For the last few years my work-work has mostly focused on back end software (particularly around APIs). This meant that any front end work I was doing was for myself.

Being an long-in-the-tooth old dog, I tend to learn and trick, and roll it out again and again typically without taking the time to find whether I still need the trick. Case and point, I learnt about the JavaScript performance trick of ~~float to floor a value (and the same float | 0) but really these days it's not "faster" than doing it the legible way.

Given I've had a bit of time away from the backend, here's an unorganised list of things I've found I can use, and thusly remove extra code that I no longer need.

MY EBOOK£5 for Working the Command Line

Gain command-line shortcuts and processing techniques, install new tools and diagnose problems, and fully customize your terminal for a better, more powerful workflow.

The list

  • CSS: text-underline-offset
  • CSS: gap
  • CSS: nested simplified media queries h1 { font-size: 1rem; @media (min-width: 600px) { font-size: 2rem; } }
  • CSS: clamp
  • CSS: content: open-quote localised quotes
  • JS: catch without catching the variable
  • JS: pointer events have improved (though still from experience they're not 100% perfect) but are to replace the double click+touch handlers
  • avif images are fully supported - easily getting 50% file size savings