Frontend Fuel - Issue 25

First published: Read time: 2 mins

News

GOV.UK Frontend v2.0.0 has been released with a number of breaking changes. Please check the changelog notes before updating. https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-frontend/releases/tag/v2.0.0

The AMP project is moving towards an open governance model with the help Léonie Watson and Terence Eden. https://amphtml.wordpress.com/2018/09/18/governance/

Microsoft has started intercepting Chrome / Firefox installations, prompting the user to use Edge. https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/12/microsoft-intercepting-firefox-chrome-installation-on-windows-10/

A bug has popped up in Safari 12 whereby an arrays state is cached after a page refresh. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52390368/array-state-will-be-cached-in-ios-12-safari-is-it-a-bug-or-feature

General Reading

When Google indexes a website it is a two pass process. First with JS off, then JS on a week later. See full talk in presentation section below. https://twitter.com/Paul_Kinlan/status/1039852756113080320

An article from Alex Russell around the overuse of JavaScript on the web today. https://infrequently.org/2018/09/the-developer-experience-bait-and-switch/

Using WebPagetest and Wappalyzer to analyse Loading Speed across JS Frameworks. https://discuss.httparchive.org/t/loading-speed-across-js-frameworks/1479

The basic architecture concepts I wish I knew when I was getting started as a web developer. https://engineering.videoblocks.com/web-architecture-101-a3224e126947

Accessibility

Customise radio buttons without compromising accessibility. https://www.chenhuijing.com/blog/customise-radios-without-compromising-accessibility/#%F0%9F%91%9F

Solving traditional accessibility problems the untraditional way (machine learning and a neural networks). https://codeburst.io/solve-traditional-accessibility-problems-the-untraditional-way-60208c81efa6

Tutorials

Deliver fonts to users quickly with this font loading checklist. https://www.zachleat.com/web/font-checklist/

A list of the low hanging fruit in web performance. http://mediatemple.net/blog/tips/low-hanging-fruit-web-performance/

Progressively Enhanced CSS Layouts: Floats to Flexbox & Grid. https://www.sitepoint.com/css-layouts-floats-flexbox-grid/

An excellent introduction to Web Workers. https://auth0.com/blog/speedy-introduction-to-web-workers/

Podcasts

Wes and Scott discuss 11 Habits of Highly Effective Developers. https://syntax.fm/show/074/11-habits-of-highly-effective-developers

Darin Fisher (VP for Google Chrome) on how they designed Google Chrome. https://developers.google.com/web/shows/designer-vs-developer/podcast/DVDS4E01-how-we-designed-chrome

Presentations

Deliver search-friendly JavaScript-powered websites (Google I/O ‘18) [39mins] https://youtu.be/PFwUbgvpdaQ?t=14m2s

Tools

A page to display compatible browsers from a browserslist string. https://browserl.ist/

Find the cost of adding a npm package to your bundle. https://bundlephobia.com/

Not development related but a handy tool I found. It can help you to Add or Subtract Days/Weeks/Months/Years from a Date. https://calculat.io/en/date/today/plus/6/months

Demos

A 13KB JavaScript game called “underrun”, making of article listed below. https://phoboslab.org/underrun/

The making of Underrun. https://phoboslab.org/log/2018/09/underrun-making-of

Bring back some nostalgic gaming memories with color cycling with web workers. https://daverupert.com/2018/09/color-cycling-image-pixels-with-workers/

How to force restart any iOS device with just CSS? https://twitter.com/pwnsdx/status/1040944750973595649

Events

Agile Cambridge 2018 / September 26-28 / Cambridge http://agilecambridge.net/2018/

The Artificial Intelligence Conference 2018 / October 8-11 / London https://conferences.oreilly.com/artificial-intelligence/

InteractConf / October 17th / London. https://2018.interactconf.com/

View Source Conference / 26th October / London. https://events.mozilla.org/viewsource2018

FFConf / November 8 & 9th / Brighton. https://2018.ffconf.org/

Pixel Pioneers Belfast 2018 / November 22-23 / Belfast https://pixelpioneers.co/events/belfast-2018/

You Got This! / January 19th 2019 / London. https://yougotthis.io/

New Adventures Conf / January 23-25th / Nottingham https://newadventuresconf.com/2019/

Off-topic

Now anyone can be a great dancer. Just try to copy a dance as best you can and let computer motion transfer do the rest. [3mins] https://youtu.be/PCBTZh41Ris