Confessions of a Web Developer XVII

By David Walsh on September 24, 2019

It's been quite a while since I've gotten a few things off of my chest and since I'm always full of peeves and annoyances I thought it was time to unleash:

Firefox's DevTools are outstanding right now. From the improvements we've made to the debugger, to responsive design mode, inactive CSS, and more, I haven't needed Chrome for development in years. That said...
...I've been using Brave as my non-development browser over the past month and ... I really enjoy the Brave browser. I appreciate the forward thinking in micropayments and ad blocking, as well as Brave Rewards to choose to see ads to earn $BAT, private TOR tabs, and more. Well done Brendan Eich and crew!
In an ideal world I'd love to get rid of traditional ad networks on this. The problem remains that they're the most effective in as far as revenue by far. I've tried micropayments and providing crypto wallet addresses for people to donate but the nature of the web, and users expecting things for free, doesn't allow it.
Weather.com brings tears to my eyes. I've tried desperately to make this blog fast but it's as though Weather.com takes more time and processing that mining a bitcoin. I mean seriously....
I have an interview with a web developer of a prominent adult site coming soon. We talk tech, the atmosphere, and everything in between. Stay tuned -- you'll surely find it interesting!
AirPods are worth every penny. I tried buying knockoffs but they were all a horror show: wouldn't pair, would change IDs, couldn't hold a charge. AirPods just work and I'm willing to pay for easy...
...unlike MacBook Pros. The 2017 MacBook Pro model's keyboard is a joke. Someone please steal me from the Apple Ecosystem.
Performance profiles are really hard to read. I just want to run a routine multiple times and immediately be told what the major differences are. Instead it sometimes feel like a guessing game. Imagine a tool that identifies a slow snippet of code and suggests a better loop or pattern...gold.
When Mozilla finally gets smart and sends me packing, I think I'd want to work on a streaming content site. These services fascinate me and most have awesome user experiences -- it would be fun to be part of that. Or maybe a financial firm -- I'd learn loads about security and asset management.

Any strong feelings about my comments? Have anything you'd like to confess? Please share!

Recent Features

By David WalshDecember 10, 2012

How to Create a Twitter Card

One of my favorite social APIs was the Open Graph API adopted by Facebook. Adding just a few META tags to each page allowed links to my article to be styled and presented the way I wanted them to, giving me a bit of control...

By David WalshNovember 21, 2011

Page Visibility API

One event that's always been lacking within the document is a signal for when the user is looking at a given tab, or another tab. When does the user switch off our site to look at something else? When do they come back?

Incredible Demos

By David WalshAugust 23, 2015

Simple Image Lazy Load and Fade

One of the quickest and easiest website performance optimizations is decreasing image loading. That means a variety of things, including minifying images with tools like ImageOptim and TinyPNG, using data URIs and sprites, and lazy loading images. It's a bit jarring when you're lazy loading images and they just...

By David WalshApril 3, 2012

Multiple Backgrounds with CSS

Anyone that's been in the web development industry for 5+ years knows that there are certain features that we should have had several years ago. One of those features is the HTML5 placeholder; we used JavaScript shims for a decade before placeholder came...