The monoculture web

CSS Intelligence: Speculating On The Future Of A Smarter Language — Smashing Magazine

This is a really thoughtful look at the evolution of CSS and the ever-present need to balance power with learnability.

No build frontend is so much more fun

The joy came flooding back to me! It turns out browser APIs are really good now.

Who’s Afraid of a Hard Page Load?

Why single-page apps are just not worth it:

Here’s the problem: your team almost certainly doesn’t have what it takes to out-engineer the browser. The browser will continuously improve the experience of plain HTML, at no cost to you, using a rendering engine that is orders of magnitude more efficient than JavaScript.

Meanwhile, the browser marches on, improving the UX of every website that uses basic HTML semantics. For instance: browsers often don’t repaint full pages anymore.

Polishing your typography with line height units | WebKit

I should be using the lh and rlh units more enough—they’re supported across the board!

Taking RWD To The Extreme — Smashing Magazine

Some really great advice here:

• Use native layout systems
• Start with semantic HTML
• Use fluid type with fluid space
• Always bet on progressive enhancement
• Trust the browser
• Ditch the “physical” CSS