The Absolute State of Management 🔗
It is by no means the gravest linguistic crime of the React epoch,1 but "state management" grates like nails on chalkboard. A Socratic dialogue I keep [...]
Infrequently Noted
Posts
Abject Praise 🔗
It's perilous to disagree with someone as wise and thoughtful as Jeremy, but for the past fortnight his post in response to Apple's iOS 27 marketing i [...]
The Web Is An Antitrust Wedge 🔗
TL;DR: Armed with new powers to rein in the worst excesses of mobile's duopolists, antitrust bodies around the world are struggling to find their foot [...]
Naked Power 🔗
Twitter's descent into a gutter of the lowest order has been wrenching: Elon Musk’s Grok and the Mass Undressing Scandal As I d [...]
The Performance Inequality Gap, 2026 🔗
The Budget, 2026 Edition Let's cut to the chase, shall we? Updated network test parameters for 2026 are: 9 Mbps downlink 3 mbps uplink 100 millisecond [...]
The App Store Was Always Authoritarian 🔗
Eric Prouzet And now we see it clear, like a Cupertino sunrise bathing Mt. Bielawski in amber: Apple will censor its App Store at the [...]
11ty Hacks for Fun and Performance 🔗
This blog really isn't just for beating up on Apple for the way it harms users, the web, standards, and society to maintain power and profits. So here [...]
Apple's Antitrust Playbook 🔗
Contents Lies by Any Other Name Great Artists Steal Dear Tech Reporters: Access Is Not A Beat This blog is failing on several levels. First, Septemb [...]
Comforting Myths 🔗
Update: In several recent posts, I've attempted to address how the structure of standards bodies and their adjacent incubation venues accelerates or s [...]
Web Standards and the Fall of the House of Iamus 🔗
Photo by Photo by Artan Sadiku Commentary about browsers and the features they support is sometimes pejorative towards pre-standardis [...]
Apple's Assault on Standards 🔗
TL;DR: Market competition underlies the enterprise of standards. It creates the only functional test of designs and lets standards-based ecosystems ro [...]
Apple vs. Facebook is Kayfabe 🔗
Photo by Claudia Raya Apple vs. Facebook is, and always was, kayfabe. In reality, Apple is Facebook's chauffeur; holding Zuck's coat [...]
Put Names and Dates On Documents 🔗
Anyone who has worked closely with me, or followed on social media [, ], will have seen a post or comment to the effect of: Names and dates on docs. [...]
How Do Committees Fail To Invent? 🔗
Mel Conway's seminal paper "How Do Committees Invent?" (PDF) is commonly paraphrased as Conway's Law: Organizations which design systems are (broadly) [...]
Links? Links! 🔗
Frances has urged me for years to collect resources for folks getting into performance and platform-oriented web development. The effort has always se [...]
Conferences, Clarity, and Smokescreens 🔗
Before saying anything else, I'd like to thank the organisers of JSNation for inviting me to speak in Amsterdam. I particularly appreciate the folks w [...]
Safari at WWDC '25: The Ghost of Christmas Past 🔗
At Apple's annual developer marketing conference, the Safari team announced a sizeable set of features that will be available in a few months. Substan [...]
If Not React, Then What? 🔗
Over the past decade, my work has centred on partnering with teams to build ambitious products for the web across both desktop and mobile. This has pr [...]
Platform Strategy and Its Discontents 🔗
This post is an edited and expanded version of a now-mangled Mastodon thread. Contents Platforms Are Competitions ...and We're Losing Win Condition Y [...]
Reckoning: Part 4 — The Way Out 🔗
Other posts in the series: Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape Reckoning: Part 2 — Object Lesson Reckoning: Part 3 — Caprock Frontend took ill with a ba [...]
Reckoning: Part 3 — Caprock 🔗
Other posts in the series: Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape Reckoning: Part 2 — Object Lesson Reckoning: Part 4 — The Way Out Contents Complexity Pe [...]
Reckoning: Part 2 — Object Lesson 🔗
Other posts in the series: Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape Reckoning: Part 3 — Caprock Reckoning: Part 4 — The Way Out --> Contents The Golden Wa [...]
Reckoning: Part 1 — The Landscape 🔗
Instead of an omnibus mega-post, this investigation into JavaScript-first frontend culture and how it broke US public services has been released in fo [...]
Misfire 🔗
The W3C Technical Architecture Group1 is out with a blog post and an updated Finding regarding Google's recent announcement that it will not be immine [...]
Why Browsers Get Built 🔗
There are only two-and-a-half reasons to build a browser, and they couldn't be more different in intent and outcome, even when they look superficially [...]
Home Screen Advantage 🔗
Update: OWA is out with an open letter appealing to Apple to do better. If you care about the future of the web, I encourage you to sign it, particul [...]
The Performance Inequality Gap, 2024 🔗
The global device and network situation continues to evolve, and this series is an effort to provide an an up-to-date understanding for working web de [...]
Why Are Tech Reporters Sleeping On The Biggest App Store Story? 🔗
The tech news is chockablock1 with antitrust rumblings and slow-motion happenings. Eagle-eyed press coverage, regulatory reports, and legal discovery [...]
Safari 16.4 Is An Admission 🔗
If you're a web developer not living under a rock, you probably saw last week's big Safari 16.4 reveal. There's much to cheer, but we need to talk abo [...]
The Market for Lemons 🔗
For most of the past decade, I have spent a considerable fraction of my professional life consulting with teams building on the web. It is not going w [...]