A microdata enhanced HTML Webcomponent for Leaflet | k-nut — Blog

una.im | Updates to the customizable select API

It’s great to see the evolution of HTML happening in response to real use-cases—the turbo-charging of the select element just gets better and better!

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.

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.

Hyper-responsive web components | Trys Mudford

Trys describes exactly the situation where you really do need to use the Shadow DOM in a web component—as opposed to just sticking to HTML web components—, and that’s when the component is going to be distributed and you have no idea where:

This component needed to be incredibly portable, looking great on any third-party website, in any position, at any viewport, with any amount of content. It had to be a “hyper-responsive” component.

Churn

This is a good description of the appeal of HTML web components:

WC lifecycles are crazy simple: you register the component with customElements.define and it’s off to the races. Just write a class and the browser will take care of elements appearing and disappearing for you, regardless of whether they came from a full reload, a fetch request, or—god forbid—a document.write. The syntax looks great in markup, too: no more having to decorate with js-something classes or data attributes, you just wrap your shit in a custom element called something-controller and everyone can see what you’re up to. Since I’m firmly in camp “progressively enhance or go home” this fits me like a glove, and I also have great hopes for Web Components improving the poor state of pulling in epic dependencies like date pickers or text editors.