Reading List #86

Hi

I finally found new glasses after having had a pair that were not fitting for a few months now, which really started to annoy me. Really looking forward to pick them up later today!

Other than that, we were busy working on our new website for picu, which was in the works for a while now and will finally go live this week. Still lots to improve, but I look forward to finally get the new design out the door and show more of our features.


Design & Development

📟 Open Font: Server Mono

A nice monospace font that comes with an open font license.

Server Mono

✊ Developers stand up against JavaScript “Merchants of Complexity”

It certainly feels like the tide is changing recently, with people realizing progressive enhancement is a good idea and complex JS frameworks don’t have to be the norm.

TheNewStack – Developers Rail Against JavaScript ‘Merchants of Complexity’

🏃‍♂️ On the Frontend Treadmill

Another great post on the same topic. Marco Rogers explains why he thinks the hype around frontend frameworks is detrimental to the way most people learn to work on the web. Or, as he puts it: “… our current framework layer is working against the grain instead of embracing the platform.” – Amen.

polotek – The Frontend Treadmill


WordPress

👌 Clickable Card Grids in WordPress

Just this week we were looking for a way to make cards in a grid layout clickable, instead of only the title elements inside those cards. Luckily, Nick Diego and Damon Cook both had the same problem and wrote about their solutions. Damon uses a block style to add classes and then enhance the clickable area with CSS, and Nick even goes as far as registering a custom control for the grid block, which then lets you manually set a link. Both sound interesting and I need to dig into it to see which one of them could fit our needs.

developer.wordpress.org – Building a card layout with a “hover reveal” effect

Nick Diego – Enabling linked Group blocks in WordPress

👷🏻‍♀️ People wanted

Converting all the more than 500 million (!) tumblr blogs over to WordPress definitely does not sound like an easy feat. Automattic intends to do just that and is looking for talented people to make it happen.

ma.tt – People Wanted

🕸️ Why all WP blogs should support WebMentions

Matthew Brown thinks every blog should install WebMention. Definitely not a bad idea and I’m thinking about hooking this site up to the Fediverse some time soon, when I find some time to play around with it.

Matthew Brown – I think all WordPress blogs should install WebMention


Other

🤖 Why I Don’t Block AI Scrapers

Jens Oliver Meiert on why he’s not blocking AI scrapers from all his sites anymore and instead hopes for a proper legal solution to prevent content theft going forward.

I tend to agree with him on this one and all those ways to “block” AI scrapers never really felt like an effective solution to the problem at hand.

That’s why I don’t block AI scrapers—and let thieves do thief things until our justice system(s) do justice system things.

Jens Oliver Meiert – Why I Don’t Block AI Scrapers

Jens Oliver Meiert – Why I Don’t Block AI Scrapers

🔎 Debunking some misconceptions about AI-powered search

Carolyn Shelby from Yoast dives into misconceptions she sees about AI-powered search and why she thinks seeing all this only as “theft” is wrong and that we should rather embrace the opportunities this new technology brings. While there are things to disagree with in this post, she’s probably right that it’s generally futile to fight AI and that it’s here to stay, in one form or another.

Yoast – No, AI-powered search is not built on theft: debunking misconceptions

☄️ No one’s ready for this

This Verge article about the dangers of generative AI, that starts with the title “No one’s ready for this” and ends with the paragraph “We are fucked” certainly grabbed my attention. I grew up in a time where Photoshop and photo manipulation was already easy and accessible, and every photo could be fake. But now with generative AI being implemented in many mobile phones very soon, this could be flipped on it’s head and what was once “this could be fake” could soon become “this could be real“.

The Verge – No one’s ready for this

👌 Jeremy Keith on AI and Trust

And if we’re already at the topic of AI, here’s what Jeremy Keith has to say about trust. I think AI is an amazingly interesting technology, but he’s right that most companies rush too much, trying to put it into their products not because it makes those products any better, but because shareholders demand it (I guess) and that’s generally a bad idea. Trust is a precious thing.

Jeremy Keith – Trust


Have a great week ✌️

Made with ❤️ in Switzerland