Linting CSS seems like a very good idea, especially if you’re not the only one writing the CSS. This guide is going to come in very handy when I give it a try.
Progressive enhancement is a design and development principle where we build in layers which automatically turn themselves on based on the browser’s capabilities.
The idea of progressive enhancement is that everyone gets the perfect experience for them, rather than a pre-determined “perfect” experience from a design and development team.
Over the past 10 years or so, we’ve slowly but very surely transitioned to a state where frameworks are the norm, and I think it’s a problem.
I concur.
Use the frameworks and libraries that make sense for you to deliver the best UX possible. But also learn the web platform from the ground up. Take time to understand how web browsers work and render webpages. Learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript. And keep an eye, if you can, on the new things.
Write meaningful HTML that communicates the structure of your document before any style or additional interactivity has loaded. Write CSS carefully, reason your methodology and stick to it, and feel empowered to skip frameworks. When it comes time to write JavaScript, write not too much, make sure you know what it all does, and above all, make sure the website works without it.
The whole article is great, and really charmingly written, with some golden nuggets embedded within, like:
- You’ll find that spending more time getting HTML right reveals or even anticipates and evades accessibility issues. It’s just easier to write accessible code if it’s got semantic foundations.
- In my experience, you will almost always spend more time overriding frameworks or compromising your design to fit the opinions of a framework.
- Always style from the absolute smallest screen your content will be rendered on first, and use
@media (min-width)queries to break to layouts that allow for more real estate as it becomes available.- If your site doesn’t work without JavaScript, your site doesn’t work.
- Always progressively enhance your apps, especially when you’re fucking with something as browser-critical as page routing.
A good ol’ rant by Vasilis on our design tools for the web.
Doug casts an eye back on the Wired redesign he worked on 20 years ago. It’s hard to overstate the impact this had on the adoption of web standards.
We’ve come a long way:
We’ve come so far since this redesign in 2002. We no longer trip ourselves up trying to fit everything above an imaginable fold. Designs respond to various screen sizes. Text is comfortably larger and screens display at a much higher resolution. We tend to give everything more breathing room.
Try writing your HTML in HTML, your CSS in CSS, and your JavaScript in JavaScript.
A genuinely inspiring event.
The joy of getting hands-on with HTML and CSS.
Combining custom properties, hsl(), and calc() to get cascading button styles.
Under-engineering, over-engineering, wombling free.