THE STATE OF THE WEB

CHRIS HEILMANN (@CODEPO8), WEB ON THE EDGE, HELSINKI, SEPTEMBER 2015

WEB DEVELOPMENT WAS A LOT ABOUT GAPS…

CONSIDER THIS SIMPLE, SENSIBLE MARKUP…

…AND THE MESS THAT INTERNET EXPLORER 6 AND 7 MADE OF IT.

FIXES WERE PLENTIFUL…

AND VERY SPECIFIC TO THE BROWSER’S ISSUES…

ALL OF THESE WERE SOLUTIONS. BUT THEY FELT BAD.

WRITE EXTRA MARKUP TO WORK AROUND THE ISSUES OF THE PARSER?

RELY ON HACKS THAT EXPLOIT KNOWN PROBLEMS IN THE CSS PARSER OF THE OFFENDING BROWSER?

RELY ON KNOWN BUGS IN THE CSS PARSER?

CREATE A DEDICATED STYLE SHEET WITH ALL THE QUIRKS IN THEM - ONE FOR EACH OFFENDING BROWSER

FIND A SOLUTION AND ENSURE THAT ONLY THE PROBLEMATIC BROWSERS GET IT?

STOP TRYING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF BROWSER CREATORS AND FEED BACK ISSUES SO THAT BROWSERS CAN IMPROVE?

EXCEPT, BACK THEN THERE WERE NO FEEDBACK CHANNELS.

SO WE DID THE NEXT BEST THING. WE WROTE ABSTRACTIONS TO FIX BROWSER ISSUES FOR US.

NO WAITING FOR BROWSERS - LET’S INNOVATE AND BUILD THE THINGS WE WANT!

BROWSERS WILL CATCH UP AND WE CAN REMOVE OUR ABSTRACTIONS…

…EXCEPT, WE NEVER DO.

AT EVENTS, WE TALK ABOUT AMAZING SOLUTIONS BUT SOMEHOW, IT FEELS WE’RE NOT HAVING AN EFFECT…

A LOT IS NOT WORKING THE WAY IT SHOULD…

🕗15 SECONDS

🕗15 SECONDS

http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2015/09/08/deja-vu-all-over-again/

THE TIME WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE AVERAGE PAGE TO FULLY LOAD…

http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2015/09/08/deja-vu-all-over-again/

THAT’S A PRETTY TERRIBLE STATE OF THE WEB.

• The median page’s time to interact is 5.5 seconds, and fully loads in just over 15 seconds.

• The median page is 2MB in size and contains 170 resources

• Most sites fail to take advantage of core image optimisation techniques

AND SO NOT UNCOMMON…

WELL, I AGREE…

HUGE, INDEED…

http://www.apple.com/ipad-air/

HUGE, INDEED…

http://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/

WHAT TO DO?

WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

WE CAN PATCH IT!

WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

WE CAN REBUILD IT!

https://instantarticles.fb.com/

Facebook: Instant Articles

WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

WE CAN REBUILD IT!

https://www.ampproject.org/

Google:Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

WE CAN REBUILD IT!

https://www.apple.com/news/

Apple News

OPEN, BUT KIND OF CLOSED…

WE’RE NOT APPLYING TECHNOLOGY IN A WEB FRIENDLY FORMAT…

WHAT DOES THIS CODE DO?

JAVASCRIPT ABUSE IS RAMPANT…

3MB OF BLOCKING JAVASCRIPT BEFORE THE FIRST WORD APPEARS ON THE PAGE!

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?

WHOSE FAULT IS THIS?

PRETTY MUCH OURS…

• Web development is still governed by looks alone

• Clients still expect web sites to work the same on every browser and platform

• Quick delivery trumps quality and release processes

• We’re asked to make things work and fix them later - but there never is a later.

A LOT OF OUR INNOVATION AND EASY TO USE SOLUTIONS FEEL LIKE PURE ESCAPISM…

I’M NOT SAYING THERE SHOULD BE NO INNOVATION…

IT IS JUST NOT EVERYBODY’S RESPONSIBILITY. SOME OF US COULD CONCENTRATE ON KEEPING THE WEB A SOLID FOUNDATION.

WE GET HIGH ON TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS THAT GET INCREASINGLY COMPLEX.

http://ashleynolan.co.uk/blog/frontend-tooling-survey-2015-results

THIS IS NOT AN OLD MAN OF THE WEB RANTING… (WELL, NOT EXCLUSIVELY)

LATELY I WORKED EXCLUSIVELY IN FIXING ONE MASSIVE ISSUE OF THE WEB…

WE REMOVED ALL THE THINGS THE WEB SUFFERED FROM…

✘ VML ✘ attachEvent() ✘ currentStyle ✘ X-UA-Compatible (render modes) ✘ IE Layout Quirks ✘ VBScript ✘ Conditional Comments ✘ MS-Prefixed Events

WE REALISED YOU CAN’T BREAK THE WEB OVER NIGHT… :(

WE LEARNED THAT THERE ARE MANY WEBS…

before after before after

-webkit-appearance: none -webkit-gradient

…AND THAT EXPERIMENTAL FEATURES DON’T DIE

EDUCATING IS A TOUGH JOB…

http://dev.modern.ie/tools/staticscan/

https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/static-code-scan

THE BIGGEST CULPRITS WE FOUND…

✘ Aggressive browser sniffing independent of version number

✘ Outdated libraries and polyfills - some of them clashing with new language features

✘ A lack of packaging and dependency loading solutions - dozens of JS files = no inlining possible

✘ If it works on Safari iOS, that’s what matters - no matter what the spec says…

FIXING THE BROWSER SHOWED US HOW BROKEN THE WEB IS

WE HAVE WORKING COMMUNICATION CHANNELS BETWEEN BROWSER MAKERS AND DEVELOPERS…

LET’S USE THEM PROPERLY.

HERE’S WHAT I LEARNED WORKING FOR BROWSER CREATORS

✓ It is a constant race not to break the web - every mistake web developers make needs to get catered for.

✓ The pressure is immense. Instead of pushing for an interoperable web, browsers are constantly compared and expected to be different.

✓ When implementing standards, we find a lot of problems and feed them back. That’s why a score of 100% in feature tests makes no sense.

✓ Most speed increases are based on analysing and fixing developer mistakes/sloppiness.

SO HERE IS MY PLEA TO HELP WITH BETTER SOLUTIONS FOR EVERYONE…

STOP TELLING PEOPLE ON THE WEB THAT THERE ARE DOZENS OF SOLUTIONS THAT MAGICALLY FIX ALL THEIR ISSUES…

STOP CATERING TO OLD BROWSERS. GIVE THEM BASIC, WORKING SOLUTIONS AND ENHANCE USING FEATURE DETECTION.

EXPLAIN, DON’T MAKE IT FASTER AND EASIER!

SHOW THE DANGERS OF QUICK SOLUTIONS.

KEEP THINGS ACCESSIBLE FOR EVERYONE. THERE IS NO TECHNICAL BASELINE!

SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU CAN FIX ANYTHING WITH JAVASCRIPT DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD!

LET’S COLLECTIVELY CALM DOWN!

WE’RE NOT IN A HEALTHY STATE RIGHT NOW AS A COMMUNITY…

✘ We build to impress each other - the people who need our solutions never see them.

✘ We feel rushed and not good enough - all the time.

✘ We feel innovation is going too slow whilst not recognising when something got fixed we wanted oh so much when it was the hot thing to demand.

THE FIRST STEP TO HAPPINESS IS TO MAKE IT HAPPEN…

THE FIRST STEP TO HAPPINESS IS TO MAKE IT HAPPEN…

✓ Improve your basic skills, catch up on what’s possible. caniuse.com is a riveting read!

✓ Start helping people who are not here and don’t follow hackernews. You start teaching and you end up learning.

✓ Report problems, demand support for basic features, not only for the hot, new (half-baked) ones.

✓ Reach out beyond our echo chamber if you want to reach people who need the knowledge you have.

THANK YOU!CHRIS HEILMANN

@CODEPO8