#progressive-enhancement

#progressive-enhancement

Anytime an exciting new web technology starts to land in browsers, developers want to know "when in the world am I going to be able to use this?" Currently, the finalized syntax for Grid Lanes is available in Safari Technology Preview. Edge, Chrome and Firefox have all made significant progress on their implementations, so it's going to arrive sooner than you think. Plus, you can start using it as soon as you want to with progressive enhancement.

As CSS patterns go these days this one is delightfully low-tech, but in my work I've seen it have an outsized impact in ensuring usable experiences for increasingly-heavy websites when network or device conditions aren't ideal. This notion of delivering "optimistically" while planning for failure is something I've written about before, but the set-it-and-forget-it nature of this latest stab at it makes it my favorite yet.

Studying past best practices and legacy systems is crucial for understanding the evolution of technology and making informed decisions today. By examining the problems old practices were designed to solve, we gain a deeper appreciation for current best practices and avoid repeating past mistakes. As the philosopher George Santayana once said: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This historical perspective also reveals enduring principles like progressive enhancement, which remains vital for creating accessible and resilient systems on the web.