Links

How the internet works?

A really clear introduction to the pieces of a URL by Vera, who is setting out on her career as a front-end developer.

The Mob’s IT Department | Bloomberg Business

You just know that this will end up being made into a film one day. It’s like a downmarket Mr. Robot.

Accessibility Meetup: role=drinks

This Saturday afternoon—the day after FFConf—there’s an accessibility meet-up in the Caxton Arms here in Brighton with lighting talks (I’m planning to give one). ‘Twould be lovely to see you there.

antoinentl/web-books-initiatives: A list of different initiatives of web books.

A list of books that have been published in their entirety on the web. If you know of any others, please contribute.

“If it’s not curlable, it’s not on the web.” by Tantek Çelik

It was fun spelunking with Tantek, digging into some digital archeology in an attempt to track down a post by Ben Ward that I remembered reading years ago.

Typewriters in the Technical Museum in Figueres | Flickr

If you enjoyed reading Marcin’s serendipitous story on Twitter, here are the pictures to accompany it.

Bob Baxley: Don’t Judge. Just Observe. | Design.blog

The challenge of being in tech when you’re over 40 is the challenge of constantly setting aside your expectations of how things should work, repeatedly questioning your assumptions, and constantly re-evaluating your positions. It’s the challenge of being a lifelong learner; cultivating the humility of the beginner, the passion of the practitioner, and the joy of the master. It is the challenge of not being so quick to apply old analysis, rely on outdated experience, or expect what worked before to work again.

Create a MarkDown tag - JSFiddle

This is nice example of a web component that degrades gracefully—if custom elements aren’t supported, you still get the markdown content, just not converted to HTML.

<ah-markdown>
## Render some markdown!
</ah-markdown>

bitsofcode | Tools for Developing Accessible Websites

Ire rounds up a bunch of tools you can use to test accessibility, from dev tools to Tenon.

The Javascript Wars • cssence.com

Some more food for thought, following on from Shaun’s post about HTML as the foundation of web development:

There is another building block for the web, one that is more important than HTML, CSS and JavaScript combined. It all starts with URLs. Those things uniquely identify some piece of information on the web.

welcome.js | booktwo.org

See, view source is a human right. Since the beginning of the web, thousands, probably millions, of users have bootstrapped their way to technical understanding through exploring the way the existing web is put together. I did. You might have done. And you, we, should be able to. And more than that, we should be encouraged to. For fun, for experience, for education, for revolution.

James is right. And he’s made a script to encourage further exploration.

welcome.js adds a friendly message to the console when it’s first opened, as well as links for users to find out more about the console, and programming in general.

The Tragedy/Farce of the Open Web according to journalists – Baldur Bjarnason

Continuous web death.

The modern journalist is not an expert on the web. They and their colleagues have spent a large part of the last twenty-five years dismissing the open web at every stage. They are not the people you can trust to either accurately assess the web or to make usable websites. You can’t even trust them to make sensible decisions about web strategy. Just look at their damn websites!

Performance and assumptions | susan jean robertson

We all make assumptions, it’s natural and normal. But we also need to be jolted out of those assumptions on a regular basis to help us see that not everyone uses the web the way we do. I’ve talked about loving doing support for that reason, but I also love it when I’m on a slow network, it shows me how some people experience the web all the time; that’s good for me.

I’m privileged to have fast devices and fast, broadband internet, along with a lot of other privileges. Not remembering that privilege while I work and assuming that everyone is like me is, quite possibly, one of the biggest mistakes I can make.

Why I am a web developer | Seldo.Com Blog

I think it’s worth revisiting this post by Laurie on a regular basis for a shot of perspective and inspiration.

The web saved my life and then built me a new one. A single living entity, it touches everything in the world and is always getting better — and I can help. I owe it so much; if I can help it out, make it better in any small way, how can I possibly refuse? And if I can make it easier for other people to help make it better, then my efforts are multiplied.

Redesigning Waxy, 2016 edition – Waxy.org

Andy is sticking with the indie web.

Here, I control my words. Nobody can shut this site down, run annoying ads on it, or sell it to a phone company. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t say, and I have complete control over the way it’s displayed. Nobody except me can change the URL structure, breaking 14 years of links to content on the web.

I second that emotion.

The New Digital School - An Alternative to Design Education by Tiago and Cláudia Pedras — Kickstarter

You can back Tiago’s excellent New Digital School. It’s a fantastic project with the web at its heart, and I really hope it gets funded.

What’s wrong with big data? | New Humanist

The view that more information uncritically produces better decisions is visibly at odds with our contemporary situation.

A superb piece of research and writing by James, skewering the technological determinism that underlies the current faith in “big data.” At best, this misplaced trust is inaccurate; at worst, it is deadly.

To the algorithmic imagination, the practice of journalism and the practice of terrorism appear to be functionally identical.

The Lost Art of HTML | shaunrashid.com

Building a good foundation using HTML is like building a good foundation for a house. Without it, you run the risk of having to deal with issues that are difficult and expensive to fix later on.

Mutating the active element - ally.js

Rodney has done some great research into how different browsers respond to a focusable element becoming inactive (by being made disabled, hidden, or removed).

The Digital Transition: How the Presidential Transition Works in the Social Media Age | whitehouse.gov

Kori Schulman describes the archiving of social media and other online artefacts of the outgoing US president. It’s a shame that a lot of URLs will break, but I’m glad there’s going to be a public backup available.

Best of all, you can get involved:

In the interim, we’re inviting the American public – from students and data engineers, to artists and researchers – to come up with creative ways to archive this content and make it both useful and available for years to come. From Twitter bots and art projects to printed books and query tools, we’re open to it all.