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I celebrate it every time I see a hand-coded, self-designed website. No matter the code quality, no matter the design ♥️ Unfortunately, this happens less and less. While there are more and more frontend dev influencers, fewer and fewer code and design something themselves. 1/Permalink On twitter.com
♻️ 4 Retweets ❤️ 27 Favorites Mood +5 🙂
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What does this mean? It may mean that “native” frontend development is actually—dying ✝ 2/Permalink On twitter.com
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Wait, what? Why? First and foremost because of an abundance of abstractions. There are frameworks, libraries, design systems, packages, zero-config services and tools for EVERYTHING. 3/Permalink On twitter.com
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These abstractions have been eating the craft: Frontend developers don’t “natively” code and design anymore. In many cases, they CAN’T even “natively” code and design anymore. 4/On twitter.com
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Wait, what? WE have been killing frontend development. On the one hand, there are these abstractions. But then there’s the refusal to establish and to adopt basic standards, like technically valid output. 5/Permalink On twitter.com
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So what we’re looking at is this: * No work standards * No code of honor * Instead, entitlement and a misguided sense that everything must be easy (which leads to more abstractions, and prevents establishing of work standards and honor codes) 6/Permalink On twitter.com
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And what this leads to is this: * Poor quality of output * No craft * No sense of a meaningful profession * No motivation to hand-code, self-design a website * A lot of room to bicker and act self-righteous * (Software devs who feel like the better frontend devs) 7/Permalink On twitter.com
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We need a fundamental shift in how we define and approach frontend development. It can start with establishing—and self-imposing if need be—standards, like requiring valid output. It can end with being healthily proud about the craft and profession of frontend development. 8/Permalink On twitter.com
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That means, everyone can start, now: Start shipping valid code. Save and support the craft. [I wanted to tag a few superstar frontend peers, but they know what signal they can send to the field.] 9/Permalink On twitter.com
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Thanks for listening. Further reading: “2% of the Top 100 U.S. Websites Use Valid HTML (in 2021)”: meiert.com/en/blog/valid-html-2021/ “In Critical Defense of Frontend Development”: meiert.com/en/blog/critical-frontend-development/ “The 3-Second Frontend Developer Test”: meiert.com/en/blog/the-frontend-developer-test/ 10/10Permalink On twitter.com