"Changed: Introducing a non-native implementation of web form controls, which delivers a new modern design and some improvements to page load performance. Watch for layout bugs in web pages that make assumptions about the dimensions or styling of form controls."
A very visible change is the default styling of the form elements (input, button): more rounded, with a strong double blue outline when focused. I wonder if this is supposed to reflect the style changes of the UI itself.
I just signed up. I'll have to overcome a negative first impression caused by the label of the submit button - "TOOT!". Actually, the effect is even worse in French, which was my default: "POUET!", a choice with clearly grotesque undertones. Not a clever pick if the project aims to become mainstream. (But Mastodon is not an easy name either.)
Ten years ago, I loved XML mainly because of what I could do with XSLT, and I wrote many websites where the data were XML (static files) and the XSLT scripts acted as the views to output HTML. All that was server-side (ASP or PHP). The equivalent for me today is JSON for then data and the Lodash library to transform them. The environment has switched to JavaScript (Node.js + browser), which was a tremendous improvement. For me, Lodash is the new XSLT - all about data transformation - although they're conceptually unrelated.
Strangely enough, the two gadgets I can think of are from the same year 1979:
- A Sharp MZ-80K computer (my first computer). Granted, I don't use it every day but as long as the original Basic SP-5025 cassette can be read, I know I can write some funny programs full of INPUT A$ and GOTO and GOSUB.
- An Olympia Express Maximatic espresso machine (serial no. from 1979) I bought two years ago and had repaired. The spare parts are easy to find because the current version of that machine is almost the same as the original design from the mid-70s. I use it everyday.
I've never understood why web design doesn't take place in a text editor and browser (with other tools, like Photoshop or Illustrator, for secondary tasks).
The output of web design is, ultimately, HTML and CSS, so what reason could a professional have to work with tools that can only yield an approximation of what they are paid to do? In my view, a designer without full mastery of at least HTML and CSS doesn't really deserve his title.
Going a little farther: with some knowledge of JavaScript, JSON and how to transform it (map, reduce, filter, sort), a designer can ask for some sample data and come up with a functioning prototype that offers truly important insights into the problems his design is supposed to solve. Client-side frameworks like Svelte.js are making all this very easy.
Nothing is more maddening, and a waste of time and money, than a Photoshop mockup using rudimentary, and generally too self-complacent, content.
> The output of web design is, ultimately, HTML and CSS
The output of web design is ultimately a rendered, interactive webpage. We approve or reject websites by viewing them in a browser, not by looking at their code.
> a designer without full mastery of at least HTML and CSS doesn't really deserve his title.
Add to this the fact that the vast majority of web developers are very far from having a "mastery" of HTML and CSS. It's a huge API full of hacks and pitfalls.
Teach rudimentary HTML and CSS to a designer and they'll begin to think in that rudimentary interface, forgetting a competent developer with their far greater arsenal of tricks and tools can actually implement any UI they could imagine.
Your argument could apply to a field where the path from idea to end product is more straightforward. For instance, a comic book writer is expected to master the full pipeline from idea to colored page. A Disney concept artist on the other hand, is absolutely not required to know anything about 3d modeling. Web design mostly falls into that later category, we don't want our designers' creativity burdened by our medium's tedium.
You're right, everyone should have the same job as us! /s
Design is a different skill set than writing code. For some highly visual/spacial people, design is easy and intuitive, and managing lines of text is very unwieldy. Be like, 1% empathetic dude.
Anyway, if designers wrote the code you'd be out of a job. Design should be a continual conversation between someone with the vision and someone with the skills to implement it.
My comment didn't exactly imply that designers and programmers are the same, simply that web designers should be able to use the tools (and fully understand the constraints) of what constitutes the final output of their job, that is HTML and CSS. Writing CSS and server-side code are obviously two very different things. A designer could be a guy who types CSS in a text editor, among other things.
Might be a tough pill for some, but ultimately I agree it's the way the industry needs to end up. Consider the architect; he doesn't get to blue-sky wild ass concepts for a building. He has to draw within boundaries of local codes and feasibility, often using technical tools such as CAD.
"Designers should be engineers so they know what they're actually doing" is a pretty common feeling among engineers who have to deal with designers--not just in computer fields, but also in hardware, construction, even landscaping sometimes.
The reality is that they are very different disciplines, and the ability to integrate those competencies can be a competitive advantage for a company.
"The modern self is the product of this subjective turn, when the real self becomes internal (the mind in the English language; the soul in French, which has no word equivalent to mind), not some external thing embodied in robes of office or tools of a trade."
The parenthesis could have been avoided entirely because it is absurdly false. Luckily, that's irrelevant to the argument.
But no: the French language doesn't have to fallback to the soul by lack of a word for "mind". There is one.
"[Theses releases] might not run at all and in the worst case might restart or damage your system." Not very appealing but I decided to go ahead. But then, when I launched the installer, Windows (10) also warned me about an unrecognized application, so I hesitate. Would anyone here consider this software too risky to install?
This is just a disclaimer to be extra cautious. I'm mostly worried about WebGL causing a GPU panic on some weird old hardware. The simulation itself doesn't even touch the filesystem. And you get the unrecognised application message because I didn't bother to sign these live builds yet. Of course you shouldn't listen to me when it comes to whether you should run my software :)
I really regret Paris's urbanistic conservatism and lack of possibilities for experimentation. Some recently developed areas are promising. I really enjoy walking in the "ZAC Rive gauche", the neighborhood around the Bibliothèque de France which is still in the process of being built. Take a walk starting at the Gare d'Austerlitz and going eastward following the tracks, youl'll see an unusual face of modern Paris. Unlike e.g. Front de Seine in the 15th arrondissement, I have the feeling that this area may succeed and age well. (Incidentally, this is where that startup thingy, Station F, is located, and new streets are named after Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace!)
ZAC rive gauche, Batignolles, Chapelle International, Bercy-Charenton, Rosa Parks... That's quite a lot of room for experimentation and new neighborhoods.
https://stackedit.io/ is my markdown editor of choice. You can sync your documents with Google Drive, Dropbox, publish to GitHub. Really not easy to beat, in my opinion. However, there's no live collaboration feature currently in Stackedit so I'm interested to see what Classeur has to offer in this respect. (Now I see that Stackedit and Classeur are related projects, apparently both authored by https://github.com/benweet).
I wonder what this means:
"Changed: Introducing a non-native implementation of web form controls, which delivers a new modern design and some improvements to page load performance. Watch for layout bugs in web pages that make assumptions about the dimensions or styling of form controls."
A very visible change is the default styling of the form elements (input, button): more rounded, with a strong double blue outline when focused. I wonder if this is supposed to reflect the style changes of the UI itself.