As a reaction to web dev outcry Google temporarily halted the breaking of the web. That sounds great but really isn’t. It’s just a clever tactical move.

…Somewhere in late 2022 to early 2023 Google will try again, web developers will be silent, and the modals will be gone.

Josh Fremer being quoted on QuirksBlog on the topic of: "what's the difference between accessibility and progressive enhancement?"

I think of [progressive enhancement and accessibility] as the same process, but with different foci. Accessibility aims to optimize an experience across a spectrum of user capabilities. Progressive enhancement aims to optimize an experience across a spectrum of user agent capabilities...

What is the application of color to a website if not a progressive enhancement targeting user agents that can discern colors? Whether the "agent" in this case is the electronic device in the user's hands or the cells in their eyes is kind of moot. The principles of both PE and accessibility require us to consider the user who is unable to receive color information.

What an interesting idea: user agents being human beings or electronic devices, doesn't matter, it's all about starting with the most basic functionality and enhancing from there.

That’s an interesting concept to think about, especially in light of his Josh's final point:

a fun little thought experiment is to imagine a sci fi future in which users can plug computers directly into their brains, or swap their personalities into different bodies with different capabilities. This further blurs the line between what we traditionally call a "user agent" and a user's innate disabilities. "This web site is best viewed in a body with 20/20 vision and quick reflexes."

An novel take on CSS selectors as if statements and for loops:

menu a {
        color:red;
      }
      menu a:first-child {
          color: blue;
      }
      menu a:not(#current) {
          color: red;
      }
      

Now do that imperatively in JS:

for (all menus) {
          for (all links in this menu) {
              let first = [figure out if this is the first link in the menu]
              if (first) {
                  link.color = 'blue'
              } else if (link.id !== 'current') {
                  link.color = 'red';
              }
          }
      }
      

The drawback of the JavaScript version is that it’s more verbose than the CSS version, and hence more prone to error. The advantage is that it offers much finer control than CSS. In CSS, we’ve just about reached the limits of what we can express. We could add a lot more logic to the JavaScript version, if we wish.

In CSS, we tell the browser how links should look. In JavaScript, we describe the algorithm for figuring out how an individual link should look.

An interesting take on explaining CSS to “JavaScripts” through the lens of JSON:

Like JSON files, CSS files are not programs. but a series of declarations that programs use in order to create output. Also, they fail silently when they contain instructions that the receiving program does not understand.

If you approach CSS as you approach JSON you’ve taken a step toward understanding it.

An interesting commentary on a hacker news thread. Front-end is often looked down on, but that looked down upon-ness stems mostly from real CS people who see the web stack (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) as suboptimal to their real stacks.

When people talk bad about JavaScript, HTML, and CSS:

The main reason back-end developers don’t understand front-end is that they expect a well-defined environment.

That’s an advantage of the web! The multiple browsers, the varied environments is what gives you reach, unlike any other platform!

if there's any reason why tech ageism is amazingly dumb it's this one imo (have the guy on your team who's graduated past the fanboy stage make your tool, platform and framework choices, you will save far more than the premium that you have to pay him).

Front-end-ers love shiny stuff, but sometimes it’s employers too: (hackernews comment)

This is because employers are demanding that candidates know the latest and greatest technologies (eg. looking for 5 years of experience in 1 year old technology)...If I need to be experienced with [all this shiny new stuff] to stay employable because just doing my job isn’t enough, then I’m going to learn it.

The real problem he comes up with:

the main reason why front-end is so behind: Real Programmers With A CS Degree don’t do front-end. Front-end is for script kiddies and pixel pushers, it’s not to be taken seriously...Unfortunately Real Programmers don’t know anything about browsers and have no desire to learn. That makes them useless as front-end teachers. This problem, more than anything else, is what perpetuates web development as a hack of hacks.

An interesting read on the state of the web and how, just maybe, we should ponder slowing down for one second to consider the direction we’re headed in and contrast that with where and what we want the web to be. Of course to suggest “slowing down” is technological blasphemy. So the author correctly prefaces his article with “Fair warning. You’re going to hate this one.”

Here are a few passages I enjoyed, in no particular order:

Recently I’ve been having serious doubts about the whole push the web forward thing. Why should we push the web forward? And forward to what, exactly? Do we want the web to be at whatever we push it forward to? You never hear those questions.

Pushing the web forward currently means cramming in more copies of native functionality at breakneck speed — interesting stuff, mind you, but there’s just too much of it.

Native apps will always be much better at native than a browser. Instead, we should focus on the web’s strengths: simplicity, URLs and reach.

But why do web developers want navigation transitions? In order to emulate native apps, of course. To me, that’s not good enough.

We’re pushing the web forward to emulate native more and more, but we can’t out-native native. We are weighed down by the millstone of an ever-expanding set of tools that polyfill everything we don’t understand — and that’s most of a browser’s features nowadays. This is not the future that I want to push the web forward to.