Web Weekly #36

Moin moin, friends. 👋

And a big hello to all the new subscribers! Almost 300 people subscribed to this newsletter in the last three days. 😲 I'm super excited to have you around!

But let me ask you, how did you find out about this newsletter? I couldn't figure it out yet; hit reply and let me know.

Before we jump into things from last week, let's google "text adventure" and open the JavaScript console. I love a good easter egg! 🥚

Would you like to play a game? (yes/no)

This week's Web Weekly includes:

  • Accessible tables and crossed-out content
  • The web on iOS
  • Rendering of React components

... and, as always, GitHub repositories, a new Tiny Helper and some music.

Ready? Steady. Go!

Quick bytes

A denial-of-service (DoS) attack against Unix-based systems

WARNING! These examples may crash your computer if executed.

Can you imagine what this snippet does :(){ :|:& };:?

This shell function (yes, it's a function!) is called a "Fork bomb", and it can make your machine unusable. Vivek Gite explains how it works and how you can prevent weird character combinations from taking over your computer.

Understand fork bombs

Skills you must develop to become an executive

As you grow as a leader, your scope increases, the problems are increasingly ambiguous, and the solutions are unclear. Though you might have the knowledge to tackle these challenges, you might not be prepared for the emotional ups and downs.

Do you want to be a CEO or CTO one day? If so, I enjoyed this post from Nikhyl Singhal. Nikhyl describes the skills you need as an executive and how to develop them.

Learn more about leadership

Accessible strikethrough content

The s element – Use the s element to highlight contents that are no longer accurate or no longer relevant. A typical example is the old and the new price for a product.

I learned about the s and del HTML elements this week. Check out Manuel Matuzovic's post about strikethrough content such as old prices.

Cross things off

The web that falls behind on iOS

So it’s not just one browser that falls behind. It’s all browsers on iOS. The whole web on iOS falls behind. And iOS has become so important that the entire web platform is being held back as a result.

Niels Lehnheer published an excellent article covering that every browser on iOS is forced to use Webkit. Is the web falling behind on one of the major mobile operating systems? It seems so.

Form your own opinion about iOS

All you have to know about JavaScript events

JavaScript Eventing Deep Dive – preventDefault and stopPropagation: when to use which and what exactly each method does.

I still remember how confused I was when I discovered JavaScript event capturing and bubbling. Thomas Steiner and Stephen Stchur explain everything you need to know about JavaScript events (and I finally understood when to use stopImmediatePropagation).

Learn all the things about JS events

Code runs on people

We get it, you're clever. But the business doesn't need clever. It needs code that is only as complicated as absolutely necessary to get the job done. Anything else is just wasted effort.

The post "Code runs on people" on the rachelbythebay.com blog (so worth subscribing to!) is a valuable reminder of why code should be as boring as possible.

Write code for your future self

A visual guide to React rendering

React components that show when they rerender

When does React re-render components? Alex Sidorenko works on a detailed series including many visual examples covering useMemo, props handling and many more cases.

Understand React rendering

Accessible tables

Resources for building accessible tables

Here's one for your accessibility bookmarks: Raghavendra Satish Peri collected resources that help you make your tables accessible. 🔖

Make your tables accessible

(Pssst! 🤫 I'm collecting accessibility resources, too)

TIL recap: form validation with requestSubmit

DevSheet showing that calling `requestSubmit` triggers a form validation

To keep the articles on the blog up-to-date, I decided to reread and include older today I learned posts in this newsletter. 😉

Did you already run into the problem that calling submit on a form element doesn't trigger the included form validation? If so, have a look at requestSubmit. It's a method that makes form handling in JavaScript way easier!

Start using requestSubmit

Reader shout out 💙

"My top 5 favorite newsletter to keep up with frontend development news" by www.acupof.dev

Eli H. Schei shared her five favorite frontend newsletters on dev.to. I'm humbled to be included in this list.

Thank you, Eli, and thank you all for reading along!

Three valuable projects to have a look at

A new Tiny Helper

Haikai interface showing various background and configuration options.

Haikei is a good-looking app that you can use to generate beautiful backgrounds!

Create fancy backgrounds

Find more single-purpose online tools on tiny-helpers.dev.

A quote to think about

This week's quote comes from the book that I'm reading, "On Writing Well". It teaches how to improve your writing style, use good language and engage the reader. I still enjoy reading it a lot!

Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.

A song that makes you stop coding

Record cover of "KÖLSCH - Cassiopeia"

This week's track is an absolute house classic. Kölsch's "Cassiopeia" is a nicely rolling house track from 2014.

Listen to "Cassiopeia"

Thank you for reading!

And that's a wrap for the thirty-sixth Web Weekly! If you enjoy my newsletter, I'd love you to tell others about it. ♥️

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Stay safe, and I'll talk to you next week! 🎉 👋

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