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 WalshAugust 15, 2011

Send Text Messages with PHP

Kids these days, I tell ya. All they care about is the technology. The video games. The bottled water. Oh, and the texting, always the texting. Back in my day, all we had was...OK, I had all of these things too. But I still don't get...

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...

Incredible Demos

By David WalshMay 21, 2009

External Site Link Favorite Icons Using MooTools and CSS

I recently came upon an interesting jQuery article about how you can retrieve all external links within a page, build the address of the site's favorite icon, and place the favorite icon along side the link. I've chosen a different approach which...

By David WalshAugust 11, 2011

dat.gui: Exceptional JavaScript Interface Controller

We all love trusted JavaScript frameworks like MooTools, jQuery, and Dojo, but there's a big push toward using focused micro-frameworks for smaller purposes. Of course, there are positives and negatives to using them. Positives include smaller JS footprint (especially good for mobile) and less cruft, negatives...