Top picks — 2018 June
A Bitter Guide To Open Source
One of my favorite open source creators Ken Wheeler writing about his experience — the bitter reality of maintaining free projects for the community. A great list of tips for all OSS creators.
A bright future for GitHub
Chris Wanstrath from GitHub team announced the biggest acquisition in a long time. This one is importnt especificaly for developers because today (2018.06.04) GitHub joins Microsoft. I am looking forward what the future of this acquisition will bring to the table. Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft reveals more details in his take — “Microsoft + GitHub = Empowering Developers”.
We're thrilled to announce that we've entered into an acquisition agreement with @Microsoft! https://t.co/4DezuXTJfV pic.twitter.com/LUZxjXFVVw
— GitHub (@github) June 4, 2018
Apple WWDC 2018
Month ago Google I/O, this month is a time for Apple to introduce some new stuff. This year was all about software with no single upcoming hardware announcement. As expected, versions of all 4 operating systems has been bumped to: iOS 12, macOS 10.14 Mojave, watchOS 5, tv 4K. I am not an Apple TV user and a little ignorant of Apple watch so I wan’t touch on these two, but I am more than happy to highlight the things that I am the most excited about in new mobile and desktop operating system.
MacOS 10.14 Mojave introduces a frequently requested dark mode and it is looking stunning! It is not just a menu bar and a dock — real dark mode of a whole UI. Security and privacy improvements that are coming to Safari are impressive — cookies and fingerprint tracking turned off by default. Redesigned App Store with a video previews — bang on! Continuous camera and and videos option built into screen shot taking app are looking cool. I am curious about all the things under the hood that have not been presented on a conference — normally developers are the most excited about these innovations.
Mobile system — iOS12 — supports the same models as the previous one but does it twice faster. Improvements in AR functionality are impressive and a new format designed in collaboration with Adobe will change the world of 3D models used in augmented reality. Adobe is just about to drop a support for AMDZ for core Adobe CC tools. Shortcuts — a new app based on well known Workflow that Apple acquired last year — integrates with Siri and allows users to build a complex macros to increase our productivity via single command. Probably the most excited to me: grouped notifications! Do not disturb and notifications are getting more powerful and will get a more precise configuration level. Grouped faceTime — finally!
Designing Web Content for watchOS
As announced on WWDC 2018 — Apple watch joins a family of devices ready to browse a web content. It means that web developers job is getting even more interesting — new breakpoint and devices range to test projects on. This official introduction by Apple is a great staring point.
CORS
Ryan Miller explains CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing). This article makes complex subject easy to understand. There is one more thing that is really cool about this article — design of Ryan’s blog is superb! Fantastic typography and subtle decorations.
Cards
Heydon Pickering published another post in a series about inclusive components. This time is about commonly used card component. You would have never thought about the details that Heydon covered in this article. Apart from cards related details there is tons of interesting facts on top it. For example — there is a use case when missing image alt attribute can be useful! Interesting, isn’t it?
Specificity in :not(), :has(), and :matches()
CSSWG (CSS Working Group) recently decided about the specificity of :not(), :has()and :matches() pseudo selectors. Eric A. Meyer explains all the rules. If you are not sure what a CSS specificity is, the “CSS specificity explained” that I published 3 years ago should enlighten the term a little bit.
CSS Blocks with Chris Eppstein
On a “Top picks — 2018 May” I featured one resource that I am extremely excited about — CSS Blocks by LinkedIn team. Chris Eppstein reveals some more interesting details about this project in Shop Talk Show podcast. I am really looking forward to the stable release. Few days later Una Kravets and Chris Dhanaraj from Toolsday Podcast recorded a shorter version about the same subject with the same guest — “CSS Blocks”.
A cartoon intro to DNS over HTTPS
Lin Clark from Mozilla team continues her cartoony series of explainers. This one is about DNS servers and how Firefox is planing to implement secure requests resolvers. It is an amazing guide through the basics of HTTP — highly recommended to all internet users who want to know what is going on under the hood.
Understanding the Almighty Reducer
Sarah Drasner explains a concept of one of the most powerful methods of Array prototype — reduce. I love the way that Sara is using animations to explain the concept. The reduce is one of the most popular methods in functional programming — I explained more of them few years back in “Manipulate JavaScript Arrays like a boss”.
Has Vue passed React yet?
Vue.js is gaining more and more popularity and this is another proof of it. I know that GitHub stars is a poor measurement unit, but it exposes some level of traction around some software.
Don’t Use The Placeholder Attribute
Eric Bailey gave a list of solid points why you shouldn’t use placeholder attribute on your website. I have never thought of few of those reasons against it. Holistic view for a little subject — I love this kind of articles.
ECMAScript® 2018 Language Specification
So it is officially 2018. New ECMAScript documentation has been merged with a ECMA International website. If you want a quick and practical summary of all the new features added to the spec this year, I published an article “What’s new in ECMAScript 2018” few months ago.