Tinned Fruit Missives March 2018
As I become more curmudgeonly, it’s only natural that I start to look at new tools, technology and techniques through sceptical, squinty eyes. It often surprises me how easy it is to get distracted my shiny toys, while we forget to focus on what the customer and business needs. We can sometimes be too clever for our own good, and keeping things deliberately simple takes a surprising amount of attention and effort.
Have a cracking March!
– Jim
Everything Easy is Hard Again - Frank Chimero
https://frankchimero.com/writing/everything-easy-is-hard-again/
Frank describes his overwhelming experience of returning to web design after a few years focusing on a software business. Tooling and technology is now far more complicated than it used to be, and not necessarily for the better. This is one of those articles that divides opinion, but it’s where the focus of the debate turns that is revealing, with much of the discussion around whether us oldies are stuck in the mud or not. For me, it’s more of a reminder that it pays to specialise and focus the kind of work we do.
Run Less Software - Rich Archbold
https://blog.intercom.com/run-less-software/
Intercom’s blog is almost always on point, and this is no different. Rich urges product companies to build a competitive advantage by avoiding shiny new, unproven tech, and outsource the grunt work that doesn’t help to get you there.
GDPR for Web Developers - Heather Burns
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-developers/
If you’ve been sticking your head firmly in the sand around the upcoming European data protection changes in May, this is a great place to get started. No legalese, just a practical outline for what you need to consider.
Some other World Wide Web hyperlinks I have enjoyed this month
- Native And PWA: Choices, Not Challengers! - Aaron Gustafson
- The People Part of Design Systems - Magera Moon
- Move fast and optimize for the long term - David Lynch
- Frontend Case Studies - Andrew Romanov - Links to real-world front end development case studies
- Modern CSS Explained For Dinosaurs - Peter Jang
- Using Media Queries For Responsive Design In 2018 - Rachel Andrew
- thanks - Give thanks to the open source maintainers you depend on!
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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.
