The Resiliency in the Web’s Layers - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Jim mashes up Ilya Grigorik’s book High Performance Browser Networking with my talk on the layers of the web and Nassim Taleb’s idea of antifragility.
Link tags: internet
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Stop supporting Internet Explorer!
The headline is clickbaity, but the advice is solid. Use progressive enhancement and don’t worry about polyfilling.
When I say ‘Stop supporting IE’ it means to me that I won’t go the extra mile to get unsupported features working in Internet Explorer, but still make sure Internet Explorer users get the basics, and can use the site.
A Long Bet on Link Rot is Resolved, but Questions About the Durability of the Web Still Remain - Long Now
The Long Now foundation has a write-up on my recently-lost long bet:
On February 22, 02011, Jeremy Keith made a prediction that he hoped would be proven wrong.
A Long Bet Pays Off - Internet Archive Blogs
The bet was been won (not by me, thankfully) and Jason has some thoughts.
Google Search no longer supports Internet Explorer 11 - 9to5Google
Keep this link handy to share with your boss or client. It is almost certainly not worth your while optimising for Internet Explorer.
Note: Google aren’t turning IE users away. Instead they’ll get a reduced scriptless experience. That’s the way to do it. Remember: module and nomodule are your friends for cutting the mustard.
Importantly, Google has not simply cut off Internet Explorer 11 from using Google Search, leaving people unable to search the web. Instead, Internet Explorer customers are now shown a rudimentary “fallback experience” for Google Search, which can perform basic searches but isn’t as fully featured as Google is on modern browsers.
Wayforward Machine • Visit the future of the internet
This speculative version of the internet archive invites you to see how websites will look in 2046.
He founded the Internet Archive with a utopian vision. That hasn’t changed, but the internet has
A profile of Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Is Safari the new Internet Explorer?
The transcript from the latest episode of the HTTP 203 podcast is well worth perusing.
- Internet Explorer halted development, no innovation. Would you say Safari is the new IE?
- There was loads of stuff missing. Is Safari the new IE?
- My early career was built on knowing the bugs in IE6 and how to solve them. Is Safari the new IE?
- Internet Explorer 6, it had a really slow JavaScript engine, performance was bad in that browser. Is Safari the new IE?
- Internet Explorer had a fairly cavalier attitude towards web standards. Is Safari the new IE?
- Back in the day that we had almost no communication whatsoever. Is Safari the new IE?
- Slow-release cycle. Is Safari the new IE?
HTTP/3 From A To Z: Core Concepts (Part 1) — Smashing Magazine
I spend most of my time in the application layers—HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—so I fascinating to dive below the surface and learn about the upcoming HTTP/3. Sounds like it’s really more of a change to how things have always worked with the TCP protocol, still chugging away since it was created by Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf.
Reflections as the Internet Archive turns 25
Brewster Kahle:
The World Wide Web at its best is a mechanism for people to share what they know, almost always for free, and to find one’s community no matter where you are in the world.
In search of the new
Robin asked a question:
What is a work of science fiction (a book, not a movie, thanks) that could only have been written in the last ten years? AND/OR, what’s a work of science fiction that hinges on experiences and feelings new in the last ten years? AND/OR, what’s a work of science fiction that represents the current leading edge of the genre’s speculative and stylistic development?
The responses make for interesting reading, especially ahead of Wednesday’s event.
The Internet : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
This video is a charming trip down to memory lane to the early days of the public internet:
It wasn’t quite the World Wide Web yet, but everybody started hearing about this thing called “the Internet” in 1993. It was being called the Information Superhighway then.
THE INTERNET — Opte
Visualising the growth of the internet.
The Internet Archive on the future of the web - Protocol — The people, power and politics of tech
A profile of Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive:
Tech’s walled gardens might make it harder to get a perfect picture, but the small team of librarians, digital archivists and software engineers at the Internet Archive plan to keep bringing the world the Wayback Machine, the Open Library, the Software Archive, etc., until the end of time. Literally.
Dropping Support For IE11 Is Progressive Enhancement · The Ethically-Trained Programmer
Any time or effort spent getting your JavaScript working in IE11 is wasted time that could be better spent making a better experience for users without JavaScript.
I agree with this approach.
With a few minor omissions and links, you can create a site that works great in modern browsers with ES6+ and acceptably in browsers without JavaScript. This approach is more sustainable for teams without the resources for extensive QA, and more beneficial to users of nonstandard browsers. Trying to recreate functionality that already works in modern browsers in IE11 is thankless work that is doomed to neglect.
History of the Web - YouTube
I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane with Chris:
From the Web’s inception, an ancient to contemporary history of the Web.
mnot’s blog: RFC8890: The Internet is for End Users
RFC 8890 maybe the closest thing we’ve got to a Hippocratic oath right now.
A community that agrees to principles that are informed by shared values can use them to navigate hard decisions.
Many discussions influenced this document, both inside and outside of the IETF and IAB. In particular, Edward Snowden’s comments regarding the priority of end users at IETF 93 and the HTML5 Priority of Constituencies were both influential.
Chapter 1: Birth | CSS-Tricks
This is wonderful! A whole series on the history of the web from Jay Hoffman, the creator of the similarly-themed newsletter and timeline.
This first chapter is right up my alley, looking at the origins of hypertext, the internet, and the World Wide Web.
The Resiliency of the Internet | Jim Nielsen’s Weblog
An ode to the network architecture of the internet:
I believe the DNA of resiliency built into the network manifests itself in the building blocks of what’s transmitted over the network. The next time somebody calls HTML or CSS dumb, think about that line again:
That simplicity, almost an intentional brainlessness…is a key to its adaptability.
It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
Yes! I wish more web developers would take cues from the very medium they’re building atop of.
The History of the URL
This is a wonderful deep dive into all the parts of a URL:
scheme:[//[user:password@]host[:port]][/]path[?query][#fragment]
There’s a lot of great DNS stuff about the host part:
Root DNS servers operate in safes, inside locked cages. A clock sits on the safe to ensure the camera feed hasn’t been looped. Particularily given how slow DNSSEC implementation has been, an attack on one of those servers could allow an attacker to redirect all of the Internet traffic for a portion of Internet users. This, of course, makes for the most fantastic heist movie to have never been made.