Pushing the Boundaries without Breaking the Web

Talk from Front Trends 2012. Probably not great seeing slides out of context, some other thoughts on this here: http://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2012/03/21/stop-solving-problems-you-dont-yet-have/

Transcript

1. Pushing the boundaries without Breaking the Web
2. Rachel Andrew http://edgeofmyseat.com http://grabaperch.com http://rachelandrew.co.uk @rachelandrew
3. a History Lesson
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6. Things used by people who understand the problems they solve are also used by those who do not understand those problems, or even if there is a problem.
7. This is an amazing time to be a web developer.
10. Frustration
11. The web is a work in progress. Your job? To deal with it.
12. Making things better
14. You now have two problems
16. Problem: no media query support in IE8 and below.
18. Problem: lack of support for styling HTML5 semantic elements in older browsers.
19. Problem: lack of support for certain CSS3 Selectors in older browsers.
20. My process
21. 1. What is the problem? My process
22. 1. What is the problem? My process 2. What are my constraints?
23. 1. What is the problem? My process 2. What are my constraints? 3. Is not supporting this feature an option?
24. 1. What is the problem? My process 2. What are my constraints? 3. Is not supporting this feature an option? 4. What current solutions exist?
25. 1. What is the problem? My process 2. What are my constraints? 3. Is not supporting this feature an option? 4. What current solutions exist? 5. Use a polyfill or roll my own?
26. Why not just use a boilerplate?
28. Stop solving problems you don’t yet have
29. If you don’t know what it is doing. Why is it there?
30. Do you know what is safe to delete?
31. There’s no silver bullet to making a slow site fast. You must take a holistic approach. High performance runs the entire way through from the hardware it’s hosted on, through the app that builds the pages, to the server software that delivers the pages and the front end code that displays them in a browser. Drew McLellan - http://allinthehead.com/retro/361/how-to-make-your-website-fast
32. We are all learners and we are all teachers... ... no matter how old we are, how long we have been doing this, and whether we write tutorials or speak at conferences or not.
33. Polyfills should not be a black box
34. Teach problem solving before polyfilling.
36. “Perch is removing my paragraphs”
37. We need to teach: HTML, CSS, JavaScript
38. We need to teach: Problem Solving skills
40. If we train people to just copy and paste, we stop them growing, learning and contributing.
41. Moving the web forward together
42. Make sure you know why you are using a solution and what your other options are.
43. Know and test for what happens if JavaScript doesn’t load.
44. When teaching or writing tutorials for others explain problems before handing out the solution. Explain why as well as how.
45. Thank you. Image credits - Flickr users: artbystevejohnson, atoach, dominicspics, imagesbywestfall, koalazymonkey, pinksherbert, whatcouldgowrong