularly handy if you’re weaning yourself off jQuery.

CloseBrace | A Brief, Incomplete History of JavaScript

Another deep dive into web history, this time on JavaScript. The timeline of JS on the web is retroactively broken down into four eras:

• the early era: ~1996 – 2004,
• the jQuery era: ~2004 – 2010,
• the Single Page App era: ~2010 - 2014, and
• the modern era: ~2014 - present.

Nice to see “vanilla” JavaScript making a resurgence in that last one.

It’s 2017, the JavaScript ecosystem is both thriving and confusing as all hell. No one seems to be quite sure where it’s headed, only that it’s going to continue to grow and change. The web’s not going anywhere, which means JS isn’t going anywhere, and I’m excited to see what future eras bring us.

The Web is not Fashionable. - The blog of Ada Rose Edwards

This is such a great perspective on what it’s like to build for the web over the long term. The web will always be a little bit broken, and that’s okay—we can plan for that.

The Web has history. If you build with web technology it will stick around. We try not to break the web even if it means the mistakes and bad decisions we have made in the past (and will make in the future) get set in stone.

Vanilla List: The Vanilla Javascript Repository

Here’s a handy directory of scripts that set out to solve one problem without any dependencies. Useful for poking at, picking apart, and learning from.