Another thoughtful reponse to my recent post.
Reflections on native browser features and third-party library adoption.
Jemima runs through just some of the exciting new additions to CSS:
Replacing 150+ lines of JavaScript with just a few CSS features is genuinely wild. We’re able to achieve the same amount of complexity that we’ve always had, but now it’s a lot less work to do so.
And Jemima will be opening the show at Web Day Out in Brighton on the 12th of March if you want to hear more of this!
This episode of the Shop Talk Show is the dictionary definition of “rambling” but I had a lot of fun rambling with Chris and Dave!
Every millisecond you spend executing JavaScript is a millisecond the browser can’t spend responding to a click, updating a scroll position, or acknowledging that the user did just try to type something. When your code runs long, you’re not causing “jank” in some abstract technical sense; you’re ignoring someone who’s trying to talk to you.
This is a great way to think about client-side JavaScript!
Also:
Before your application code runs a single line, your framework has already spent some of the user’s main thread budget on initialization, hydration, and virtual DOM reconciliation.
Progressive enhancement is about building something robust, that works everywhere, and then making it better where possible.
You might not need (much) JavaScript for these common interface patterns.
While we all love the power and flexibility JS provides, we should also respect it, and our users, by limiting its use to only what it needs to do.
Yes! Client-side JavaScript should do what only client-side JavaScript can do.
In which I find a tagline for Web Day Out and a tagline for React.
Have you got the perfect talk for this event? Let me know!
A one-day event all about what you can in web browsers today: Brighton, March 12th, 2026. Tickets are just £225+VAT!
HTML’s new `command` attribute on the `button` element could be a game-changer.
Technically, websites can do just about anything that native apps can do. And yet the actual experience of using the web on mobile is worse than ever.