It’s Time to Make Code More Tinker-Friendly | WIRED

a view source web

As a self-initiated learner, being able to view source brought to mind the experience of a slow walk through someone else’s map.

This ability to “observe” software makes HTML special to work with.

as days pass by — Inside out

A very thoughtful post from Stuart, ostensibly about “view source”, but really about empowerment, choice, and respect.

I like that the web is made up of separate bits that you can see if you want to. You can understand how it works by piecing together the parts. It’s not meant to be a sealed unit, an appliance which does what the owner wants it to and restricts everything else. That’s what apps do. The web’s better than that.

Everything Easy is Hard Again – Frank Chimero

I wonder if I have twenty years of experience making websites, or if it is really five years of experience, repeated four times.

I saw Frank give this talk at Mirror Conf last year and it resonated with me so so much. I’ve been looking forward to him publishing the transcript ever since. If you’re anything like me, this will read as though it’s coming from directly inside your head.

In one way, it is easier to be inexperienced: you don’t have to learn what is no longer relevant. Experience, on the other hand, creates two distinct struggles: the first is to identify and unlearn what is no longer necessary (that’s work, too). The second is to remain open-minded, patient, and willing to engage with what’s new, even if it resembles a new take on something you decided against a long time ago.

I could just keep quoting the whole thing, because it’s all brilliant, but I’ll stop with one more bit about the increasing complexity of build processes and the decreasing availability of a simple view source:

Illegibility comes from complexity without clarity. I believe that the legibility of the source is one of the most important properties of the web. It’s the main thing that keeps the door open to independent, unmediated contributions to the network. If you can write markup, you don’t need Medium or Twitter or Instagram (though they’re nice to have). And the best way to help someone write markup is to make sure they can read markup.

Things that compile to JavaScript

Stuart on the importance of View Source.

Stop generating, start thinking - localghost

Generated code is rather a lot like fast fashion: it looks all right at first glance but it doesn’t hold up over time, and when you look closer it’s full of holes. Just like fast fashion, it’s often ripped off other people’s designs. And it’s a scourge on the environment.