Cameron Dutro on ruby.social

How we think about browsers | The GitHub Blog

JavaScript doesn’t get executed on very old browsers when native syntax for new language features is encountered. However, thanks to GitHub being built following the principle of progressive enhancement, users of older browsers still get to interact with basic features of GitHub, while users with more capable browsers get a faster experience.

That’s the way to do it!

Concepts like progressive enhancement allow us to deliver the best experience possible to the majority of customers, while delivering a useful experience to those using older browsers.

Read on for the nitty-gritty details…

Enable/unmute WebAudio on iOS, even while mute switch is on

Remember when I wrote about Web Audio weirdness on iOS? Well, this is a nice little library that wraps up the same hacky solution that I ended up using.

It’s always gratifying when something you do—especially something that feels so hacky—turns out to be independently invented elsewhere.

“Never-Slow Mode” (a.k.a. “Slightly-Fast Mode”) Explained

I would very much like this to become a reality.

Never-Slow Mode (“NSM”) is a mode that sites can opt-into via HTTP header. For these sites, the browser imposes per-interaction resource limits, giving users a better user experience, potentially at the cost of extra developer work. We believe users are happier and more engaged on fast sites, and NSM attempts to make it easier for sites to guarantee speed to users. In addition to user experience benefits, sites might want to opt in because browsers could providing UI to users to indicate they are in “fast mode” (a TLS lock icon but for speed).

I Used The Web For A Day With JavaScript Turned Off — Smashing Magazine

Following on from Charlie’s experiment last year, Chris Ashton has been assessing which sites rely on JavaScript, and which sites use it in a more defensive, resilient way. Some interesting results in here.

A good core experience is indicative of a well-structured web page, which, in turn, is usually a good sign for SEO and for accessibility. It’s usually a well designed web page, as the designer and developer have spent time and effort thinking about what’s truly core to the experience. Progressive enhancement means more robust experiences, with fewer bugs in production and fewer individual browser quirks, because we’re letting the platform do the job rather than trying to write it all from scratch.

edent/SuperTinyIcons: Under 1KB each! Super Tiny Icons are miniscule SVG versions of your favourite website and app logos

These are lovely little SVGs of website logos that are yours for the taking. And if you want to contribute an icon to the collection, go for it …as long as it’s less than 1024 bytes (most of these are waaay less).