Web Development Reading List #160: Real Stories About HTTP/2, Cascading Style Sheets, And Code Of Shame

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Anselm is a freelance front-end developer who cares about sustainable front-end experiences and ethical choices in life. He writes the WDRL, and is co-founder … More about Anselm ↬

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What’s going on in the industry? What new techniques have emerged recently? What insights, tools, tips and tricks is the web design community talking about? Anselm Hannemann is collecting everything that popped up over the last week in his web development reading list so that you don’t miss out on anything. The result is a carefully curated list of articles and resources that are worth taking a closer look at.

We have great new technology available to enhance our websites. But while theoretical articles explain well what the technologies do, we often struggle to find real use cases or details on how things worked out in actual projects.

This week I stumbled across a couple of great posts that share exactly these precious real-life insights: stories about HTTP/2 implementation, experiences from using the Cascade of CSS in large-scale projects, and insights into employing Service Worker and BackgroundSync to build solid forms.

News

Coming soon to Firefox: a feature that will warn users when they type a password into an insecure (HTTP) page or form.
Coming soon to Firefox: a feature that will warn users when they type a password into an insecure (HTTP) page or form. (Image credit: Ryan Feeley)

Web Performance

Accessibility

JavaScript

  • Michael Scharnagl explains how you can enhance a basic form (i.e. a login or comment form) with custom validation, AJAX requests, auto-expansion of a textarea, and, finally, Service Worker and BackgroundSync to store input when a connection is unstable.

CSS/Sass

Work & Life

  • Justin White shares his story of becoming a programmer, his job hunt in the Silicon Valley, and why he chose not to work for an average startup.
  • The CTO of Basecamp critizes Microsoft’s new advertising campaign for Office 365. A good read on why sleep and dedicated non-work matter and why we shouldn’t endorse companies that don’t value these needs.
  • I don’t want to write too much about this weird Black Friday thing that causes millions of people to buy stuff they’ll never use or need, but Jason Koebler has the best Black Friday deal ever: repair a gadget you already own instead of buying new stuff.
For a lot of designers and developers Silicon Valley seems to be the promised land. Justin White shares how he left behind his Silicon Valley dream to find a saner place to work.
For a lot of designers and developers Silicon Valley seems to be the promised land. Justin White shares how he left behind his Silicon Valley dream to find a saner place to work.

Going Beyond…

  • Bill Sourour’s article “The Code I’m Still Ashamed Of” points out an important aspect of our jobs as developers: responsibility. An incredibly important story.

And with that, I’ll close for this week. If you like what I write each week, please support me with a donation or share this resource with other people. You can learn more about the costs of the project here. It’s available via email, RSS and online.

— Anselm

Further Reading

Smashing Editorial (mrn)