Meet the New Dialog Element

mirisuzanne/track-list: Enhance a list of audio tracks with playlist controls

This is very nice HTML web component by Miriam, progressively enhancing an ordered list of audio elements.

HTML Is Actually a Programming Language. Fight Me | WIRED

When haters deny HTML’s status as a programming language, they’re showing they don’t understand what a language really is. Language is not instructing an interlocutor what to do in a way that leaves no room for other interpretations; it is better and richer than that. Like human language, HTML is conversational. It is remarkably adept at adapting to context. It can take a different shape on any machine, from a desktop browser or an e-reader screen to a mobile app or a screen reader for the blind (so long as that device is built to present hypertext).

Hell, yeah!

Ultimately, even as HTML has become the province of professionals, it cannot be gatekept. This is what makes so many programmers so anxious about the web, and sometimes pathetically desperate to maintain the all-too-real walls they’ve erected between software engineers and web developers.

Hell, yeeeeaaaaahhh!!!

What other programmers might say dismissively is something HTML lovers embrace: Anyone can do it. Whether we’re using complex frameworks or very simple tools, HTML’s promise is that we can build, make, code, and do anything we want.

You can use Web Components without the shadow DOM

So what are the advantages of the Custom Elements API if you’re not going to use the Shadow DOM alongside it?

1. Obvious Markup
2. Instantiation is More Consistent
3. They’re Progressive Enhancement Friendly

CSS { In Real Life } | I’ve Been Doing Blockquotes Wrong

It’s pretty easy to write bad HTML, because for most developers there are no consequences. If you write some bad Javascript, your application will probably crash and you or your users will get a horrible error message. It’s like a flashing light above your head telling the world you’ve done something bad. At the very least you’ll feel like a prize chump. HTML fails silently. Write bad HTML and maybe it means someone who doesn’t browse the web in exactly the same way as you do doesn’t get access to the information they need. But maybe you still get your pay rise and bonus.

So it’s frustrating to see the importance of learning HTML dismissed time and time again.

HTML Web Components Can Have a Little Shadow DOM, As A Treat | Scott Jehl, Web Designer/Developer

This is an interesting thought from Scott: using Shadow DOM in HTML web components but only as a way of providing sort-of user-agent styles:

providing some default, low-specificity styles for our slotted light-dom HTML elements while allowing them to be easily overridden.