Just a Spec Jared White & Ayush Newatia

Join us for a meaty conversation all about the various levels of specifications and conventions which make the World-Wide Web go: from TCP/IP to HTTP to WebSockets and beyond. We also talk about conventions in various languages and frameworks to enable building web applications servers in a straightforward and portable manner, as well as building a personal knowledge base wiki out of Markdown files and an SSG (Static-Site Generator). Let’s fly!

Hosted by Jared White & Ayush and produced by Intuitive Future

Links & Show Notes:
Follow Just a Spec on MastodonThe Spicy Web & That HTML BlogWhitefusion web studio (ready for hire!)The Rails and Hotwire Codex, updated!Internet Specs:
TCP/IPHTTPWebSocketServer-Sent Events (SSE)Old-school: CometOld-school: CGI (Common Gateway Interface)Ruby: RackJavaScript: H3 & NitroBook: Where Wizards Stay Up LateICANN and the 7 Keys to the InternetEpisode 6: TIL About gTLDs, FTW!IANA Key Signing Ceremonies

Oh yes, we’re back! In this first Just a Spec episode of the year, the lads speculate on the grand conspiracy behind the results publication delay of State of HTML 2023 (not really!), catch up on personal news from during the podcast’s year-end hiatus, and run through a very entertaining list of all the goodies being worked on by browser vendors as part of Interop 2024. And is the complexity of the web platform just too damn high? (At least for anyone wanting to author a new browser engine?) Let’s discuss!

Hosted by Jared White & Ayush and produced by Intuitive Future

Links & Show Notes:
Follow Just a Spec on MastodonThe Spicy Web & That HTML BlogFullstack Ruby rebootedWhitefusion web studio (ready for hire!)The Rails and Hotwire Codex, updated!Interop 2024:
ReadmeProgress DashboardIgalia Chats episodeAccessibilityCSS NestingCustom PropertiesPopoverRelative Color Syntax@starting-styletext-wrap: balance

Thanksgiving’s coming up here in the U.S. and we thought it’d be fun to talk about of our favorite aspects of the modern web (and how it compares to the “dark days” of old). In addition, Jared’s launched a brand-new course platform over at The Spicy Web with the first offering being a deep-dive into crafting vanilla CSS architectures and formulating design systems. We talk about that and a bunch of the technical details of the underlying DIY platform. Enjoy this special edition of Just a Spec!

Hosted by Jared White & Ayush

Links & Show Notes

Follow Just a Spec on Mastodon

Ayush’s thankful for:
Modern web hosting like Render.comThe fetch and pushState APIsCSS Flexbox & GridA brief history of web layoutOld-school framesets/frames — they still work! 🤯Jared’s thankful for:
Mobile touchscreens, HTML5 (bye Flash!), and Responsive/Intrinsic DesignCSS3 (rounded corners! gradients! shadows! animations!)Introducing CSS Nouveau: a vanilla CSS architecture course Jared has published on The Spicy Web
Technical details:Built with Bridgetown & RodaTurbo Streams with custom actionsHeartml fullstack web components (library coming soon!) Shoelace & Open Props Media Chrome audio player RhinoEditor (covered on That HTML Blog) Playground Elements

Ah yes, that notorious hard problem in computer science. Time to name some things as we talk abut the philosophy undergirding software development, why “naming things” is hard but also a core aspect of the job, the sometimes reluctance to name things in as disciplined a fashion on the frontend as on the backend, how to communicate across teams and stakeholders via Ubiquitous Language, the importance of embracing modern HTML & CSS semantics when naming things, and so much more.

Hosted by Jared White & Ayush

Links:
Follow up: Playwright E2E testingTwoHardThingsUbiquitousLanguageClassnames (Naming things needn’t be hard)How to Think Like a Framework DeveloperAdam Wathan on "vanilla" CSSVanilla BreezeThe Design System Ecosystem

A whole grab bag of topics today! We talk about some of the well-known storage APIs like localStorage and sessionStorage, as well as the newer IndexedDB API which pairs well with Service Workers. We also talk about the three Observer APIs to help with reacting to DOM mutations, scrolling, and size changes. Apparently fetch DID happen (!), and testing against three headless browsers at once in a fast and reliable manner is easier than ever. All that and more in today’s episode of Just a Spec.

Hosted by Jared White & Ayush

Links:
The Spicy Web & That HTML Blog (Jared)Radioactive Toy (Ayush)Web Storage APIIndexedDBService WorkersObserver APIs:MutationObserverIntersectionObserverResizeObserverXMLHTTPRequest superseded by fetchTesting web components in headless browsers with web-test-runnerGist to aid in setting everything upUsing theme-color meta tagLarge, small, and dynamic viewport units

The results of the 2023 State of CSS survey are in, and we're here to break it all down and uncover the most interesting nuggets and opportunities as we look ahead to the future of CSS and the web platform. But not before some spicy meta chat on open source governance and how frequent contributors are treated in light of the recent Hotwire Turbo / TypeScript debacle.

Hosted by Jared White & Ayush

Links:
That HTML Blog (Jared)Radioactive Toy (Ayush)Turbo:Remove DHH for CoC Violations - Issue #977“Open Source is Not About You”CSS:State of CSS 2023AwardsConferences Ayush is speaking at:wroclove.rbFriendly.rb