Web Development Reading List #185: Safari 11, New Edge Build, Chrome 59, And CSS Optimization Insights

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Tools, Coding, Web Development Reading List
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Anselm is a freelance front-end developer who cares about sustainable front-end experiences and ethical choices in life. He writes the WDRL, and is co-founder … More about Anselm ↬

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What’s going on in the industry? What new techniques have emerged recently? What insights, tools, tips and tricks is the web design community talking about? Anselm Hannemann is collecting everything that popped up over the last week in his web development reading list so that you don’t miss out on anything. The result is a carefully curated list of articles and resources that are worth taking a closer look at.

This week was full of great browser vendor news: Safari 11 was announced with long-awaited features such as WebRTC and tracking protection, and a new Edge build with new CSS features is now available, too. But the past few days also had some valuable articles up their sleeves: about implementing HTTP/2 push, using datetime-local, and slimming down your CSS, for example. I collected everything in this reading list for you, so you don’t miss out on anything. Enjoy!

News

With Microsoft’s Edge build 16215 available now, the browser finally supports object-fit and object-position as well as position: sticky. Additionally, passive and once event listeners are now supported, too, and the developer tools also got some improvements.
In an attempt to prevent privacy violations by advertisers, Apple’s Safari browser will soon come with Intelligent Tracking Prevention built in. It’s a machine-learning-driven algorithm that auto-deletes tracking cookies and other data. And to make it even cooler, the learning algorithm will run on your local device, not in the cloud.
This week, Chrome 59 was released. It brings headless Chrome and native notifications for macOS.
Yep, Safari 11 was announced at WWDC this week, and it’ll bring some nifty features to users in fall this year. And for us developers, there’s a lot of good stuff coming up, too: WebRTC, Website Snapshots, WebAssembly, drag and drop on iOS, and home screen apps running on the same, latest WebKit as Safari apps, for example. As for APIs, we can look forward to Media Capture, WebCrypto, and Resource Timing APIs. Variable fonts and stroke will also be supported, and developer tools will get an update, too.
Safari’s Technology Preview 32 brings a lot of the announced features of the upcoming Safari 11 to developers already today, including WebRTC support, WebAssembly, and auto-play prevention.

New Chrome notifications on macOS — With the new Chrome 59, Chrome notifications on macOS will finally use the native notification system. And they’ll respect “Do not disturb” settings, too. (Image credit)

Tools & Workflows

Wes Bos has a clever git trick for you: Use git checkout - to quickly jump back to your last git branch.

Security

Egor Homakov published SecureLogin, an open-source authentication implementation that wants to be convenient, secure, and independent of social media services. A promising technology.

Web Performance

Jake Archibald shares his experience with implementing HTTP/2 push and why it’s tougher as we might think.

How HTTP/2 push works — HTTP/2 push is promising but not free of pitfalls. Jake Archibald takes a closer look. (Image credit)

HTML & SVG

Andrea Giammarchi explains how we can use input datetime-local already today.

CSS/Sass

Jens Oliver Meiert conducted a study to find out how often we repeat declarations in our style sheets. The result: in 70% of cases. An article with great insights into how we can do better when optimizing CSS.

Work & Life

“Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore?”

Going Beyond…

When it comes to phones and other small devices, it’s possible to demand users to exchange their hardware from time to time. But now that cars are getting smarter and Internet-driven software will control them in the future, it’s time to ask how this will affect our safety and security.

Thanks for reading this. If you like it, consider supporting my work.

—Anselm