Looking Back to Move Forward: Building the Modern Web

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Building the modern webRachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Dancers do not need to use computers

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The web gave me a community

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

“Knowing HTML” was a marketable skill

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Learning something one day - teaching it to

someone else the next

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The web gave me a new career.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The web was accessible, and had a culture of sharing knowledge.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Font tags and nested tables

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

<script type="text/javascript"><!--function MM_reloadPage(init) { if (init==true) with (navigator) {if ((appName=="Netscape")&&(parseInt(appVersion)==4)) { document.MM_pgW=innerWidth; document.MM_pgH=innerHeight; onresize=MM_reloadPage; }} else if (innerWidth!=document.MM_pgW || innerHeight!=document.MM_pgH) location.reload();}MM_reloadPage(true);//--></script>

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The “Netscape Resize Fix”

If the user resized their browser window positioned elements lost their positioning values.

The “fix” was to reload the browser window on resize.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

… basic support of existing W3C standards has been sacrificed in

the name of such innovation, needlessly fragmenting the Web

and helping no one.— http://archive.webstandards.org/mission.html

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Our goal is to support these core standards and encourage browser

makers to do the same, thereby ensuring simple, affordable

access to Web technologies for all.

— http://archive.webstandards.org/mission.html

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Encouraging designers to care about web standards

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The IE6 years

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Front-end developer 2005?

Browser bugs expert

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and

supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality.— http://www.webstandards.org/2013/03/01/our-work-

here-is-done/Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Browser vendors are implementing standard things in a standard way

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Innovation happens through the standards

process

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Show stopping browser bugs when doing

straightforward things in modern browsers are rare

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Is it all easy now?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Studies show that a todo list is the most complex JavaScript app

you can create before a newer, better framework is invented.

— http://www.allenpike.com/2015/javascript-framework-fatigue/

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

We’re creating complexity

Hiding the simple languages of the web behind tooling and process

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

<div class="header"> <h1>My website</h1> <div class="nav"> </div></div>

<div class="article"></div><div class="sidebar"></div><div class="footer"></div>

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

<header> <h1>My website</h1> <nav> </nav></header>

<article></article><aside></aside><footer></footer>

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Web Video Text Tracks Format (WebVTT)

WEBVTT

100:00:22.230 --> 00:00:24.606This is the first subtitle.

200:00:30.739 --> 00:00:34.074This is the second.

300:00:34.159 --> 00:00:35.743Third

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Time-dimensional pseudo-classes

:current:past:future

:current(p, li, dt, dd) { background: yellow;}

:past(p, li, dt, dd) { background: transparent; color: #999999;}

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

CSS Grid Layout

<div class="wrapper"> <header class="header">Header</header> <aside class="sidebar">Sidebar</aside> <article class="content">Content</article></div>

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

.sidebar { grid-area: sidebar;}.content { grid-area: content;}.header { grid-area: header;}.wrapper { display: grid; grid-template-columns: 120px 10px 120px 10px 120px; grid-template-rows: auto; grid-template-areas: "header header header header header" "sidebar . content content content";}

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

“I’ll take a look if you create a Sass Mixin …”

— via my inbox

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Emerging specifications like Grid remove the need

for a lot of the preprocessing

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

.ag1 { @include span(2 of 10);}

.ag2 { @include span(6 of 10); @include clearfix; }

.ag3 { @include span(2 of 10 last);}

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

/* declare a grid and set up a 10 column grid with gutters */.container { width: 90%; margin: 0 auto 0 auto; display: grid; grid-template-columns: [col] 4.25fr repeat(9, [gutter] 1fr [col] 4.25fr ) [gutter]; grid-template-rows: auto repeat(5, 100px);}

/* boxes positioned like so *//* heading in row 1 full width */h1 { grid-column: col / span col 10; grid-row: 1 / 2;}

/* left hand sidebar */.ag1 { grid-column: col / span gutter 2; grid-row: 2 / 3;}

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

We should be all over a spec like grid. This is the

future.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

By leaning on frameworks, are we masking the issues?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Only by working with the specifications can we be part of improving them

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Sheer frustration drove much of the Web Standards

movement

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

My fear is that our reliance on frameworks will stop us

pushing for better solutions

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

There are always compromises. They

shouldn’t be the same for every project.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Standardising on tools should not be at the

expense of learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Use your tools and frameworks lightly

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Be ready to put them aside when they don’t suit a

project

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Don’t become an expert in one brand of hammer.

Become a master carpenter.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Develop timeless skills

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

It is HTML, CSS, JavaScript

How you get there is just process.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The “space junk” of the web

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Will we be still using frameworks to abstract away layout hacks, long

after there is any need for the hacks?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Best practices can become anti-patterns

HTTP/2 will see many of our best practices become bad practices.

— Image Sprites

— Domain Sharding

— Concatenating CSS and JavaScript

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Whose time are we saving?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

We write code once.

It runs 100s of 1000s of times in the browsers of our visitors.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

“When I look around, I see our community spending a lot of time coming up with new tools and techniques to make our jobs easier. To ship faster. And it’s not that I’m against efficiency, but I think we need to consider the implications of our decisions. And if one of those implications is making our users suffer—or potentially suffer—in order to make our lives easier, I think we need to consider their needs above our own.”— http://aaron-gustafson.com/notebook/who-should-pay/

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The myth of temporary

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The web is inherently accessible. We choose to

protect that, or to break it.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

I believe progressive enhancement is still the best approach we have

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

“a robust site or application in the more traditional sense minimises its dependencies. The minimum

dependency for a web site should be an internet connection and the

ability to parse HTML.”— http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/futuremedia/

accessibility/html/progressive-enhancement.shtmlRachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Start with the core experience

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

What is the minimum that I need to ship?

How can I ensure as I iterate I protect the core experience for everyone?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

We Ship. We Iterate.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

How should we integrate third party code?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Not Invented Here

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

“Are you afraid to write code? Does the thought linger in your brain that

somewhere out there somebody has already done this? Do you find yourself trapped in an analysis cycle where nothing is getting

done? Is your product mutating to accommodate third party components? If yes, then perhaps you are suffering from

invented-here syndrome.”— http://mortoray.com/2015/02/25/invented-here-syndrome/

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Avoid turning shortcuts and third party code into

dependencies

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Dependency Inversion

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

“High level modules should not depend upon low-level modules. Both should depend upon abstractions.Abstractions should never depend upon details. Details should depend upon abstractions.”— http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/dip.pdf

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Progressively enhanced UI

— JavaScript implementation based on the regular HTML5 Video element

— Static maps that become draggable and zoomable - avoiding creating a dependency on one maps provider or library

— Ordering items via a form input - that become drag and drop if the user has JavaScript

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

You can’t do everything

You can do something

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

“A 100% pure progressively-enhanced website may not be practical on every single project you will ever encounter. While that sort of purity can exist, it’s unlikely in many business scenarios.

Budgets, timelines: these things exist. Progressive enhancement isn’t a zero sum game; it’s a continuum, just like the Web.”

— http://sixtwothree.org/posts/the-practical-case-for-progressive-enhancement

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

If your site doesn’t load who misses out? What do they lose?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Giving back

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Where does our next generation of web

professionals come from?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

If you have been doing this for a year, there is someone

6 months in who you are ideally placed to help.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

You will learn by teaching

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Contribute to the standards that make up the web

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

What do authors think?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Learn how the modern standards process works

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

If authors do not offer feedback, the final specification will reflect

our needs as understood by people who do not build

websites.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

To make an impact on a specification you need to do so while it is still a draft

There is no point complaining about something that is finished. You have your chance to make your case during the open standards process.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Grid Layout and “gutters”

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

.wrapper { display: grid; grid-template-columns: 120px 10px 120px 10px 120px; grid-template-rows: auto; grid-template-areas: "header header header header header" "sidebar . content content content";}

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

.wrapper { display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(11, [col] 4fr [gutter] 3.5fr ) [col] 4fr [gutter]; grid-template-rows: auto repeat(4, [row] auto [gutter] 15px);}

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

I believed the grid needed column and row gaps much like

multi-column layout has the column-gap property

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

.wrapper { display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(11, [col] 4fr [gutter] 3.5fr ) [col] 4fr [gutter]; grid-template-rows: auto repeat(4, [row] auto [gutter] 15px);}

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

.wrapper { display: grid; grid-column-gap: 1em; grid-row-gap: 1em; grid-template-columns: repeat(12, [col] 4fr ); grid-template-rows: auto;}

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Solving the gutter problem

— https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2015/06/19/css-grid-layout-solving-the-gutter-problem/

— Post to the CSS WG list about the issue

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Put together use cases. Show issues clearly.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Look for the issues already listed in draft specifications

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

I am hopeful that contributing to standards is

going to get easier

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The CSS Working Group may move to GitHub for

issues in 2016

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The Web Incubator Community Group

— https://www.w3.org/community/wicg/

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

“Their goal is to take the lessons learned during the RICG’s

responsive images slog and adapt web standards to match.”

— https://www.w3.org/community/respimg/2015/07/09/wicg/

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

The Specification Forum

http://discourse.wicg.io/

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Keep an eye on CSS Houdini

A task force working on drafts that seek to explain and expose different parts of CSS. This should ultimately make it easier to polyfill, innovate, experiment and create entire new features.

— https://wiki.css-houdini.org/

— https://dev.opera.com/articles/houdini/

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Browsers vendors and the CSS WG alike are looking for “signals” from authors

— are people talking about this spec?

— are they writing about it, speaking at conferences?

— are they directly requesting the features?

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Make a noise so that browser vendors hear what

we want implemented

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Adopt an emerging specification!

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Some final thoughts

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Things are changing fast. Solid understanding of core

web technologies has proved timeless.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Ensuring maximum accessibility should be at

the heart of all you do.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Find ways to contribute

Your voice & the voice of the people you build sites for is important.

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

Thank you.

@rachelandrew

https://rachelandrew.co.uk/presentations/nagw

Rachel Andrew, NAGW 2015

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