![\"front](\"https://wp-devil.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screen-Shot-2023-12-11-at-03.45.47-fullpage.png\")
It’s just as I’ve feared (and probably many others): After the sell-out of CSS Tricks in 2022, its new masters let it tatter on for about a year, and then stopped publishing any new content around mid April of 2023.
\nSo now its only reason for existence is content, content, content = SEO paradise, and the almanac (which is also “content content content”).
\nThat 15 years project is getting now an even worse treatment than other long-time runners got, ie. letting it slowly fade-away into triviality.
\nProbably, in another few months, its gonna be folded into another “exciting adventure” of its current masters, and then disappear from the web entirely.
Although it could be revived, like other sites were in the past, for example:
\nSelfHTML – originally an introduction and daily helper in terms of how to use HTML + CSS, and to some extends, also Javascript. Eventually it was turned into a (somewhat medicro) wiki and the supporting people founded an association (Verein), but it is still active and around.
\nRecently, they even asked themselves whether SelfHTML is still valid to be around, but come to the conclusion, that yes, esp. for native German speakers, and beginners, its still a valid and solid introduction and reference.
A List Apart – from the originally ground-breaking tutorials and articles, its turned mostly into a teaser-orgy for other peoples grand books on topic xyz, and the rest is filled with essays about work, but sometimes, there still is useful content to be found.
\nSmashing Magazine – has grown tremendiously and despite having a phase of stand-still a few years ago, seems to have climbed out of that valley. Today I went to their front page, and the “top links” / introduction section about helpers and tools was indeed a tremendous help. A lot of the articles posted there are not my cup of tea, but they have definitely broadened their spectrum, and despite that mentioned “valley of stand-still”, seemingly have managed to avoid turning into yet another run o’ the mill, “jack of all trades” magazine.
\nTympanus Codrops – does still the same, ie. posts of CSS / JS / Web design experiments, but mixes and breaks up things with a bit more lively, varied content.
\n", "content_text": "It’s just as I’ve feared (and probably many others): After the sell-out of CSS Tricks in 2022, its new masters let it tatter on for about a year, and then stopped publishing any new content around mid April of 2023.\nCurrent front page of css-tricks.com as of December 11th, 2023: No new content was added past April 2023\nSo now its only reason for existence is content, content, content = SEO paradise, and the almanac (which is also “content content content”).\nThat 15 years project is getting now an even worse treatment than other long-time runners got, ie. letting it slowly fade-away into triviality.\nProbably, in another few months, its gonna be folded into another “exciting adventure” of its current masters, and then disappear from the web entirely.\nAlthough it could be revived, like other sites were in the past, for example:\nSelfHTML – originally an introduction and daily helper in terms of how to use HTML + CSS, and to some extends, also Javascript. Eventually it was turned into a (somewhat medicro) wiki and the supporting people founded an association (Verein), but it is still active and around.\nRecently, they even asked themselves whether SelfHTML is still valid to be around, but come to the conclusion, that yes, esp. for native German speakers, and beginners, its still a valid and solid introduction and reference.\nA List Apart – from the originally ground-breaking tutorials and articles, its turned mostly into a teaser-orgy for other peoples grand books on topic xyz, and the rest is filled with essays about work, but sometimes, there still is useful content to be found.\nSmashing Magazine – has grown tremendiously and despite having a phase of stand-still a few years ago, seems to have climbed out of that valley. Today I went to their front page, and the “top links” / introduction section about helpers and tools was indeed a tremendous help. A lot of the articles posted there are not my cup of tea, but they have definitely broadened their spectrum, and despite that mentioned “valley of stand-still”, seemingly have managed to avoid turning into yet another run o’ the mill, “jack of all trades” magazine.\nTympanus Codrops – does still the same, ie. posts of CSS / JS / Web design experiments, but mixes and breaks up things with a bit more lively, varied content.", "date_published": "2023-12-11T16:03:49+01:00", "date_modified": "2023-12-11T16:03:49+01:00", "author": { "name": "fwolf", "url": "https://wp-devil.com/author/fwolf/", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c2a31599f60eec1232806bfc26066ed2?s=512&d=mm&r=g" }, "image": "https://wp-devil.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/by-tzimt0ms.jpg", "tags": [ "almanac", "blog", "css", "magazine", "Life and let die", "Webdesign", "Work" ] }, { "id": "https://wp-devil.com/web-performance-optimization-in-a-nutshell/", "url": "https://wp-devil.com/web-performance-optimization-in-a-nutshell/", "title": "Web Performance Optimization in a nutshell", "content_html": "After doing this for over 20+ years, and having seen a lot of fancy stuff come and go, my game in optimizing load times and rendering speed hasnt change that much.
\nIf I was asked for the main contenders for improving loading times, in 2022, it still boils down primarly to the following ones:
\nOther common factors nowadays:
\nThis is just a quick notice – for now. I’m going to add detailed articles to several topics when I get some time to spare, and link to them from here, as soon as they are up \ud83d\ude42
\n", "content_text": "After doing this for over 20+ years, and having seen a lot of fancy stuff come and go, my game in optimizing load times and rendering speed hasnt change that much.\nIf I was asked for the main contenders for improving loading times, in 2022, it still boils down primarly to the following ones:\n\nImages – too big in both dimension and file size, but also using the wrong file format (eg. PNG instead of JPEG for photos)\nRender-blocking scripts / CSS / embeds\n(No) Caching policy – whether that just means caching rules or actual pre-caching, eg. static HTML\nRequests – numbers of overall resource requests of the page\n\nOther common factors nowadays:\n\nCDN – not using one, or not properly using it (also related with bad or missing caching policy)\nMassive HTML DOM structures – take much longer to parse and render; known also under the moniker “divitis” or just “HTML tag orgy”\nMedia Queries – improper use of such, eg. missing, badly set breakpoints or missing optimization of the whole site towards these breakpoints\nLazy-loading / picture / srcset – not using those techniques, but also not knowinng how to properly apply them; eg. lazy-loading can be used for ALL sources, not just images\nIcon fonts / Data URL – if you use an icon or small image everywhere across your site, why not instead rely on either icon fonts, which already supply these, and are loaded only once, or data URLs, which help in similar ways, if the image in question is on the smaller side (file size)?\n\nThis is just a quick notice – for now. I’m going to add detailed articles to several topics when I get some time to spare, and link to them from here, as soon as they are up \ud83d\ude42", "date_published": "2022-06-09T21:58:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2022-06-09T21:58:00+02:00", "author": { "name": "fwolf", "url": "https://wp-devil.com/author/fwolf/", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c2a31599f60eec1232806bfc26066ed2?s=512&d=mm&r=g" }, "image": "https://wp-devil.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/gt3rjumq2zm.jpg", "tags": [ "loading speed", "loading times", "web performance", "development", "Webdesign", "Work" ] } ] }