Most of you will be familiar with JavaScript’s fat arrow functions, also known as “chonky darts”. But if not, here’s a quick example:

this.num = '665'
this.add = num => num + 1
this.num = this.add(this.num)
// Result: '6651' because I cast this.num as a f**king string

Note the terser syntax, with the omission of the function and return keywords (the function returns implicitly). Also note that the arrow function does not rebind context to create its own this. This enables it to manipulate the existing context directly. Handy!

In ES2019, fat arrow functions are not the only kinds of arrow functions available to you. Let’s take a look at some of the others and what they have to offer. …

Those familiar with the web platform will be well-versed in its two complementary technologies: HTML for documents and their structure, and JavaScript for interaction and styling.

For as long as anyone can remember, styling documents — affecting their appearance — has been facilitated via the JavaScriptstyle property, which is exposed for any supporting DOM node.

node.style.color = 'red';

Before the advent of this styling API, HTML authors had to write style attributes into the DOM manually, impeding the editorial process.

Combined with JavaScript’s node selection engine, we are able to style multiple elements simultaneously. …

One thing that keeps coming back to me, in research, testing, and everyday conversation with colleagues and friends, is just how important headings are. For screen reader users, headings describe the relationships between sections and subsections and — where used correctly — provide both an outline and a means of navigation. Headings are infrastructure.

Applying the correct heading level is a question of context. For example, two successive headings of the same level describe two sibling sections in the document outline. …

Before Hitler set about exterminating Jewish people, he practiced on the disabled. The Aktion T4 programme was particularly fond of administering “involuntary euthanasia” to children. Parents were tricked into relinquishing their little ones with the promise that they would be offered special care. This special care consisted of a lethal injection, and would be recorded as a tragic case of pneumonia.

Victims included those with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and various localized deformities. A district judge, Lothar Kreyssig, wrote to protest against the programme. …

Absolutely FUCK ALL.

You see, all along I could use my VAULTING IMAGINATION and EYE-WATERING INTELLECTUAL PROWESS to appreciate that doing things with one hand is more difficult than with both.

It’s, like, literally one less. Of two things evolved to help me do stuff, together, as a pair.

If you’re the sort of person who needs to actually sustain a physical injury to begin appreciating that some folks aren’t as physically equipped at using tools and products as they might be, you’re a self-centered fuck. And an ignoramus.

However, if that’s the only thing that will induce an epiphany, BE MY FUCKING GUEST: snap your hand, your face, or your dick. …

Design is a wonderful thing. It’s an integral part of how we work to shape the world around us.

But it is not a discrete profession or occupation.

We are not divided into designers and people who are not designers.

If someone says you don’t have the right background, you haven’t spoken to or listened to the right people, or you don’t have the appropriate skills or experience to be a designer? They are wrong.

If someone says particular skills — creative, discursive, technical — preclude you from being a designer and put you in a category outside of design? …

I’m not the most talented coder in the world. No, it’s true. So I try to write as little code as possible. The less I write, the less there is to break, justify, or maintain.

I’m also lazy, so it’s all gravy. (ed: maybe run with a food analogy?)

But it turns out the only surefire way to make performant Web Stuff is also to just write less. Minify? Okay. Compress? Well, yeah. Cache? Sounds technical. Flat out refuse to code something or include someone else’s code in the first place? Now you’re talking. What goes in one end has to come out the other in some form, whether it’s broken down and liquified in the gastric juices of your task runner or not. …

Star Trek: The Next Generation was on TV in the UK when I was a little younger than Wesley Crusher, but I never watched it properly. I’ve started watching it on Netflix and I’m about twenty episodes into the first season. These are some notes I’ve made.

The set is very sterile, which is off-putting. Very OCD friendly, though.

I like how the first baddies introduced (the Ferenghi) are described as “capitalists” and therefore evil. They act a bit like the crappier orcs out of LOTR.

It’s nice how everyone gets on so well with Worf. I expected a little bit more anti-Klingon racial tension, though. Be interesting if it came from Geordie. I like to imagine Worf’s sash is from winning a beauty pageant. …