This post is an edited and expanded version of a now-mangled Mastodon thread. Platforms Are Competitions ...and We're Losing Win Condition You Do It To Yourself, And That's What Really Hurts Groundhog Day Reboot Some in the JavaScript community imagine that I harbour an irrational dislike of their tools when, in fact, I want nothing more than to...
Other posts in the series: Reckoning: Part 3 — Caprock Reckoning: Part 2 — Object Lesson Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape Frontend took ill with a bad case of JavaScript fever at the worst possible moment. The predictable consequence is a web that feels terrible most of the time, resulting in low and falling use of the web on...
Other posts in the series include: Reckoning: Part 2 — Object Lesson Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape Subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified when new installments go live. Complexity Perplexity Carrying Capacity Should This Be An SPA? The Pits Aftermath Last time, we looked at how JavaScript-based web development compounded serving errors on...
Other posts in the series include: Reckoning: Part 2 — Object Lesson Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape Subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified when new installments go live. --> The Golden Wait The Truth Is In The Trace Zip It Near Peers Blimey JavaScript Masshattery Maryland Enters The Chat Chatanooga Chug Chug SNAP? In Jersey? Fuhgeddaboudit...
Instead of an omnibus mega-post, this investigation into how JavaScript-first frontend culture broke US public services will be released in four parts. To catch them as they come out, subscribe to the RSS feed. When you live in the shadow of a slow-moving crisis, it's natural to tell people about it. At volume. Doubly so when engineers can...
The W3C Technical Architecture Group[1] is out with a blog post and an updated Finding regarding Google's recent announcement that it will not be imminently removing third-party cookies. The current TAG members are competent technologists who have a long history of nuanced advice that looks past the shouting to get at the technical bedrock of...
Like Platform Adjacency Theory and The Core Web Platform Loop, this post started[1] as a set of framing devices that I've been sketching on whiteboards for the best part of a decade. These lenses aren't perfect, but they provide starting points for thinking about the complex dynamics of browsers, OSes, "native" platforms, and the standards-based...
After weeks of confusion and intentional chaos, Apple's plan to kneecap the web has crept into view, menacing a PWApocalypse as the March 6th compliance deadline approaches for the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA). ((img) => { if (img && window.blurIt) { window.blurIt(img); } ...
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The tech news is chockablock[1] with antitrust rumblings and slow-motion happenings. Eagle-eyed press coverage, regulatory reports, and legal discovery have comprehensively documented the shady dealings of Apple and Google's app stores. Pressure for change has built to an unsustainable level. Something's gotta give. This is the backdrop to the...
If you're a web developer not living under a rock, you probably saw last week's big Safari 16.4 reveal. There's much to cheer, but we need to talk about why this mega-release is happening now, and what it means for the future. WebKit's Roaring Twenties Good Things Come In Sixes What Changed? Headcount Is Destiny Early Innings But first, the...
For most of the past decade, I have spent a considerable fraction of my professional life consulting with teams building on the web. It is not going well. Not only are new services being built to a self-defeatingly low UX and performance standard, existing experiences are pervasively re-developed on unspeakably slow, JS-taxed stacks. At a...
TL;DR: To serve users at the 75th percentile (P75) of devices and networks, we can now afford ~150KiB of HTML/CSS/fonts and ~300-350KiB of JavaScript (gzipped). This is a slight improvement on last year's budgets, thanks to device and network improvements. Meanwhile, sites continue to send more script than is reasonable for 80+% of the world's...
Gentle reader, I made a terrible mistake. Yes, that's right: I read the comments on a MacRumors article. At my age, one knows better. And yet. As penance for this error, and for being short with Miguel, I must deconstruct the ways Apple has undermined browser engine diversity. Contrary to claims of Apple partisans, iOS engine restrictions are not...