ZenDev - Friday Frontend: Oct 2 Edition

Hey there,

Good morning amidst the chaos. I just woke up to the news that Trump has tested positive for COVID-19, and am trying to process the implications. It shouldn’t surprise anyone on this list that I greatly dislike the president, but I’m also deeply apprehensive about the impact this will have on functionings of the US government. This already rocky ride that is 2020 is going to get wilder. Hold your loved ones close, and be super careful.

We’re a little light on JavaScript articles today; I scoured the web, but found a shockingly small amount of new JS content last week, and much of it did not pass my quality filter. There’s some other good stuff though - I loved the CSS clamp article, the article on CSS debugging, and the article on frontend turning to “full-stack”.

Best,

KBall from ZenDev

CSS & SCSS

Linearly Scale font-size with CSS clamp() Based on the Viewport

Super interesting deep dive into the clamp css function as applied to typography. I love this as a way to create fluidly responsive websites.

3 things about CSS variables you might not know

Super useful article that walks through some easy to miss but key nuances of how CSS variables work.

Finding The Root Cause of a CSS Bug

Debugging CSS has long seemed like a bit of a black art - not many people have practiced it, and it’s rarely written about. I’m thrilled to find someone going through it with as much care and detail as are in this article.

25+ Interesting CSS Text Effects

Less for learning and more for scanning and inspiration, though every example is in a CodePen so you can dive further in and figure out how they’re doing it.

JavaScript

RedwoodJS: 5 Features that Make it Unique among JAMstack Frameworks

I’m really interested in Redwood. It’s using React, but both attempting to navigate the question of how do you handle the full stack from backend to frontend and diving deep into the JAMstack/serverless world by compiling everything that would be serverside down to lambda functions. It introduces a fascinating new primitive concept called a ‘cell’, and provides a lot of developer ergonomics. Definitely worth checking out. And just in case you missed it, we recorded a JSParty episode about Redwood with Tom Preston-Warner, the Github cofounder who is behind this new framework.

Micro-frontends in context

A look at the trend towards micro-frontends, what it means, what some of the options are, and when you might choose to use one.

Other Awesomeness

ooooops I guess we’re* full-stack developers now

Written version of a super-compelling talk that Chris Coyier was giving back in the day when we still went to conferences. :P I saw a version of this live, and greatly enjoy the written version. 

Intuitive Design? No Such Thing!

This meandered a bit, but it is an interesting enough topic that I wanted to include it anyway. Highlights how ‘intuitive’ really means “similar to previous experience”. More interesting than on-screen experiences is when you apply this to voice and AR/VR questions, as she does later in the article. I would argue right now that voice interfaces are *less* intuitive than screen interfaces, because there is an uncanny valley effect - you feel like you should be able to “just speak” to them, but you can’t. You have to adopt particular rigid phraseologies. Part of that is a speech recognition impact, put part is in how we design (yes design for voice!) the trees and feedback mechanisms we provide. 

False Simplicity in UI Design: Simple is not always better

A related concept - often we push for super simple designs, but simple is not always better! In particular, simple in appearance can often make a site or app harder to use, if the simplicity is cutting away important functionality.

SERVER DRIVEN UI, PART 1: THE CONCEPT

Huh. This is a very different approach, and I must admit I’m at least intrigued. I don’t feel like I’ve fully wrapped my head around when it would be useful or not, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.