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21 Bad Front-End Habits to Drop in 2021

Sacha Greif on January 30, 2021

I get it. 2020 wasn’t the best year. We stopped exercising, started spending way too much time on Twitter, ate a lot of junk, and generally let our...
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Steve Fenton 💙

It's great to challenge established norms, so thanks for this article. Item 21 made me chuckle.

There's a bit of an urban myth mixed up in items 6-8, which is that laws such as the EU General Data Protection Act (GDPR), or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are about "cookies". They most definitely aren't. The laws cover the collection and processing of data, no matter what technology you are using (even pen and paper). Collecting analytics server-side is covered by these laws just as much as collecting is client-side - and the notification about this processing, and the collection of either consent or objections to legitimate interest are legal requirements.

However, as you say - it's not necessary to go-full-modal on people or be invasive with notices and options. In many cases, the notices and consent forms seem to be explicitly designed to prevent a user from making an informed decision. This is the polar opposite to the intention of the privacy laws.

To summarise!

  • GDPR/CCPA are not "cookie laws", they are "privacy laws"
  • The laws apply to data collection and processing, not a specific technology
  • It is a legal requirement to explain to data subjects how their information will be used and for them to be able to reject "other processing purposes" (either by objecting to legitimate interest, or refusing their consent - depends on the type of processing)

Hopefully that wasn't to dry... but although privacy isn't the most exciting area in tech, it's important that we get it right as we are seeing what happens when tech doesn't pay attention to these laws.

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Sacha Greif

Thank you for your very informed response! You're absolutely right, for some reason in my mind server-side analytics were in a different category but from the law's perspective it shouldn't really make a difference how data is collected.

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Fernando Comet

Also stop Hijacking right button!

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Hawkeye Tenderwolf

I recently found "StopTheMadness" extension on MacOS to help with this (and other terrible things like scroll hijacking):

underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/

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Lawrence Dol

Instead, hijack the wrong button!

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Fred

These are all great points! I especially like 8 & 14 :)

About 4 & 5: isn't Tailwind CSS just another Bootstrap? Useful for people who don't want or don't know how to write CSS, and want to build an interface quickly? If so, it probably means devs like me will never use it, but hey... if it helps you build that cool startup app while staying sane, I say go for it.
I'm often wrong about trends but I don't believe the hype on this one; and if it does become the de facto way of building UI, then... damn!

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Martin B

I don't believe that comparison is fair. The commercial service called Tailwind UI would be a closer match. Utility classes is a different way of working with CSS, and it very much requires CSS knowledge to use it in any meaningful way.

Several other frameworks are built on the same utility principles, but they are lacking some efforts to gain the success Tailwind CSS has achieved. I think that comes down to a mix of things. Marketing, good documentation, choosing the "right technology" to build the framework, research and careful decision making, and a lot of hard work.

That exact framework is promoting a utility-first approach, but I think a lot of people read it as utility-only. Mixing is ok. If someone choose to use that framework, they should think critically about the default configuration, and take steps to change what is useful for their project

Working with a utility classes framework isn't for everyone, and that is very ok :)

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Fred

You're right. I haven't used it yet, and I'm warming up to the idea of going "utility-first" so I should do my homework before complaining about it!

Like I said, if it makes website development easier (to get into, to maintain projects, etc.), it's a win in my book.

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Jamie Sauve

Thanks for the article! I get stuck in how my company does things sometimes and it was really cool to see some other perspectives on things - number 18 especially! I've added a bunch of the links in here to my reading list :)

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Hélio oliveira • Edited

Since TypeScript even using MIT license, it is not a standard and probably should be avoided besides his advantages. All the success of javascript as well the web, is based on follow great-slow standard.

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RomanistHere

I was so annoyed by number 6 back there that I actually created an extension to fix it. PopUpOFF (romanisthere.github.io/PopUpOFF-We...) - it's free and open-source, check it out if you're annoyed like me, though I'm not now :)

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Yohan González

Excelente artículo

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Gavin Rehkemper

Blogging - don't forget about Hugo - the FASTEST of them all! (gohugo.io)

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Serge Krul

Wow Sacha you've sent me down a rabbit hole of 5 hours! So many wonderful links and references. Well written, researched and done! Very thoughtful tips! Thanks you

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Ronaldo Hoch • Edited

13 - Ignoring Sound

Blow my head!