Top picks — 2016 December
Control web typography with CSS font display
http://www.creativebloq.com/advice/control-web-typography-with-css-font-display
A great exhalation of font-display property by Umar Hansa. As writing this article browser support isn’t amazing but it works great as a progressive enhancement. This is going to part of every font-face declaration it the short future.
Lockfiles should be committed on all projects
https://yarnpkg.com/blog/2016/11/24/lockfiles-for-all
James Kyle explains why we should commit yarn.lock files to our repositories. Makes sense. Essential read for all open source contributors.
The Web Worldwide
Tim Kadlec build another amazing tool that is a great source of knowledge for every web developer / designer. I quickly compared two countries — United Kingdom (where I live) and Poland (my homeland) and the data is shocking! I’m going to use it a lot. Thanks Tim for building this!
CSS Grid!
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2016/12/05/css-grid/
Eric Meyer answers popular questions about CSS Gris Module that is coming to our browsers very soon (March 2017). Lots of good insights here. The most controversial question is “Are we ready?”.
Rounded corners aren’t universally supported even now, but I bet you’ve used them.
GPU Animation: Doing It Right
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/12/gpu-animation-doing-it-right/
The best thing that I have ever read about animations. Sergey Chikuyonok (creator of popular tool Emmet) gives us a list of amazing advices about silky smooth animations in CSS, number of great technical explanations and tons of examples. Must read this month!
JavaScript30
You read a book about JavaScript, you went through all available courses online, you mastered your console logs in your browser but you still haven’t build a proper JavaScript project yet. Wes Bos is coming with a course that is perfect for you. It takes 30 days and each day Wes builds a new js experiment. The best teacher is practice, and this is motto of this course. Highly recommended!
SmashingConf Barcelona 2016 - Marcin Wichary on To Hell For Type
I’m sure you love typography on Medium.com. Marcin Wichary explain why you love it! Essentially it is piece of art and every single edge case is taken into consideration. Great and funny talk!
The (Not So) Secret Powers Of The Mobile Browser
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/12/the-not-so-secret-powers-of-the-mobile-browser/
Meet the great power of modern web APIs. Great example with imaginary Zoe written by Stéphanie Walter. This article made me want to buy a Pixel by Google. Shame on you Apple!
Front-End Developers Are Information Architects Too
https://24ways.org/2016/front-end-developers-are-information-architects-too/
The core of front end development explained in a great write up by Francis Storr. Let’s face the reality - nowadays there is more buzz around CSS in JavaScript built with Webpack 2 instead of semantic markup or accessible modal. WRONG! Eye opening article that shows us how we neglected this industry.
An Overview of Client-Side Storage
https://bitsofco.de/an-overview-of-client-side-storage/
A great explanation / comparison of all possible methods of storing a data in the client / browser. A love the examples next to each method.
Front-End Performance Checklist 2017
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/12/front-end-performance-checklist-2017-pdf-pages/
Comprehensive list of best performance practices created by Vitaly Friedman. New year is a great opportunity to refresh or rebuild your website from scratch, it is worth to have a look here.
Controlling the Specificity
http://kizu.ru/en/fun/controlling-the-specificity/
Unfortunately specificity is not something that everyone who writes CSS cares about - people should. If you don’t even know what specificity is I published a great explanation the other day. Roman Komarov definitely mastered it and took it to the next level by showing us how to control specificity score by using :not() selector. Great in depth article for all CSS maniacs.
Batch resizing images from the command line on a Mac
http://jameschambers.co/writing/batch-resize-images-mac-command-line/
You don’t have to open image in the Photoshop to resize it. There is a something called “scriptable image processing system” that is available in your command line under sips keyword - James Chambers explains really well how to utilize it on daily basis.
What Comes Next Is the Future
What Comes Next Is the Future is a documentary film about the web created by Matt Griffin. About the past, present and the future of the most influential medium ever created by people who build it. Dozens of people who made a huge impact on the web like: Jeffrey Zeldman, Tim Berners-Lee, Ethan Marcotte, Eric Meyer, Alex Russell, Jonathan Snook and many more. Must watch!
The Dark Side of Polyfilling CSS
https://philipwalton.com/articles/the-dark-side-of-polyfilling-css/
Making a JavaScript polyfill is a piece of cake compared to creating one for CSS. Philip Walton explains this nightmare. Thumbs up for project Houdini. If you prefer to watch than read, Philip gave a talk based on this article on dotCS 2016 conference.