Interesting articles (by other people)

The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Must Know About Unicode in 2023

An great follow-up to the original article. Personally, I am happy that (almost) everyone uses Unicode nowadays. I consider this article a must-read for every developer.

“Web3” and “AI”

A counter-article to all of the Twitter hype concerning Web3, and crypto, and AI.

Things you forgot (or never knew) because of React

A good overview of the differences between React and more modern front-end frameworks. Personally, I always feel like React feels very primitive and this article does a good job in explaining why.

An incredibly important article, because it outlines why you should always care about accessibility. Accessibility is not just for people who have chronically disabled but also for people who temporarily have an issue that makes it necessary to use alternative ways of viewing a site.

Unlimited Bowling

Are you worrying about whether to make a certain website, write a certain article, or do anything on your website at all? Well, you shouldn't, because web space is mostly free!

Web Components Will Outlive Your JavaScript Framework

Although I do think front-end frameworks are great, this article makes a really compelling case on why you should use web components or at least care about them. The false dichotomy here is that a lot of frameworks actually let you use them to create web components.

Building a website like it's 1999... in 2022

This is an important article because a lot of people insist that modern web development is completely different from the old days, and that creating classic-style websites is impossible now. Whereas I think the only thing holding you back from building creative websites is yourself.
NeoCities actually has a lot of fun websites that aren't just marketing divisions.

Blinded By the Light DOM

A good article on "light DOM web components" or "HTML components". Even though the Shadow DOM is usually included whenever people talk about web components, it is actually not required. You can treat web components like a hook to add functionality to the elements it's wrapping, a bit like a modern version of jQuery. Except this works better, because web components automatically activate themselves when added to the dom.
Side-note: while I understand the point of it, I actually think the Shadow DOM is the worst part of the Web Components API and I never use it.

The self-fulfilling prophecy of React

A great article about how much React has aged compared to other (newer) front-end frameworks. Whenever I use React, it always strikes me how outdated it feels, and honestly it feels unfinished compared to frameworks like Vue and Svelte.
Self-proclamied quotable hot-take: React isn’t great at anything except being popular.

Web Components Eliminate JavaScript Framework Lock-in

Very interesting article that illustrates another reason for using web components; you can use them to transparently mix frameworks, for instance when you're migrating from one framework to another or you're using a legacy library for some particular framework.

The (extremely) loud minority

An article about twitter hype in the tech industry, and how most websites still run on WordPress. I do think everyone should use the technology they want to use, because users don't really care about what technology is used. However, the real point is that tech influencers can be incredibly hyperbolic and should always be taken with a grain of salt because they live in a very tiny part of the web.

The Market for Lemons

An article about front-end frameworks in general, which I'm more conflicted about. On the one hand, I do think people reach for JavaScript frameworks a lot more than they should, but I also think front-end frameworks are pretty great and solve a lot of difficult problems. I leave this article for the reader to ponder.