Tinned Fruit Missives February 2018
As always, January is chock full of good articles. This month, I have detected another uptick in the sentiment that front-end development is too complicated / over-engineered / has too many choices.
While I agree to some extent, this view is rather negative. Choices like this are to me a sign of healthy progress (even if there are a few blind alleys). Most importantly, the chaos of choice presents a huge opportunity for companies that can find their way through and still deliver great products for their users.
The challenge there is right in the intersection of design, technology, business and research that I enjoy the most.
Happy February!
– Jim
Challenges for web developers - Paul Kinlan
https://paul.kinlan.me/challenges-for-web-developers/
On the one hand, this list of challenges for web developers makes for depressing reading, but it’s incredibly useful as a short primer for anyone who hires and manages web developers. Or for anyone related to one, for that matter. Empathy is a wonderful thing, but sometimes we all need a little sympathy too.
The increasing nature of frontend complexity - Kevin Ball
https://blog.logrocket.com/the-increasing-nature-of-frontend-complexity-b73c784c09ae
You might expect a doom-laden perspective given the title, and Kevin does indeed explain how much complexity has being ladled into front-end development in recent years. However, with challenges like this come huge opportunities.
Robust Client-Side JavaScript - Mathias Schäfer
https://molily.de/robust-javascript/
I don’t often post long-form content like this here. It’s really a short book. But it’s a solid primer on developing robust JavaScript applications, irrespective of the framework or libraries you choose. In the white-hot pace of modern web development, robustness is often lacking. This is a good place to start.
Some other World Wide Web hyperlinks I have enjoyed this month
- What’s New in HTML 5.2? - Ire Aderinokun
- In Defense of Utility-First CSS - Sarah Dayan
- Finding Dead CSS - Harry Roberts
- PWAs are coming to iOS 11.3: Cupertino, we have a problem - Maximiliano Firtman
- Front-End Performance Checklist 2018 - Vitaly Friedman
- The WHY behind the WAT: An explanation of JavaScript’s weird type system - Abhinav Suri
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Tinned Fruit Missives is a monthly newsletter about web product development and front-end practices published by Jim Newbery, an independent consultant from Edinburgh in Scotland.
I help B2B SaaS companies improve in-house front-end development practices. Find out more.
