Add Less An Article by Cassidy Williams css-tricks.com A few people have asked me what I did to make this [website] so fast. The answer is: nothing. I just didn't add anything to make it slow. I kept it simple. The pages are pre-rendered. The CSS is inlined. I didn't add unnecessary javascript. The work was done before you got there. Your websites start fast until you add too much to make them slow. Do you need any framework at all? Could you do what you want natively in the browser? Would doing it without a framework at all make your site lighter, or actually heavier in the long run as you create or optimize what others have already done? performanceminimalism
Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction An Essay by Bret Victor worrydream.com The most powerful way to gain insight into a system is by moving between levels of abstraction. Many designers do this instinctively. But it's easy to get stuck on the ground, experiencing concrete systems with no higher-level view. It's also easy to get stuck in the clouds, working entirely with abstract equations or aggregate statistics. This interactive essay presents the ladder of abstraction, a technique for thinking explicitly about these levels, so a designer can move among them consciously and confidently. From a roving viewpoint abstractionunderstandinginteraction