[Chris]: Hey gang! Lemme start with the big news. I know some of you are specifically newsletter readers and this might be the first you’re hearing of it: DigitalOcean has acquired CSS-Tricks. That’s this site! This newsletter! That last link is the blog post explaining things, but speaking of this newsletter: we’ll be sending a few more “as usual”, but eventually DigitalOcean will be taking over (they plan to continue it) and will need you to opt-back into it if you wanna stay along for the ride. I am.
The biggest thank-you’s in the post are worth repeating:
I had the incredible help of Geoff as lead editor, sponsor wrangler, and site manager. Robin turned the newsletter into the must-read industry rag it is now. It’s a family business as well! My wife Miranda helped with the books, working with authors, and her guidance on running the site as a proper publication has led the site where it is. I literally couldn’t have done it without any one of them. And of course, the incredible group of authors, with a special shout out to Sarah, a long-time staff writer and friend.
And being that we’re in the newsletter right now, I thought it fitting that Robin gets to rap at ya one more time.
[Robin]:
Over the years we’ve covered so many topics that this newsletter now feels like a time capsule—go to any week in the archives over the past 6 years and you’ll get a decent picture of how it felt to be a front-end developer; what we were arguing about, what we were struggling with, what we moaned about.
Oh, the moaning!
One thing I’ve noticed though, skimming over these archives over the past week, is this: front-end improvements are accelerating at a rapid pace and we’re celebrating those improvements more in our little community.
Just in the last month or so we’ve heard news about web push notifications coming to iOS, cascade layers becoming a real honest to goodness thing, the <dialog> element gaining support in more browsers, and there’s a big push by everyone to make browsers work better together:
In 2022, Apple, Bocoup, Google, Igalia, Microsoft, and Mozilla have come together to commit to improve interoperability in 15 key areas that will have the most impact on web developer experience, in a project called Interop 2022.
This is exciting! Six years ago when we started the CSS-Tricks newsletter it felt like there was this enormous push to get grid and flexbox out the door in every browser, but I certainly didn’t expect for web browsers to continuously gain momentum in that time; but now it feels like there’s a meaningful improvement to the web platform each week.
My point here is that this makes for a healthy web and an extremely exciting field for us to work in.
Not everything has improved over the years though. A lot of folks rightfully worry about browser consolidation—a small number of browsers weakening the web and creating monopolies of power and influence. Performance is still an enormous problem but we now have a wealth of tools to identify and fix those problems and things do seem to be improving on that front across the web (and we’re constantly talking about it at least). Alas, Safari is still the only browser on one of the most popular computers in the world which often feels like we have one hand tied behind our back.
So not all things are great on the web.
But after sifting through the newsletter archives my enthusiasm has returned; I’m more confident than ever that we can fix the biggest problems of the web. Just look at this tweet from Wes Bos celebrating the aspect-ratio CSS property and try not to feel that same level of enthusiasm for the web, I dare you.
With that said then, I’m sad to say that this is the last CSS-Tricks newsletter from me.
I know, I know. How dare I get all sappy about saying goodbye to a newsletter. But this is the longest-running project of my career! Almost 300 weeks of drama! 300,000 words! That’s more than a Moby Dick of CSS rants! So although at the beginning I was somewhat terrified (how on earth are we going to keep writing about this, we’re going to run out of useful things to say, “agh”, etc.) I think that covering every bit of front-end drama has ultimately made me a better writer, a better designer, and a better lover (okay this was the last bad joke I will write here, I deserve this).
Creating Generative SVG GridsJokes aside, writing this newsletter was a ton of fun. I learned so much about the web, and I hope you had fun, too. And as I’m sitting here typing out the last thing I’ll write for this newsletter, I’m not sad at all. I’m more excited than ever about the future of the web and the future of CSS. I’m giddy, in fact.Creating Generative SVG GridsJokes aside, writing this newsletter was a ton of fun. I learned so much about the web, and I hope you had fun, too. And as I’m sitting here typing out the last thing I’ll write for this newsletter, I’m not sad at all. I’m more excited than ever about the future of the web and the future of CSS. I’m giddy, in fact.
Now get out of here, and go make some websites.
[Chris]: A lovely signoff — thank you Robin!
Now lest we be accused of not bringing you some 🔥 hot links, lemme at least drop a few for ya quick:
- Creating Generative SVG Grids — Alex Trost with a lovely tutorial and demo on geneative art ultimately in SVG. Reminds me how much ergonomics an SVG-specific lib like SVG.js buys you.
- How to test if there is any element outside the viewport with Cypress — Ismael Ramos shares some JavaScript (that ultimately becomes an easily repeatable test) to test for elements that might be causing horiziontal scroll (almost always bad) on a website. Back in 2014 I shared some techniques for this, but definitely prefer the automation here!
- The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible — Meg Miller and Ilaria Parogni for the New York Times. Always very weird (and cool) to see a super major publication cross paths with our little profession. Not so little, I guess.
You might notice this newsletter doesn’t have our normal sponsors in it. Well, that’s by design, because this is now coming at your courtesy of DigitalOcean! Keep in mind that they always offer $100 in free credit if you want to explore their offerings.
