Occasionally I look at the theme for one of the first WordPress sites I developed. I look at my early PHP, my early CSS, my early JavaScript & my HTML about ten years into my career.
The HTML has at least lost its font tags and table based layouts but my overall reaction is to wish I could curl up and hide.
FitVids.js is a jQuery plugin used to create fluid videos. It helps makes video embeds from YouTube, Vimeo and a number of other sources display nicely on responsive sites.
FitVids calculates the ratio of a video, wraps it in a div and sets the padding to enforce a ratio. A typical 4:3 YouTube embed starts as:
<iframe
width="420" height="315"
src="//www.youtube.com/embed/btPJPFnesV4"
frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>This is not another responsive web design equals web design post. That particular debate is largely answered every time an m-dot link is shared on Twitter or Facebook.
Ethan Marcotte’s landmark A List Apart article defined responsive web design as having three technical ingredients:
It’s often argued that modern responsive web design requires more than these three ingredients.
WordPress 4.2.3 has reminded me why being conservative with enhancements is a good thing. If a bug is committed, you lose the benefit of time to fix it.
WordPress 4.2.3 has broken some sites using shortcodes in HTML tag attributes. As part of a security fix, certain ways of doing this are no longer possible.
In my last post, I mentioned I was trialling the SUIT CSS naming convention as I redevelop this site. More generically, let’s address why a naming convention should be used at all.
For the purposes of this post, I’m talking specifically about class naming conventions. (While one may have naming conventions for JavaScript functions, variables, and HTML IDs too, they’re not the focus of this post.)
John Allsopp had a rant on Twitter recently – as is his want from time to time – he was remarking on vertical rhythm tools around the web and his point boils down to:
why do all the vertical rhythm tools for web design use pixels everywhere? I wonder if anyone paid attention at all in class.
— John Allsopp (@johnallsopp) June 6, 2014
This speaks to me of a wider problem; web developers are forgetting the 90s.
When writing code, you don’t make a considered decision about every line you write. Much of it is instinct, you’re following your standard practises.
Standard practises are based on past decisions. As technology has improved, these decisions may no longer be valid. Without care, it’s easy to become stuck in a cycle of producing outdated code.
