How to Make Websites That Will Require Lots of Your Time and Energy - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
- Install Stuff Indiscriminately From npm
- Pick a Framework Before You Know You Need One
- Always, Always Require a Compilation Step
Link tags: ties
165
The Recurring Cycle of ‘Developer Replacement’ Hype
Here’s what the “AI will replace developers” crowd fundamentally misunderstands: code is not an asset—it’s a liability. Every line must be maintained, debugged, secured, and eventually replaced. The real asset is the business capability that code enables.
If AI makes writing code faster and cheaper, it’s really making it easier to create liability. When you can generate liability at unprecedented speed, the ability to manage and minimize that liability strategically becomes exponentially more valuable.
This is particularly true because AI excels at local optimization but fails at global design. It can optimize individual functions but can’t determine whether a service should exist in the first place, or how it should interact with the broader system. When implementation speed increases dramatically, architectural mistakes get baked in before you realize they’re mistakes.
The Blowtorch Theory: A New Model for Structure Formation in the Universe
Make yourself a nice cup of tea and settle in with Julian Gough’s magnum opus:
How early, sustained, supermassive black hole jets carved out cosmic voids, shaped filaments, and generated magnetic fields
The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences | The Verge
Good news for the fediverse, the indie web, and community sites like The Session:
People are abandoning massive platforms in favor of tight-knit groups where trust and shared values flourish and content is at the core. The future of community building is in going back to the basics.
Anchor position tool
This is a great little helper in understanding anchor positioning in CSS.
The hardest working font in Manhattan – Aresluna
This is absolutely wonderful!
There’s deep dives and then there’s Marcin’s deeeeeeep dives. Sit back and enjoy this wholesome detective work, all beautifully presented with lovely interactive elements.
This is what the web is for!
6 CSS Snippets Every Front-End Developer Should Know In 2025 · 19 January 2025
- Springy easing with
linear()- Typed custom properties
- View transitions for page navigation
- Transition animation for
dialogandpopover- Transition animation for
details- Animated adaptive gradient text
Hixie’s Natural Log: When complaints are a good sign
This is a very smart way to handle feedback about a product.
New CSS that can actually be used in 2024 | Thomasorus
Logical properties, container queries, :has, :is, :where, min(), max(), clamp(), nesting, cascade layers, subgrid, and more.
My Modern CSS Reset | jakelazaroff.com
I like the approach here: logical properties and sensible default type and spacing.
The Unraveling of Space-Time | Quanta Magazine
This special in-depth edition of Quanta is fascinating and very nicely put together.
Can you feel the rhythm‽ · 13 March 2024
Adam makes a very good point here: the term “vertical rhythm” is quite chauvanistic, unconciously defaulting to top-to-bottom writing modes; the term “logical rhythm” is more universal (and scalable).
Retrofitting fluid typography | Clagnut by Richard Rutter
Here’s a taste of what Rich will be delivering at Patterns Day on Thursday—can’t wait!
Offloading JavaScript With Custom Properties: HeydonWorks
With classes, we can send CSS static values but with custom properties we can send dynamic ones, which is a major shift in the way we can style state. This is something that has been true for some time—and is extremely well supported—but sometimes it takes solving a small real-world problem to make you appreciate the value of it.
I think we still haven’t come to fully appreciate the superpower of custom properties: dynamic values that are shared between CSS and JavaScript.
To Own the Future, Read Shakespeare | WIRED
I see what you nerds have done with AI image-creation software so far. Look at Midjourney’s “Best of” page. If you don’t know a lot about art but you know what you like, and what you like is large-breasted elf maidens, you are entering the best possible future.
On Principles – technogoggles
The value of design principles done right:
What I’ve learnt is that principles are not a luxury. Making explicit and conscious what drives your behaviour can be incredibly powerful as a means to critically shape a team and organisation to be who they want to be.
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.