Hello. I’m a grumpy old web dev. I’m still wasting valuable memory on things like the deprecated img element’s lowsrc attribute (bring it back!), the hacks needed to get a website looking acceptable in both Firefox 2.5 and IE5.5 and IE on Mac, and what “cards” and “decks” meant in WAP terminology.
Having this – possibly pointless – information to hand means I am constantly getting frustrated at supposed “breakthrough” approaches to web development and optimisation which seem to be adding complexity for the sake of it, sometimes apparently ignoring existing tech.
What’s more annoying is when a good approach to something is implemented so badly that it reflects poorly on the original concept. I’ve previously written about how abusing something clever like React results in an awful user experience.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love new tech, new approaches, new thinking, new opinions. I’m just sometimes grumpy about it because these new things don’t suit my personal preferences. Hence this article! Wahey!