Episodes

Latest Episode
Deploying Your Web App…What Could Go Wrong?

Deploying Your Web App…What Could Go Wrong?

Episode 25 · · 53:17

Deploying web apps today is the portal to madness and pain, with many levels of misery awaiting as you descend into the depths of Hades. Or…if you play it right, it’s little more tha...

Your Static Just Zapped Me

Your Static Just Zapped Me

Episode 24 · · 46:56

It's time for some acronym soup: SSG SSR CSR SPA MPA…MEAN? SSI?? PERL??? (Officially not an acronym…) If you're coming down with a headache already, trust us, you're not alone. It's…...

Action Web Components for Full-Stack Magic

Action Web Components for Full-Stack Magic

Episode 23 · · 45:01

What if your backend could drive reactive UI changes on your frontend? Without dependencies? Without relying on any particular framework? What if your HTML could gain full-stack prog...

And Lo, There Was ARPANET (Baby Internet!)

And Lo, There Was ARPANET (Baby Internet!)

Episode 22 · · 39:05

How did the Internet first begin? Why was it developed at the Advanced Research Projects Agency? Where was it initially launched at the end of the 1960s? Is it pronounced r-OO-ter or...

The Browser Wars & an Uneasy Peace

The Browser Wars & an Uneasy Peace

Episode 21 · · 49:50

It’s been a wild, wild ride getting from the anything goes origin story of the mainstream web—anyone still remember “Netscape Navigator” and “Trumpet Winsock”?—to today’s carefully-c...

Pendulum Swings & 2023’s State of JS

Pendulum Swings & 2023’s State of JS

Episode 20 · · 41:35

Whoa, there was one more “State of” survey from 2023 to mine for content! Who knew? Yes, the results are in, and we talk about them…but more broadly, our feelings about the state of ...

How Many Books Could ePub Pub if ePub Could Pub Books

How Many Books Could ePub Pub if ePub Could Pub Books

Episode 19 · · 35:59

What if you could take HTML & CSS, package them up in a file, and publish that file as a singular artifact? That's essentially what ePub is. (ePUB? EPUB?) With Ayush's real-world exp...

From Frameworks to Using the Platform with Elise Shaffer

From Frameworks to Using the Platform with Elise Shaffer

Episode 18 · · 48:29

When you've spent a good portion of your career as a web developer utilizing CSS processors & frameworks, what would lead you to embrace vanilla techniques and modern CSS features? T...

HTML Finally Gets the Respect It Deserves

HTML Finally Gets the Respect It Deserves

Episode 17 · · 44:23

The results of the State of HTML 2023 survey are in! It’s an exciting time for HTML which has seen a lot of growth and expansion of capability in a welcome break with the past (when ...

This State of Affairs

This State of Affairs

Episode 16 · · 01:17:04

Where data lives, how to retrieve data, how to change data, how to track updates to data and provide feedback accordingly to the user…in other words, state. Web application developme...

The Plumbing That Makes the Web Move

The Plumbing That Makes the Web Move

Episode 15 · · 01:06:27

Join us for a meaty conversation all about the various levels of specifications and conventions which make the World-Wide Web go: from TCP/IP to HTTP to WebSockets and beyond. We als...

Interop 2024 and the State of the Industry

Interop 2024 and the State of the Industry

Episode 14 · · 01:03:17

Oh yes, we’re back! In this first Just a Spec episode of the year, the lads speculate on the grand conspiracy behind the results publication delay of State of HTML 2023 (not really!)...

Thankful for the Modern Web (and a CSS Course!)

Thankful for the Modern Web (and a CSS Course!)

Episode 13 · · 52:00

Thanksgiving’s coming up here in the U.S. and we thought it’d be fun to talk about of our favorite aspects of the modern web (and how it compares to the “dark days” of old). In addit...

Naming Things

Naming Things

Episode 12 · · 52:15

Ah yes, that notorious hard problem in computer science. Time to name some things as we talk abut the philosophy undergirding software development, why “naming things” is hard but al...

Fast Frontend Testing, Storage, Observers, Fetch, & More

Fast Frontend Testing, Storage, Observers, Fetch, & More

Episode 11 · · 56:53

A whole grab bag of topics today! We talk about some of the well-known storage APIs like localStorage and sessionStorage, as well as the newer IndexedDB API which pairs well with Ser...

A State of CSS

A State of CSS

Episode 10 · · 01:04:55

The results of the 2023 State of CSS survey are in, and we're here to break it all down and uncover the most interesting nuggets and opportunities as we look ahead to the future of C...

Turbo, Astro, Server Components, and HTML Over the Wire

Turbo, Astro, Server Components, and HTML Over the Wire

Episode 9 · · 49:51

The lads are back with an action-packed episode full of juicy details about “buildless” architecture & “Turbo” architecture, server components, tools & techniques which encourage ser...

The Accessibility Tree

The Accessibility Tree

Episode 8 · · 56:33

Gather ’round the accessibility tree, dear listeners, and hear a grand tale about roles and attributes, screen readers and DOM inspectors, and how to be a good A11Y. We also touch on...

Email, Gotta Love It

Email, Gotta Love It

Episode 7 · · 50:41

We're here to deep dive into the technical underpinnings of everyone's FAVORITE internet technology: email. ;-P Amaze your nerd friends with all the exciting trivia you will learn i...

TIL About gTLDs, FTW!

TIL About gTLDs, FTW!

Episode 6 · · 29:42

It’s hard to imagine in this current world of any dot-something you could possibly imagine when looking to register a domain name, but there was once a past era of the internet when ...

Our Top Obscure (but Awesome) HTML Tags

Our Top Obscure (but Awesome) HTML Tags

Episode 5 · · 47:09

Web developers and content authors have a rich array of tags to chose from as they build experiences using HTML. Learn about some of our favorites young and old which may pique your ...

ActivityPub, the Fediverse, and You

ActivityPub, the Fediverse, and You

Episode 4 · · 44:25

Witness the rise of the Fediverse! In this episode we talk about early attempts at building decentralized social networking protocols for the web, the modern effort to craft a true W...

I Just Wanna Write CSS

I Just Wanna Write CSS

Episode 3 · · 48:52

A whirlwind tour through the history of CSS, where it's landed today, and the myriad of goodies we can expect in the very near future. And do we still need pre/post-processors in thi...

In The Shadow, In The Light: DSD is Here

In The Shadow, In The Light: DSD is Here

Episode 2 · · 50:51

Not just a great Enigma song, shadow and light is the theme today as we dive deep into an exciting new frontend web specification: Declarative Shadow DOM (DSD). Having just landed in...

The Past, Present, and Future of the Form Tag

The Past, Present, and Future of the Form Tag

Episode 1 · · 48:49

In our kickoff episode of Just a Spec, we take a look back at the early use of forms on the web to facilitate messaging and payments, the introduction of XMLHttpRequest which started...