Losing the imitation game

The hard part of programming is building and maintaining a useful mental model of a complex system. The easy part is writing code. They’re positioning this tool as a universal solution, but it’s only capable of doing the easy part. And even then, it’s not able to do that part reliably. Human engineers will still have to evaluate and review the code that an AI writes. But they’ll now have to do it without the benefit of having anyone who understands it. No one can explain it. No one can explain what they were thinking when they wrote it. No one can explain what they expect it to do. Every choice made in writing software is a choice not to do things in a different way. And there will be no one who can explain why they made this choice, and not those others. In part because it wasn’t even a decision that was made. It was a probability that was realized.

This post also has a really good explanation of how large language models work.

There may be real, productive uses for these kinds of tools. There may be ways to build and deploy them ethically and sustainably. But that’s not the situation with the instances we have. AI, as it’s been built today, is a tool to sell out our collective futures in order to enrich already wealthy people. They like to frame it as being akin to nuclear science. But we should really see it as being more like fossil fuels.

The elevator pitch for Web Components | Go Make Things

I’ve worked with Web Components a little bit over the last few, but really struggled to understand the use case for them.

Until this week.

Between Jeremy Keith’s article on HTML Web Components, plus using one for a client project with NASA, something just clicked in my brain finally.

I’m now convinced that they’re the best way to author DOM manipulation libraries.

An Interactive Guide to CSS Grid

This is a terrific interactive explainer!

Your Website’s URLs Can and Should Be Beautiful - Opus

The key to making a beautiful URL is finding a balance between brevity and clarity. In other words, a good URL is short but not so short as to obscure what it’s pointing to. Put another way, a good URL contains enough information about its related resource to be useful, but not so much information that it drags on and becomes unwieldy.

Climate Optimism · Matthias Ott – User Experience Designer

Humans are allergic to change. And, as Jeremy impressively demonstrated, we tend to overlook the changes that happen more gradually. We want the Big Bang, the sudden change, the headline that reads, “successful nuclear fusion solves climate change for good.” But that’s (usually) not how change works. Change often happens gradually, first very slowly, and then, once it reaches a certain threshold, it can happen overnight.

CSS { In Real Life } | Choosing a Green Web Host

Earlier this month, Jeremy Keith posed the question: “How green is my server?”. As Jeremy notes, it’s surprisingly hard to get that information! So how do you ensure that you’re hosting your website on a green server?

Hixie’s Natural Log: Reflecting on 18 years at Google

On leaving the company, Hixie compares the Google of old to what it has become today:

Google’s culture eroded. Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision. Transparency evaporated. Where previously I would eagerly attend every company-wide meeting to learn what was happening, I found myself now able to predict the answers executives would give word for word. Today, I don’t know anyone at Google who could explain what Google’s vision is. Morale is at an all-time low. If you talk to therapists in the bay area, they will tell you all their Google clients are unhappy with Google.

Shadow DOM is for hiding your shame

This is an excellent step-by-step walkthrough by Tess of creating a web component, with real thought given to what should be in the HTML (which will act as a fallback) and what’s better generated in the Shadow DOM (like buttons for interactivity).

This perfectly mirrors something Chris was saying in a recent episode of the Shop Talk Show:

I think of the image comparison one. That’s a classic example in Web component. What’s inside is just two IMG tags. That’s it. When it fails, you don’t want a weird div with little arrows on it being rendered on the page. That’s not doing anything because it has failed to load the JavaScript.

Desktop progressive web applications | Trys Mudford

Following on from my post about websites in the dock, Trys upgraded to Sonoma and added a handy copy’n’paste resource to his dock. It works a treat.

Sit with that for a second, you can write a desktop application with no tooling, launch it from your phone to the internet for free, and seconds later install it on any computer. I didn’t have to ask permission, or jump through any App Store hoops. I wrote a thing, pushed it to the internet, and then I could use the thing. Even better, I could send the link to Chris and he could use the thing. That’s the power of the internet.

An example of an HTML Web Component | Go Make Things

Another example of an HTML web component from Chris, who concludes:

Web Components are rapidly becoming my preferred way to add progressive enhancement to HTML elements.

Getting started with CSS container queries | MDN Blog

Michelle has written a detailed practical guide to container queries here.

An Attempted Taxonomy of Web Components—zachleat.com

Zach lists out the HTML web components he has created:

All of the components above use progressive enhancement and fallback to the nested HTML content before/without JavaScript—the crux of the humble HTML Web Component.

HTML Web Components | Go Make Things

Chris walks through a really good example of an HTML web component he made for NASA: wrapping a regular form element in a custom element to add Ajax functionality.

This approach let me slash the JavaScript used for this project in half, easily progressively enhance the UI, and provide an authoring approach that’s much easier to read and make sense of.

Cameron Dutro on ruby.social

Here’s the inside scoop on why Github is making a bizarre move from working web components to a legacy React stack.

Most of what I heard in favor of React was a) it’s got a good DX, b) it’s easy to hire for, and c) we only want to use it for a couple of features, not the entire website.

It’s all depressingly familiar, but it’s very weird to come across this kind of outdated thinking in 2023.

My personal prediction is that, eventually, the company (and many other companies) will realize how bad React is for most things, and abandon it. I guess we’ll see.

HTML Web Components: An Example - Jim Nielsen’s Blog

Here’s an excellent case study of an HTML web component. Jim starts by showing how you’d create the component in React; then he shows how you’d do it as a JavaScript web component; finally he shows the way to do it as an HTML web component:

The point is we’re starting with a baseline, core experience that will provide basic functionality and content to a wide array of user agents before any JavaScript is required.

Once you’ve done everything you can in vanilla HTML to provide core elements of your baseline experience, you can begin enhancing the existing markup with additional functionality.

This is where HTML web components shine.

Benjamin Parry~ Writing ~ Marking the homework of a twelve year old ~ @benjaminparry

Don’t get me wrong, there are some features under the mislabeled bracket of AI that have made a huge impact and improvement to my process. Audio transcription has been an absolute game-changer to research analysis, reimbursing me hours of time to focus on the deep thinking work. This is a perfect example of a problem seeking a solution, not the other way around. The latest wave of features feel a lot like because we can rather than we should, because.

Antidepressants or Tolkien

This is harder than it sounds. I got 19 out of 24.

Monaspace

Five lovely monospaced variable fonts.

A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft | The New Yorker

GPT-4 is impressive, but a layperson can’t wield it the way a programmer can. I still feel secure in my profession. In fact, I feel somewhat more secure than before. As software gets easier to make, it’ll proliferate; programmers will be tasked with its design, its configuration, and its maintenance. And though I’ve always found the fiddly parts of programming the most calming, and the most essential, I’m not especially good at them. I’ve failed many classic coding interview tests of the kind you find at Big Tech companies. The thing I’m relatively good at is knowing what’s worth building, what users like, how to communicate both technically and humanely. A friend of mine has called this A.I. moment “the revenge of the so-so programmer.” As coding per se begins to matter less, maybe softer skills will shine.

Pluralistic: The (open) web is good, actually (13 Nov 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

The web wasn’t inevitable – indeed, it was wildly improbable. Tim Berners Lee’s decision to make a new platform that was patent-free, open and transparent was a complete opposite approach to the strategy of the media companies of the day. They were building walled gardens and silos – the dialup equivalent to apps – organized as “branded communities.” The way I experienced it, the web succeeded because it was so antithetical to the dominant vision for the future of the internet that the big companies couldn’t even be bothered to try to kill it until it was too late.

Companies have been trying to correct that mistake ever since.

A great round-up from Cory, featuring heavy dollops of Anil and Aaron.

HTML Web Components - Jim Nielsen’s Blog

Jim’s thoughts on HTML web components:

I like that term “HTML web component”. It stands in contrast to a “JavaScript web components” which would be an empty element whose functionality and contents rely exclusively on JavaScript.

Step into the light (DOM) | Adam Stoddard

Three benefits of HTML web components:

1. Custom elements have the very cool ability manage themselves via connectedCallback and disconnectedCallback.
2. Progressive enhancement is straightforward.
3. Custom elements enforce good javascript patterns.

No Taste | Scratching the Surface

Designers can’t help but participate in these displays and debates of taste. It’s part of the job. There’s an irony in the predominantly liberal and inclusive political leanings of most creatives that often become unbending and exclusionary in their work and everyday lives. Comic Sans, Thomas Kinkade, New Urbanism, clutter—there are too many heretical acts to count. Natalia Ilyin writes in Chasing the Perfect, “For people who want their straight lines to be straight, life itself is the problem. The modern urge is the urge to get away from organic existence in general.” No wonder most movie villains live in spartan homes of concrete, glass, and steel. The often humor-free designer is not so different, if not in evildoing, then at least in temperament.

Tales Of The Algorithm – Terence Eden’s Blog

I’m really enjoying these sci-fi short stories that Terence is publishing on his site—one for every day of the month.

CSS { In Real Life } | Stop Using AI-Generated Images

I have yet to meet anyone who wants to hang AI art on their walls (although I fully expect to see it in hotel chains).

[this is aaronland] generative adversarial therapy sessions

Mobile phones and the “app economy”, an environment controlled by exactly two companies and designed to extract a commission from almost every interaction and to promote native and not-portable applications over web applications. But we also see the same behaviour from so-called “native to the web” companies like Facebook who have explicitly monetized reach, access and discovery. Facebook is also the company that gave the world React which is difficult not to understand as deliberate attempt to embrace and extend, to redefine, HTML itself.

Perversely, nearly everything about the mobile/app economy is built on, and designed to use, HTTP precisely because it’s a common and easy to implement standard free and unencumbered by licensing.

Everything about SEO is obnoxious – Chris Coyier

No argument from me.

Wilco Loft Sans – SimpleBits®

How cool is this‽ Dan made a font for Wilco!

Web developers: remarkably untalented and careless? – Baldur Bjarnason

I’d like to suggest that everybody in web dev point their dysfunctional novelty seeking (of which I suffer as well) in the direction of HTML and CSS. See how much can be done without JavaScript. It’s a lot! Then look at writing more lightweight JavaScript that’s layered on top of the HTML as enhancements. Because it’s an enhancement and not required for functionality, you can cut the line higher and use newer tech without worry.

See how refreshing that feels.

How do build tools break backwards compatibility? | Go Make Things

If you have a project that uses just plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can just open up the files and start working on them at any time. A project from 20 years ago will still work just fine, and can be easily modified.

Projects that use build tools? Well… to work with them, you need your build tools to actually build. And that’s not always guaranteed.

Also, it me:

One of my least favorite things as a developer is wanting to do a quick patch fix on an older project—I’m talking a simple one-line of CSS kind of fix—but first having to spend 30 minutes patching my build tools to get them running again.

To hell with the business case

I agree with everything that Matt says here. Evangelising accessibility by extolling the business benefits might be a good strategy for dealing with psychopaths, but it’s a lousy way to convince most humans.

The moment you frame the case for any kind of inclusion or equity around the money an organization stands to gain (or save), you have already lost. What you have done is turn a moral case, one where you have the high ground, into an economic one, where, unless you have an MBA in your pocket, you are hopelessly out of your depth.

If you win a business-case argument, the users you wanted to benefit are no longer your north star. It’s money.

Electric mountain: the power station that shows the beauty of infrastructure | Wales | The Guardian

This extract from Deb Chachra’s new book confirms that it’s a must-read. The writing fairly sings with infectious enthusiasm!

w/e 2023-11-05 (Phil Gyford’s website)

On the one hand I still really enjoy writing code and making something work and look good (ish) and put it online where anyone in the world can see it. It’s still like magic. And is still some kind of personal affirmation, a way of saying “here I am!”, of enjoying that it’s noticed by someone, somewhere.

True.

On the other hand, the maintenance. It’s not like this is new to me, keeping things going for years, decades. And I try to make things as easy as possible – keep things up to date, make things in similar ways, stick to reliable and boring technologies, don’t start too many things, etc. But, especially when several things aren’t quite working right, it’s such a weight.

Also true.

Blinded By the Light DOM – Eric’s Archived Thoughts

You just take some normal HTML markup, wrap it with a custom element, and then write some JS to add capabilities which you can then style with regular CSS! Everything’s of the Light Side of the Web. No need to pierce the Vale of Shadows or whatever.

I think Eric’s approach here should be the default for most web components: you probably don’t need to mess around with the shadow DOM, and you should definitely be wrapping your web component around existing HTML instead of witing opening and closing tags with nothing in between.

As Chris puts it:

Augment, don’t replace.

Emily F. Gorcenski: How I Read 40 Books and Extinguished the World on Fire

I’ve found that there’s way more good people than bad. There’s way more people willing to help than willing to hurt. Some things are really scary but there’s way more people out there willing to guide us through the darkness than we think. The cynic in me wants to say that the “powers that be” want us to be endlessly doomscrolling and losing hope and snuffing out optimism. We shouldn’t give them what they want. There’s a lot of beauty in the world still within our grasp. We’re better when we’re poets, when we’re learners and listeners, when we’re builders and not breakers.

Stories | daverupert.com

Dave’s short’n’sweet sci-fi stories, collected in one place.

Personalization

A look at how personalisation works in digital interfaces and real-world objects.

An editor’s guide to giving feedback – Start here

I was content-buddying with one of my colleagues yesterday so Bobbie’s experience resonates.

A cohesive and unified identity for IndieWeb protocols · Paul Robert Lloyd

I really enjoyed hanging out with Paul at Indie Web Camp in Nuremberg last weekend. And I like the iconography he’s proposing:

This design attempts to bring together a set of icons that share the concept of a node – a line and a point – and use this to add counters to each letter shape.

Internet Artifacts

I love this timeline of internet firsts. Best of all:

You may touch the artifacts

The websites on display work—even the ones that used Flash!