60 replies

1. Manuel Matuzović 3 min later

   @zachleat hard to pick one but “Understanding Progressive Enhancement” by @Aaron is definitely in my top 3.

   https://alistapart.com/article/understandingprogressiveenhancement/

   1. Aaron Gustafson 4 days later

      @matuzo @zachleat 🥰 Thanks Manuel!

2. Paul Houle 3 min later

   @zachleat not a quite a blog but this helped start my career https://philip.greenspun.com/panda/

3. Fynn Ellie Becker 7 min later

   @zachleat Learning about BEM which is the basis of every CSS architecture I’ve built for the past 8 years.

   https://csswizardry.com/2013/01/mindbemding-getting-your-head-round-bem-syntax/

   1. Private reply 5 hr later
4. Seirdy 7 min later

   @zachleat Yes, progressive enhancement is a fucking moral argument by @whalecoiner

   1. Sara Joy 1 hr later

      @Seirdy @zachleat @whalecoiner

      Omg! 🔥🔥🔥

      "These people say "But if you take away the moral argument, why should you care about PE or a11y?".

      THE MORAL ARGUMENT IS THE FUCKING ARGUMENT, YOU FEDORA-WEARING SHITBEAN."

      Yesssss

   2. DennisL 1 hr later

      @Seirdy @zachleat @whalecoiner Great article!

   3. Marc Etienne 2 hr later

      @Seirdy @zachleat @whalecoiner Huzzah! I thought only us old farts who care about users with older devices, and who may only be using EDGE because telecoms don't care about farmers cared about PE! I thought I was the last one standing!

      I shall keep pressing for PE, and under the guise of Mobile First also for keeping the low bandwidth users, the users with bad eyesight in mind.

   4. Max Böck 21 hr later

      @Seirdy @zachleat @whalecoiner I remember that one! haaaaarrd bookmark

5. Tyler Gaw 7 min later

   @zachleat Gotta be THE post by @beep https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/

   1. Paul Roub 26 min later

      @tylergaw @zachleat @beep Beat me to it -- absolutely this one.

      1. elle mundy 1 hr later

         @paulroub @tylergaw @zachleat @beep the goat

6. Simon Cox 12 min later

   @zachleat

   This one - hands down changed the course of so many things.

   https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/

   Hopefully @beep latest book will have as big an impact! Follow him for more info.

7. Chris Ferdinandi 26 min later

   @zachleat This presentation from @stubbornella https://www.slideshare.net/stubbornella/object-oriented-css

8. Mayank 31 min later

   @zachleat this one was quite impactful, not in changing how i build, but how i look at the tools i use to build. https://thoughtbot.com/blog/tailwind-and-the-femininity-of-css

   1. Ethan Marcotte 3 hr later

      @hi_mayank @samkap @zachleat oh god, yes, 10000% same

9. David G. Smith 41 min later

   @zachleat Not sure if “blog post” describes it, but Dave Shea’s @daveshea CSS Zen Garden https://www.csszengarden.com/ has GOT to be on the list! 😻

   (fixed spelling; added EMPHASIS! ;-)

   1. Sara Joy 1 hr later

      @iDGS @zachleat @daveshea yes yes yes that had a huge influence over young me.

10. Daniel Rotter 41 min later

    @zachleat I'd say currently it is https://dev.to/tigt/making-the-worlds-fastest-website-and-other-mistakes-56na

    1. Paul Everitt 4 hr later

       @danrot @zachleat That series was indeed fascinating.

11. beck 55 min later

    @zachleat pretty much everything on https://every-layout.dev/

12. Key Pickles 1 hr later

    @zachleat Brad Frost's Atomic design article really clicked with me, and made me realise you have to think about front end in its own unique way.

    https://bradfrost.com/blog/post/atomic-web-design/

13. Jay 🆘 1 hr later

    @zachleat I remember this @medium post having a massive effect, for better or worse: https://medium.design/crafting-link-underlines-on-medium-7c03a9274f9

    1. Zach Leatherman 1 hr later

       @jsit yes!! I saw this conference talk from @mwichary too!

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14. Jay 🆘 1 hr later

    @zachleat This guide to building WordPress themes from 2005 threw me into the deep end of PHP and CSS. I learned so much from this series of posts.

    https://urbangiraffe.com/themes/guides/

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16. Garrett Dimon 1 hr later

    @zachleat Dated now, but mind-expanding when it was originally published. https://alistapart.com/article/slidingdoors/

    1. Zach Leatherman 1 hr later

       @garrettdimon whew, yes!

17. Jason Grigsby 1 hr later

    @zachleat The obvious one would be @beep’s https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/ both for its broader influence and for sucking me into the responsive images blackhole with @Wilto.

    But if I were to pick something earlier and less well known, maybe Yahoo’s Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Site: https://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

    And if we include books, a long forgotten gem is Speed Up Your Site by Andrew King which opened my eyes to #webperf.

    1. Zach Leatherman 1 hr later

       @grigs @beep @Wilto Absolutely—Yahoo used to be *the* company for front-end

    2. Mat “Wilto” Marquis 2 hr later

       @grigs see personally i blame you @zachleat @beep

       1. Jason Grigsby 2 hr later

          @Wilto @zachleat @beep That’s funny. My liver blames you

          1. Mat “Wilto” Marquis 2 hr later

             @grigs mine too @zachleat @beep

18. Thomas 1 hr later

    @zachleat The Market for Lemons by @slightlyoff: https://infrequently.org/2023/02/the-market-for-lemons/

19. Florian Geierstanger 1 hr later

    @zachleat See the answers as a reminder that we clearly need a new magazine, following up on A List Apart and CSS Tricks. Smashing Mag is okay, but still we need another one.

20. Rich Holman 1 hr later

    @zachleat the still classic from 2000: https://alistapart.com/article/dao/

    1. Zach Leatherman 1 hr later

       @dogwonder yeah—this one is on my list too—and https://frankchimero.com/blog/2015/the-webs-grain/

       1. Rich Holman 1 hr later

          @zachleat that looks great, saved!

    2. mb21 September 22, 2023

       @dogwonder @zachleat This. It’s a must read.

21. Kristofer Joseph 1 hr later

    @zachleat
    This post from @beep was the reason my “weird” prototype that no one understood got green lit at Adobe to become Adobe Edge Reflow ( just to be murdered by product management )

    https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/

    1. Zach Leatherman 1 hr later

       @kristoferjoseph oh no!

22. David O'Brien 1 hr later

    Was going to say http://www.csszengarden.com/ but that’s not a blog post.

    So I’d have to say https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/ by @beep which I hope counts?

    @zachleat

23. Sara Joy 1 hr later

    @zachleat I'm cheating, it's a list of 3 related posts which helped me get up to speed a couple of years ago (even then they were already dated):

    https://peterxjang.com/blog/modern-javascript-explained-for-dinosaurs.html

    https://peterxjang.com/blog/modern-css-explained-for-dinosaurs.html

    https://peterxjang.com/blog/modern-html-explained-for-dinosaurs.html

24. Ethan Marcotte 1 hr later

    @zachleat https://alistapart.com/article/dao/ for me, no question.

    1. Ethan Marcotte 1 hr later

       @zachleat (hugs to everyone in your mentions who kindly mentioned the ol’ responsive design article 💜 💜 💜)

       1. Zach Leatherman 1 hr later

          @beep it was officially a Big Damn Deal™—changed the trajectory of my career for sure! ❤️

          1. Ethan Marcotte 1 hr later

             @zachleat And I’m damned grateful it helped our paths cross, friend 💜💜

             1. Zach Leatherman 23 hr later

                @beep Same! Watching you moving the needle yet again in an even bigger way with your new book too—I can’t wait for it to come out!

          2. Cory 2 hr later

             @zachleat @beep Definitely everything from A List Apart (books too) — my first proper “dev” job was making an existing custom ecommerce responsive so Ethan’s writing was pretty pivotal. 🫡

          3. Sameera 3 hr later

             @zachleat @beep +10000000

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26. Christian Alder 1 hr later

    @zachleat Don’t mind me, just passing through this blog post buffet and gathering some links to read later; thanks all 💚

27. alcinnz 1 hr later

    @zachleat I think I'll pick, off the top of my head, The CSS Mindset by Max Bock: https://mxb.dev/blog/the-css-mindset/

28. Patrick Johanneson 🚀 🇨🇦 2 hr later

    @zachleat I'm not sure I can narrow it down to a single post/article, but https://alistapart.com and (the previous incarnation of) webmonkey . com were both pretty influential.

29. Jonathan Holst 2 hr later

    @zachleat @brad_frost Design Eye for the Usability Guy: https://web.archive.org/web/20040603114545/https://www.designbyfire.com/000094.html

30. Ben S 2 hr later

    @zachleat The five simple steps series by @markboulton some 15 years ago essentially led to me moving from engineering to design.