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Monthly Archives: July 2015

the web: aviation and eschatology

by !undefined

“We have a space station in 2014, but it’s too embarrassing to talk about. Sometimes we send Canadians up there.”

Maciej Cegłowski, Web Design: The First 100 Years

Talking about where the web came from, where people like to think it’s going, and where it’s most likely actually going.

I realize this all sounds a little grandiose.You came here to hear about media selectors, not aviation and eschatology. But you all need to pick a side.

“simply take up elsewhere with no change in thinking”

by not another Rob?

“And, to be honest, if I could be uploaded tomorrow into some AI version of the internet or become a nascent Mars colonist, I would reject both options as morally, ethically wrong. You cannot trash an entire planet, kill billions of organisms (often for no reason at all), and then simply take up elsewhere with no change in thinking or accountability.”

Jeff VanderMeer, Redefining Utopia and Dystopia or Post-Apoc

“Culture Fit” as an Instrument of Exclusion

by !undefined

Why Hiring for “Culture Fit” Hurts Your Culture:

Mathias Meyer’s discussion of “culture fit” works with too broad of a definition (e.g., ping-pong may be an instrument or reflection of your culture, but it isn’t culture itself) but manages to make a couple of important points. First (and most important) is the idea that relying on the “culture fit” question is usually an indication of an exclusive culture – and that you’re using it to keep out people who would disrupt the status quo. Which leads to the second critical point, that an over-reliance on that question suggests a toxic environment that is too busy being insular and self-congratulatory, at the expense of questioning its assumptions.

Meyer uses a lot of examples that involve drinking and bars, but I’d say that you should closer to the office first. How does the team engage with the work itself? With each other? When something fails, does it turn into a witch hunt? Or a learning opportunity? Are you using “culture fit” to find more people that are just like you? Or are you building an inclusive team with diverse opinions and talents?

Eric Clemmons re: Angular vs. React

by !undefined

Angular is Easy. React is Hard.:

Eric Clemmons’ perspective on the perception (myth?) that React is easier to reason about and therefore easier overall than AngularJS. Among his main criticisms of React: that it’s only solving the view problem, that you need to “bring your own architecture”, that there subtle bugs may be introduced by JSX, and that confusion around props vs. state can lead to tightly-coupled components.

Ultimately Clemmons’ opinion is that AngularJS is better for prototyping while React is a better fit for “universal” applications. He admits though that all his points may be irrelevant in the near future as newer versions of these frameworks come online. His conclusions seem even-handed and worthy of consideration (though I think he under-states how useful AngularJS can be when properly applied).

thoughts on that “Do We Need CSS Anymore?” post going around

by !undefined

The Debate Around “Do We Even Need CSS Anymore?”:

As with just about all approaches in software, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and for any given development team, they’ll need to come to their own conclusions about the trade-offs. Personally, I think the “do it all in JavaScript” approach seems like a short-sighted optimization. From the component-based perspectives like we’re seeing with React, I can see why you’d want to bundle style changes to the components — but my gut says this is a slippery slope that prioritizes developer ergonomics over all other concerns.

Consider battery performance on mobile, for example — I’d put even money that mobile browsers have been tuned for CSS performance with respect to power consumption, but there’s probably a lot more overhead in managing JavaScript changes and then having to repaint with all those low-level styles applied at the element level. (To be fair: this is a hunch, and I have no data to back this up, nor have I been able to find any in my admittedly brief and shallow search.)

Keith J. Grant’s “stop pretending” point is a legitimate claim, and regardless of which of the big front-end frameworks you’re a fan of, you’ll find that they’ve all embraced some flavor of this by now. However, I remain skeptical of the wisdom to put all the eggs in that particular basket. I still see a lot of value in keeping these concerns separated… to the extent that you can separate them at all.