Alex Russell

Trying to make the web work for *everyone*.

https://infrequently.org/about-me/

Still not speaking for my employer, lo these many years.

Blog: https://infrequently.org
Currently: Microsoft Edge
Previously: Chrome, Project Fugu 🐡, PWAs, W3C TAG, Web Components, TC39 & ES6, Chrome Frame, Dojo
Also: Making phae (npub1mmn…4juk) tea ☕

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Last Notes

2024-09-19 02:54:35

Yes, yes, everyone's posting this...but if you haven't read it yet, add my recommendation to all the others:
https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/paul-graham-and-the-cult-of-the-founder

2024-09-10 07:44:59

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Don't let these people gaslight you or your team. They might not be trying to get one over on you, but that doesn't mean they have any idea what they're talking about.
And yes, this effect gets *worse* the fancier the titles are, not better.

2024-09-10 07:42:49

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I *frequently* have the experience of telling folks that they can pull in some components from a Web Components design system (Fluent WC v3, or Material, or Spectrum, or Web Awesome), only to have people who *were just telling me that 45KB is "not a lot" for a framework* get cold feet at the idea that there might be 5-10K of library coming along for the ride.
So then you press a little...ok, so if size is an issue...will you *at least* switch to Preact?
🦗 🦗 🦗 🦗 🦗

2024-09-10 07:39:00

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As a result, they construct an echo chamber that *assumes* framework choice is totalising. That the idea of sharing componentry from multiple frameworks *must* be unwieldy and expensive. And then they perpetuate those entirely falsified premises to the next set of bootcamp grads.
They're constantly erecting mini-shrines to IE 9, and let me tell y'all...it had some real upsides, but it wasn't a good enough browser to be worth *this* sort of veneration.

2024-09-10 07:36:28

Writing a post on how frontend technology choice-making is extremely broken in 2024, even on the Lemon Vendors [1] own terms, and I ran across the perfect word to describe how the React ecosystem is trapped in a legacy cage of its own continual re-making: stovepiping:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stovepiping
Folks trapped in these priors spout zombie ideas and undead arguments because they've never experienced the modern web as developers. Not really.
[1]: https://infrequently.org/2023/02/the-market-for-lemons/

2024-09-10 06:50:39

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subclassable SVG isn't done yet, but it's on the TODO list. The reason we haven't made more progress on some of those warts is, unsurprisingly, the damper that Apple has put on platform progress of all sorts.
That sort of thing is why we all need to support @npub1kn4…3asa.

2024-09-10 06:34:44

A reminder that if Mozilla can build Firefox's entire UI in Web Components, and if Chromium browsers can power a huge fraction of the UI with them, they're good enough for your website.

2024-09-09 17:22:00

It's 2024, the web platform now includes a full component system, CSS we only dreamed of 10 years ago, a fuller JS standard library than ever, and deferred module loading is now a platform feature...even in Safari!
And yet.
Today I was told unironically that 300K of JS was a hard target to hit for first load of a simple-ish experience.
I am verklempt.

2024-09-04 16:47:26

Stop defining "developer experience" as "the inner loop while I'm writing code after spending an hour installing node_modules".
Setup time is "developer experience".
Upgrade toil is "developer experience".
Memoise-everything-after-weeks-debugging-stray-rerender toil is "developer experience".
Belated, frantic code splitting side quests are "developer experience".

2024-09-04 06:52:34

This is (even more) aggro than I'd be about React (and, surprisingly, religion), but this line is the pure, uncut truth:
"React is useful for making complex interfaces like Facebook’s or for making otherwise simple interfaces, and their underlying codebases, complex like Facebook’s."
Christ on a cracker, @npub1wpv…rz2s; leave something for the rest of us!
https://briefs.video/videos/what-is-react/

2024-08-30 15:38:14

I know a few people that I would legitimately consider "full-stack" engineers; none of them (zero, nil, zilch) have the word "full-stack" on their resumes.
Managers looking for this label are only playing themselves.

2024-08-24 19:55:05

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This is incredible!
/cc @npub1ctt…3egd

2024-08-24 19:26:21

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And it's just worth remembering how far behind the web on iOS is.
Android users have WebGPU *today*. And View Transitions. And the navigation API. And scroll-linked animations. And content-visibility. And Custom Paint. And Web Transport. And Web HID, Web USB, Web Bluetooth, Web NFC, Web MIDI, and Trusted Types.
Not to mention functional Web Push:
https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/web-push-ios-one-year/

2024-08-24 19:19:42

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The geofencing and legal angles aren't easy to parse, but here's the status quo. Apple:
- Delivered an SDK that doesn't work on developer phones outside the EU
- Proposed legal terms that are *bonkers*
- Doesn't use the same APIs for their own browser
- Is refusing to provide APIs to support PWAs and PWA capabilities
- Won't let anyone ship a real browser outside the EU, even if all of that was acceptable. Which it isn't.
These are defense lines. To defend what? The App Store.

2024-08-24 19:14:53

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The idea of an open, capable, interoperable platform that delivers high-functioning apps is *such* a threat that Apple is trying to undermine the web's potential from every single one of those angles. It's working in standards and quasi-standards bodies to keep the web less capable, using blocking position on iOS to prevent breakout of a capable web, and talking down the benefits of interoperability.
Glactic-scale gaslighting to protect profits, not users.

2024-08-24 19:13:06

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Why is this the biggest salient? Because browser choice can *end* App Stores. Thoroughly and totally. And that's why Apple continues to fight real choice so damned hard. They're pulling out every stop -- including funding astroturf groups -- and risking every possible fine to keep true choice from emerging through a mechanism they don't control.
Small reversals like this are helpful, but Apple continues to geofence and degrade the potential of real browser choice. And that's a scandal.

2024-08-24 19:10:30

The tech press continues to miss the biggest iOS anti-trust thrust: browsers. The press, that is, with the exception of The Register:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/24/apple_eu_browser_defaults/

2024-08-21 22:29:39

The most cursed business words in tech today:
- "ideate"
- "innovate"
- "performant"
- "learnings"
- "asks"
- "actioned"
- "AI"
"Metaverse" and "crypto" would be on the list, but they died of VC-related injuries.

2024-08-18 22:52:59

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If you know of any podcasts that would be willing to discuss, I'm up for it.

2024-08-18 19:16:03

Thanks to the magic of WASM, I can now confront my graphviz inadequacies from the comfort of a browser tab.

2024-08-18 16:18:47

You can tell that a lot of the frontend community misses Flash and Shockwave and Applets and Silverlight because they just can't help re-creating them in JS.
What else could possibly explain needing to load megabytes of code just to show a loading spinner, then a different loading spinner, then a third loading screen?
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/object-lesson/

2024-08-16 15:28:15

Reckoning, Part 4: The Way Out
This series was a risk. I don't generally like to post traces without the permission of teams, but the situation has been *so* bad for *so* long, and the marketing nonsense from the JavaScript-industrial-complex is so pervasive, that more is needed.
That starts with acknowledging that everyone making sites is an active participant with agency. We all have parts to play in making them better or worse for folks at the margin.
Choose wisely
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/the-way-out/

2024-08-16 15:15:41

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Part 4: The Way Out
Unacceptable performance is the consequence of a chain of failures to put the user first. Breaking the chain usually requires just one insistent advocate. Disasters like BenefitsCal are not inevitable. Responsibility is always an option, and it's generally easier and cheaper in the medium to long run.
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/the-way-out/

2024-08-15 07:32:28

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Thank you for reading! Means a lot.

2024-08-15 07:21:10

Your blog does not need frameworks built for SPAs.
Your e-commerce "experience" should be progressively enhanced (no, that doen not mean "SSR+huge bundles")
Your news website is not "an app".
Part 3 of my series on how JavaScript fucked over US public benefits services is up, and includes a handy rubric for "should we React?"
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/caprock/

2024-08-15 07:07:52

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Part 3: Caprock
SPAs and the frameworks built to support them are kryptonite to organisations that are not 110% across the complexity of the infrastructure they own and operate. This is a predictable recipe for disaster in low-maturity teams, both public and private sector.
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/caprock/

2024-08-13 19:52:32

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Build. Web. Apps.

2024-08-13 15:25:22

Folks, if you're annoyed by the Apple/Patreon thing and are wondering what to do about it, go support @npub1kn4…3asa. The answer to App Store shittiness was never a slightly less shitty proprietor, it's true alternative platforms...platforms like the web.
@npub1kn4…3asa fought back and won when Apple tried to kill PWAs this spring, and now they're pushing to make web apps and better iOS browsers a reality so that Patreon and whoever is in line after them can flourish w/o 30% taxes.

2024-08-13 09:13:08

Part 2: Object Lesson
What hath we wrought? A case study of US public services and the JavaScript that broke them.
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/object-lesson/
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/112/953/941/007/023/235/original/cb292306ca80f81e.mp4
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/112/953/942/167/155/019/original/afaea3db8cc7aa8b.mp4

2024-08-13 09:05:35

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Part 2: Object Lesson
What hath we wrought? A case study of US public services and the JavaScript that broke them.
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/object-lesson/

2024-08-12 20:28:12

For the past few weeks I've been working on a post (now a series) that investigates what JavaScript-based frontend development has done to these, the least of our brothers.
Today, Part 1: The Landscape
https://infrequently.org/2024/08/the-landscape/
Subscribe to the RSS feed for the rest of the series as it comes out.

2024-08-08 15:48:57

It clicked for me this morning: the thing that sucks about frontend's lost decade's and the obsession with remaking every blog and marketing microsite as "an SPA" (dragging MBs of JS in tow) is the same thing that sucked about Java Applets.
You can promise "richness" and "app-like UI" all day, but if the experience sucks in point of fact, then you're just gonna nerf your own ecosystem's potential.
The shame of the JS-industrial-complex is that the ecosystem they're doing it to is the web.

2024-08-05 06:16:12

If I seem prickly about the JavaScript-industrial-complex, it's because I've *seen* some shit, showed that shit to the folks most responsible, and they did jack to fix or prevent it from happening in the future. Now the whole web is covered in shit.
The post I'm working on now is a tour of a wee corner of a tiny smidgeon of what I've seen, as viewed from the relatively generous device and network budgets I updated to earlier this year[1]. I'm livid all over again.
[1] https://infrequently.org/2024/01/performance-inequality-gap-2024/

2024-08-04 19:43:58

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Yes, it's offensive that these folks take no responsibility. Yes, it's demoralizing that so many people are willing to go along with it. But that doesn't mean we have to accept that they "won". The future is all to play for, and we can start by pointing and laughing. They deserve ridicule, not just scorn.

2024-08-04 19:40:07

Working on this next post has finally crystalized something for me: the excuses that advocates of SPAs (and the frameworks they justify) make are functionally identical to the C/C++ apologist's approach to memory safety.
In both cases, no amount of long-documented failure seems to move them, and so we must move ourselves away from them.
SPA architectures and tools must simply be banned for most kind of work, *PARTICULARLY* in the public sector.

2024-08-03 05:57:49

via @npub13r3…y5h9, I'd missed this insightful post by ROC (who I'm not sure is here?):
https://robert.ocallahan.org/2024/06/browser-engine.html
I'll only add notes to his queries in the thoughtful "Going Beyond" sections:
- You can always best a multi-OS browser on some perf aspects by optimising for a single OS...at least in the short run. Apple manages to do it (at least on power) through private APIs, and a sufficiently funded team can investigate/reverse enough to do the same (on open OSes....so not iPhones).
- (ctd.)

2024-08-02 20:00:26

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Yo, is there a non-profit stood up for this? It would help a lot of folks at BigCos use matching funds to help out.

2024-08-01 22:43:21

No, but seriously...why don't we have `<video loading="lazy">` yet?

2024-07-31 01:53:37

So my friends over at the @npub1zek…2tug wrote a Finding on third-party cookie depreciation. TBH, I'm disappointed, but the good news is that could still be fixed with some targeted additions (and a bit less grandstanding).
I lay out the case here:
https://infrequently.org/2024/07/misfire/

2024-05-17 20:20:44

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This is the pace we should always have expected. It's happening now because of @npub1kn4…3asa and friends.

2024-03-21 17:28:22

Governments around the world have found exactly this every time they've looked hard at Apple keeping competing browsers at bay, but crikey. The DOJ is not playing around:
https://assets.toot.cafe/media_attachments/files/112/134/849/931/499/301/original/430493a44971442c.png