The whole “no haircuts during COVID” thing has resulted in a bit of a mad scientist look this New Year’s Eve.
“TBM 52/53: Real Teams (Not Groups of One-Person Teams) - The Beautiful Mess”
“Ancient remains prove women have been running shit for at least 9000 years”
“early big-game hunting was likely gender neutral or nearly so.”
“Programmers are bad at managing state - Read the Tea Leaves”
If anything, he understates the issue. We’re really, really bad at managing state. Which is why defaulting everythin to SPAs first is such an awful idea.
“I normally agree with Dan’s essays, but this time I very much disagree. As someo… - Hacker News”
Not often that I agree with a comment on Hacker News but this is one.
“How mRNA went from a scientific backwater to a pandemic crusher - WIRED UK”
This is one of the biggest pathologies of modern software dev.
The question you can use to sift through web dev tooling debates
My holiday gift to you all is an simple and amazingly useful tool for cutting through the nonsense in web dev discourse.
It’s a very simple question that you just ask yourself whenever you read about a new dev tool, framework update, or somebody’s opinion on a dev tactic:
“Will this help me build a sustainable software business?”
(Use ‘organisation’ instead of ‘business’ if you’re in the not-for-profit/charity game like me.)
SPA vs hydration vs server-only vs Turbolinks? No. those debates won’t help at all because YMMV, always.
React vs vanilla js vs Svelte vs Vue? No. Use the best tool that suits the task and you are familar with. Get to know more tools over time because that gives you options. YMMV, always. Whether it helps you build a sustainable business depends on the business, not the tool.
All those CSS debates? You’re always going to have to learn standard CSS before you can reliably use a tool that abstracts over it. Until then, use what works best for your use case. YMMV, always. Whether it helps you build a sustainable business depends on the business, not the tool.
Debating the UX of various approaches? YMMV, always. Sometimes the best UX ever is just solving the core problem well. Sometimes not. YMMV, always.
(One of the best web services I’ve used is the Icelandic healthcare portal Heilsuvera. It’s server-rendered-and routed, 2000s-style. It literally could have been made with late 90s web tech and it’s amazing.)
Typescript? Webpack vs rollup vs snowpack? YMMV, always. Whether it helps you build a sustainable business depends on the business, not the tool.
Don’t buy into tool zealotry or dev-tactic extremism. Your task is to solve the problem at hand not to participate in popularity contests.
Start with your actual problem, not the “how many angels can dance on a pinhead” abstract problems the web dev community manufactures to keep online discourse going.
“Will this help me build a sustainable software business?”
That’s it. That’s your starting point for any tool or tech disc.
YMMV, always. Or, to quote Frederick Brooks’s 1987 paper: “There is inherently no silver bullet.” Building software will always be hard.
“TBM 52/53: Real Teams (Not Groups of One-Person Teams) - The Beautiful Mess”
“A technical and privacy review of Cloudflare Web Analytics”
“Adactio: Links—HTML Over The Wire - Hotwire”
Hotwire is a neat evolution of the Turbolinks/Stimulus method, updated to use custom elements. The biggest boon of just dynamically composing HTML delivered over the wire is that state management is much much simpler
“Lead with Context not Control - Silicon Valley Product Group”
“I have resigned from the Google AMP Advisory Committee – Terence Eden’s Blog”
I don’t think AMP or Google can be redeemed without punitive action of some sort. Goodwill from good people, inside or outside, won’t make a difference.
“On treating sex with the utmost reverence – Going Medieval”
“5 Ways Software Developers Can Improve Their Writing Beyond Blogging”
Like many, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about marginalia on the web.
But…
9 times out of 10, when focusing on marginalia, the writer is mistaking their own priorities and interests for that of their reader.
“Adactio: Links—Conditional JavaScript - JavaScript - Dev Tips”