Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats – Details, episodes & analysis

Scott and Wes break down why your CSS might suck—from misusing specificity to not leveraging CSS variables. Tune in as they dive into common pitfalls that are making your stylesheets a hot mess. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:33 Breakdancing in the Olympics. 05:29 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 05:44 Why your CSS sucks. 07:01 You’re styling the wrong element. 11:01 Nesting too deep. 12:37 You don’t understand specificity. 14:56 Your classes don’t use a system. 16:24 You’re using values instead of CSS vars. 20:16 You don’t understand block vs inline vs inline-block. CSS Logical Properties 21:16 You aren’t using the right tool for the job. CSS Flexbox, CSS Grid. 24:15 You’re setting the value in too many places. 24:31 You’re scoping to tightly or not tightly enough. Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

In this episode of Syntax, Wes and Scott talk with Ryan Dahl about Deno 2.0, its new features and use of web standards, and how it seamlessly integrates with popular frameworks like Next.js. Ryan shares insights on the motivations behind Deno’s creation, its emphasis on simplicity and security, and offers his take on the evolving JavaScript ecosystem. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:34 What is Deno? 05:08 Deno 2.0 07:49 NPM compatibility 09:40 What parts of Node aren’t doable in Deno? 11:22 Do we need a hard break from Require? 13:51 Package management 16:25 Security and performance benefits of Deno 20:57 Brought to you by Sentry.io 20:57 Thoughts on Bun and Node additions 26:25 Ryan’s favorite Deno projects Lume Fresh webgpu-examples gpucraft minecraft clone + deno + webgpu gpucraft example Shaderplay Orillusion 28:42 Will we ever see a unified file system API? 31:49 Typescript 36:12 Jupyter Notebooks with Deno Polars 39:11 AI and WASM in JavaScript 42:01 Deno 2.0 features and future 43:08 Sick Picks & Shameless Plugs Sick Picks Ryan: McCarren Park Shameless Plugs Ryan: https://deno.com/enterprise Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Scott and Wes talk with Alex Reardon from Atlassian about developing drag-and-drop libraries, specifically the challenges with creating efficient and accessible drag-and-drop functionalities for the web. They also explore what it takes to build and implement a system that works seamlessly across various frameworks. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 01:18 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 01:51 What Alex does at Atlassian react-beautiful-dnd Pragmatic drag and drop 04:38 What makes drag and drop tricky. 06:38 Use-cases. 10:54 What security is in place? 12:30 How to make it feel native. 19:20 Is the drag and drop spec ongoing? 20:03 How do you build this headless? 21:33 How does drag and drop work with frameworks? 23:48 Making drag and drop feel the same across mobile and desktop. 26:09 What’s the key to really good drag performance? 29:58 How do you make drag and drop accessible? 34:57 Pragmatic drag and drop code vs application code. Shoelace shadcn 40:00 How does testing work? Playwright Cypress 43:15 Internal adoption at Atlassian. 44:27 Working on high-impact projects. 49:15 Versioning and internal adoption at Atlassian. 51:29 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs. Sick Picks Alex: Coffee, James Hoffmann YouTube Channel. Shameless Plugs Alex: Dom Events. Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Yagiz Nizipli talks about his involvement with Node.js, implementing .env, how he finds areas to improve in performance, the happy path vs the hot path, and new features coming to Node.js. Show Notes 00:32 Welcome 01:01 Introducing Yagiz Nizipli 02:21 What is your involvement in Node.js? 03:27 Implementing .env 07:03 Why was 20,000 lines of C required? 11:00 How do you begin to find performance issues? 15:17 How do you measure improvements? 26:27 The happy path vs the hot path 27:36 Is Rspack ready for prime time? RSpack 28:47 Bundle Size VS runtime perf? Whats more important? 30:51 What’s it like working on a large project like Node? 38:26 Will Node ever get TypeScript support? 40:22 What are loaders? 44:24 Node.js is getting a config file? 51:37 Sick Picks Sick Picks Oxc @Boshen_c Shameless Plugs @yagiznizipli Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott:X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

Wes and Scott answer your questions about duopoly in tech, tech stacks for creating content, switching from frontend to full stack, DSA knowledge, email HTML, and more! Show Notes 00:10 Welcome 02:21 Syntax Brought to you by Sentry 03:31 Are you concerned about duopolistic companies taking over the web? 11:29 What stack do you you use for videos and sharing content? 15:02 How do you know once your ready to officially make the switch from frontend to full stack? 17:58 As someone new to tech and looking to apply for junior front end positions, how much should i know about DSA’s? Friends that work at big tech companies - did you need Data Structures and Algorithms to get hired? I get an lots of messages from new devs asking how to learn these things. Many of them say the need it to work at FAANG type companies 21:59 Which tools would you recommend for crafting HTML emails from scratch? Foundation MJML React Email 25:03 Hey are you guys setting up your own CI/CD like github action or gitlab CI? Netlify Vercel 28:25 What do you think about unstyled component libs. Eg: Ark? Ark UI 31:47 Do I need to have every single feature on mobile as I do on a desktop? Obsidian - Sharpen your thinking Missive ‐ Team Email, Chat & Tasks 39:15 How can I get better at planning my code? shaky.github.bushong.net Monodraw for macOS — Helftone Octopus.do, Visual Sitemap Tool, Website Planner, Architecture Mermaid | Diagramming and charting tool 42:32 What exactly makes it so that a piece of logic is client/frontend logic vs backend logic? 46:17 Sick Picks Sick Picks Scott: Sleeping Queens Card Game, 79 Cards : Toys & Games Wes: Package drop box Shameless Plugs Scott: Syntax Newsletter Wes: Wes Bos Courses Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

CSS :has() is out in all browsers and Wes and Scott have got the top 10 reasons you should start using :has() now. Show Notes 00:25 Welcome 02:28 Syntax Brought to you by Sentry 03:02 Overview of :has 07:09 The anywhere selector 09:41 Previous element 12:59 Layout targetting 15:45 Form validation styling 17:51 All siblings 21:07 Quantity queries 24:19 Empty children 24:56 Nested dropdown navs 26:36 Attribute matching Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

In this supper club episode of Syntax, Wes and Scott talk with Eric Meyer about his start on the web, the early days of CSS, where CSS is headed, are we going to lose a browser, and more! Show Notes 00:32 Welcome 01:26 Who is Eric Meyer? 05:44 In the earliest days, what browsers supported CSS? 10:23 The current web platform test suite web-platform-tests 17:59 Are CSS features shipping faster these days? 20:45 CSS learning from preprocessors 26:24 What do you think about Tailwind and inline CSS? 33:26 Alternative spaces where CSS may be used CSS Speech Module Level 1 The World Wide Web Consortium Issues CSS2 as a W3C Recommendation 37:17 Do companies push CSS forward for a business use case? 44:06 Trying to keep up with all the things is difficult 48:19 What’s on Eric Meyer’s CSS wishlist? 54:35 Supper Club Questions Bruce Lawson Firefox Nightly desktop, Android and iOS. SerenityOS The Ladybird browser project Thunderbird — Free Your Inbox. — Thunderbird Arc from The Browser Company Mozilla Foundation - Homepage 01:58 Sick Picks Sick Picks Polypane Shameless Plugs Igalia - Open Source Consultancy and Development meyerweb.com Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott:X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

Wes and Scott give their predictions for 2024 in JavaScript, frameworks, server-side JS, tooling, CSS, developer ecosystem, and AI tooling. Show Notes 00:10 Welcome 01:10 Syntax Brought to you by Sentry 02:00 Types in JS will have real movement 05:10 Temporal API will ship in 1 browser 06:38 Perf tooling gets easy for everyone to understand 07:32 CSS continues to get better where you need less JS 08:35 The year of the server in frameworks 10:32 Svelte v5 is very fast SvelteKit • Web development, streamlined 12:04 Astro is going to have a good year Astro 4 Web Devs, 1 App Idea (Salma Alam-Naylor, Scott Tolinski, Eve Porcello) 14:22 React server components dai-shi/waku: ⛩️ The minimal React framework Waku 19:45 Remix moves away from page-based loaders, to component loaders 20:52 Hono will become more ubiquitous Hono - Ultrafast web framework for the Edges 23:23 Node will introduce TypeScript support via loaders 24:48 We will see a route matching Proposal move ahead URL Pattern Standard 26:34 Bun releases full node compat 27:34 We will see a new Linter + formatter entirely replace Language support | Biome HTML support · Issue #1326 · oxc-project/oxc Prettier · Opinionated Code Formatter 31:44 New TypeScript typechecker 32:42 Lightning CSS pops - or does it? 34:37 You’ll hear more about Rspack and Turbopack 35:55 Vite isn’t going to release anything big in 2024 Vite | Next Generation Frontend Tooling 36:55 CSS contrast-color will land in chrome 37:27 Relative color will land in all major browsers 37:48 Scroll animation landing in 2 browsers 38:40 The year of CSS discovery 41:20 Safari will Ship 3 missing PWA Support 44:10 Firefox usage will continue to slip 47:43 Paid Arc features 47:55 More XR web experiences as Apple releases in Vision Pro 49:07 AI Tooling Galileo AI v0 by Vercel Transformers.js 51:07 Small Models that run in the browser 52:08 Apps get sherlocked by OpenAI 53:24 On prem corporate AI 54:15 Sick Picks Sick Picks Scott: ISO100 protein power, Weekend at Bernie’s Wes: Roborock S8 Pro Ultra Vaccum + Mop Shameless Plugs Scott: Syntax Newsletter Wes: Wes Bos Courses Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

In this episode of Syntax, Wes and Scott talk about things to consider when printing something from your website or app including loading CSS only for printing, using units in CSS, CSS counters, creating a PDF, naming pages when printing, and more. Show Notes 00:25:15 Welcome 01:27:04 Syntax Brought to you by Sentry 01:52:00 Examples of how Wes uses print CSS 03:42:16 Using it for invoices or receipts 05:08:24 Delivering a book as a PDF 05:42:16 How do you load CSS only for printing? 10:41:08 Using units in CSS 11:29:15 CSS Counters MDN: CSS Counters body { counter-reset: chapter; /* create a chapter counter scope */ } h1:before { content: "Section " counter(chapter) " "; counter-increment: chapter; /* add 1 to chapter */ } h1 { counter-reset: subchapter; /* set section to 0 */ } h2:before { content: counter(chapter) "." counter(subchapter) " "; counter-increment: subchapter; } h2 { counter-reset: section; font-size: 23px; } 14:31:10 Named Pages @page title { @top { /* no header for title pages */ content: “”; } } @page chapter { @top { content: “This is a chapter page”; } } 15:27:09 Margins, Headers + footers, Page Numbers 18:01:18 Debugging Print CSS 19:57:18 Getting into a PDF Docraptor Playwright Puppeteer JSPdf 24:45:04 Other Things to consider Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

In this supper club episode of Syntax, Wes and Scott talk with Anna Pobletts of Passage about passkeys, how passkeys work, how to implement passkeys on your website or app, what the recommended UI is for passkeys, what happens to your passkey if you lose your phone, and more. Show Notes 00:32 Welcome 01:36 Why do we need something like Passkeys? 03:34 What are Passkeys for? 10:04 What took us so long to get to Passkeys? 11:07 Where’s the two factor part of Passkeys? 13:08 How are Passkeys phishing resistant? 14:44 What happens to your Passkey if you lose your phone? 18:40 What’s the password recovery workflow like with Passkeys? 23:08 Having a backup device helps a lot with Passkeys 24:58 Why companies should use two factor or Passkeys 29:26 What are the standards and tech behind Passkeys? 32:38 What kinds of companies are implementing Passkeys? 34:34 What is the recommended UI for telling users about Passkeys? 39:17 How do you implement Passkeys on your app or website? 41:47 1Password open sourced low level libraries 47:34 What does the future look like for Passkeys? 51:07 Supper Club questions 53:44 Sick Picks 1Password Have I Been Pwned 1Password Watchtower Passkeys.directory passkeys.dev FIDO Alliance - Open Authentication Standards More Secure than Passwords Sick Picks Cascadia Shameless Plugs Passage by 1Password Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott:X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads