How We Verified Ourselves on Mastodon — and How You Can Too – The Markup

It gives me warm fuzzies to see an indie web building block like rel="me" getting coverage like this.

The Widening Responsibility for Front-End Developers | CSS-Tricks

Chris shares his thoughts on the ever-widening skillset required of a so-called front-end developer.

Interestingly, the skillset he mentions half way through (which is what front-end devs used to need to know) really appeals to me: accessibility, performance, responsiveness, progressive enhancement. But the list that covers modern front-end dev sounds more like a different mindset entirely: APIs, Content Management Systems, business logic …the back of the front end.

And Chris doesn’t even touch on the build processes that front-end devs are expected to be familiar with: version control, build pipelines, package management, and all that crap.

I wish we could return to this:

The bigger picture is that as long as the job is building websites, front-enders are focused on the browser.

Today’s Javascript, from an outsider’s perspective | Lea Verou

This is a damning and all-too typical example of what it’s like for someone to trying to get to grips with the current state of the JavaScript ecosystem:

Note that John is a computer scientist that knows a fair bit about the Web: He had Node & npm installed, he knew what MIME types are, he could start a localhost when needed. What hope do actual novices have?

I think it’s even worse than that. Not only are potential new devs being put off ever getting started, I know plenty of devs with experience who have pushed out by the overwhelming and needless complexity of the modern web’s toolchain. It’s like a constant gaslighting where any expression of unease is summarily dismissed as being the whinings of “the old guard” who just won’t get with the programme.

John gives up. Concludes never to touch Node, npm, or ES6 modules with a barge pole.

The End.

(Just watch as Lea’s post gets written off as an edge case.)

Voxxed Thessaloniki 2018 - Opening Keynote - Taking Back The Web - YouTube

Here’s the talk I gave recently about indie web building blocks.

There’s fifteen minutes of Q&A starting around the 35 minute mark. People asked some great questions!

How to get on the #indieweb!

As well as graciously hosting Indie Web Camp Berlin on the weekend at Mozilla’s offices, Yulia has also drawn this super-cute comic.

Industry Fatigue by Jordan Moore

There are of course things worth your time and deep consideration, and there are distractions. Profound new thinking and movements within our industry - the kind that fundamentally shifts the way we work in a positive new direction are worth your time and attention. Other things are distractions. I put new industry gossip, frameworks, software and tools firmly in the distractions category. This is the sort of content that exists in the padding between big movements. It’s the kind of stuff that doesn’t break new ground and it doesn’t make or break your ability to do your job.

Keynote: The Building Blocks Of The Indie Web - YouTube

Here’s the video of the talk I gave at Design4Drupal last week in Boston. There’s a good half an hour of questions at the end.

The IndieWeb outside of Facebook is full of opportunities - The Garage

A nice description of syndication via POSSEing.

(I never thought I’d find myself linking to quality content on Go Daddy.)

Jeremy Keith - Building Blocks of the Indie Web - YouTube

Here’s the talk I gave at Mozilla’s View Source event. I really enjoyed talking about the indie web, both from the big-picture view and the nitty gritty.

In these times of centralised services like Facebook, Twitter, and Medium, having your own website is downright disruptive. If you care about the longevity of your online presence, independent publishing is the way to go. But how can you get all the benefits of those third-party services while still owning your own data? By using the building blocks of the Indie Web, that’s how!

The Medium - daverupert.com

I have to keep reminding myself that I do have some control. I can build The Medium I want. I can cling to what’s good.

@Mentions from Twitter to My Website

Chris gives a step-by-step walkthrough of enabling webmentions on a Wordpress site.

The History of Email - Eager Blog

The ancestors of the Internet were kind enough to give us a communication standard which is free, transparent, and standardized. It would be a shame to see the tech communication landscape move further and further into the world of locked gardens and proprietary schemas.

The Anti-Tolkien - The New Yorker

A short profile of Michael Moorcock’s Elric series (though, for me, Jerry Cornelius is the champion that remains eternal in my memory).

Revision 200: The Indie Web on Working Draft on Huffduffer

I had the great honour of being invited to speak on the 200th edition of the Working Draft podcast (there are a few sentences in German at the start, and then it switches into English).

I had a lot of fun talking about indie web building blocks (rel=me, indieauth, webmention, h-entry, etc.). Best of all, while I was describing these building blocks, one of the hosts started implementing them!

Google are about to murder a good friend of mine — Glenn Jones

Glenn gives a rational thoughtful explanation of why he’s as pissed off as I am about Google’s destruction of the Social Graph API.

mobilewood - a set on Flickr

We are preparing to launch.