Fix the web and look good doing it

Fix the web and look good doing it

The web is drowning in JavaScript and the vibe is, there will be more. Also happy birthday MDN and how to look good in your middle age 😎.

xx Chinch

Support this newsletter

If you like what you read here and want to keep supporting my work, I have a couple of ways you can support me this issue.

Capture your screen effortlessly

Simple and clear, but packed with features, Simple Screenshot is a drop in replacement for the system default on macOS.

Not looking for software?

Then head to chrischinchilla.com/support for other ways to support me. You can also just share this newsletter with someone else.

  • JavaScript broke the web (and called it progress)

    jonoalderson.com

    This issue mentions another article that calls for a wider return to semantic markup. But what was responsible for breaking markup to such an extent in the first place? Suspect number 1, JavaScript.

  • Why Did a $10 Billion Startup Let Me Vibe-Code for Themand Why Did I Love It? | WIRED

    wired.com

    An awful lot bothered me about this article. That so many “tech journalists” don’t actually know how to code. That a company is so happy to shove so much bloat into its products. The stockholm syndrome esque way so many engineers are gladly handing their futures over to AI. And that the entire article felt like sponsored content anyway. Notion only just added the feature to work offline for web’s sake! Maybe someone could have vibe coded that? Anyway, I’ll get my coat and go and shout at some clouds.

  • ‘What the hell should I wear?’ The style challenges of a fortysomething man

    theguardian.com

    I think the past few months were the first time in my life where I truly felt as middle aged as I am. So much in the world no longer makes sense to me and fashion is naturally one of those. I pride myself on taking a certain care to my appearance, generally wearing a shirt and well-fitting clothing, but I also know that that in itself is an old fashioned opinion of “good style”. A lot of men in the late 30s onwards kind of give up on looking good, and I was pleased to read something that encouraged men going through a certain phase of life to try a little harder and what might work, albeit, in a rather British sense of style.

  • Why semantic HTML still matters

    jonoalderson.com

    It’s unfortunate that the push for semantic HTML (marking areas of the page as their role) and the rise of dynamic web frameworks followed roughly the same timeline. While many of these frameworks offer good developer experience (though that is also questionable), often what they output to the browser is a sea of nested DIV tags, creating heavy, non-accessible and brittle markup. With the rise of Vibe coding, this is only set to get worse. So fly a flag for markup that’s light and accessible or everyone!

  • Celebrating 20 years of MDN | MDN Blog

    developer.mozilla.org

    A lot of this issue is about how the modern internet is broken. An example of something on the internet that has worked for a long time, and hopefully continues to work, is the Mozilla Developer Network. Happy birthday MDN!

If you like what you're reading, support my work

Try the best git GUI for macOS and Windows
Try the best git GUI for macOS and Windows

Grapple git without the grief and try Tower, the best graphical interface for git on macOS and Windows.

Try Tower for free
Text based video and audio editing
Text based video and audio editing

Are you looking to make editing audio and video easier and more powerful with a suite of AI-powerd features? Try Descript, I use it for editing all my podcasts and you can to!

Download Descript