Bugblogging

A while back I wrote a blog post called Web Audio API weirdness on iOS. I described a bug in Mobile Safari along with a hacky fix. I finished by saying:

If you ever find yourself getting weird but inconsistent behaviour on iOS using the Web Audio API, this nasty little hack could help.

Recently Jonathan Aldrich posted a thread about the same bug. He included a link to my blog post. He also said:

Thanks so much for your post, this was a truly pernicious problem!

That warms the cockles of my heart. It’s very gratifying to know that documenting the bug (and the fix) helped someone out. Or, as I put it:

Yay for bugblogging!

Forgive the Germanic compound word, but in this case I think it fits.

Bugblogging doesn’t need to involve a solution. Just documenting a bug is a good thing to do. Recently I documented a bug with progressive web apps on iOS. Before that I documented a bug in Facebook Container for Firefox. When I documented some weird behaviour with the Web Share API in Safari on iOS, I wasn’t even sure it was a bug but Tess was pretty sure it was and filed a proper bug report.

I’ve benefited from other people bugblogging. Phil Nash wrote Service workers: beware Safari’s range request. That was exactly what I needed to solve a problem I’d been having. And then that post about Phil solving my problem helped Peter Rukavina solve a similar issue so he wrote Phil Nash and Jeremy Keith Save the Safari Video Playback Day.

Again, this warmed the cockles of my heart. Bugblogging is worth doing just for the reward of that feeling.

There’s a similar kind of blog post where, instead of writing about a bug, you write about a particular technique. In one way, this is the opposite of bugblogging because you’re writing about things working exactly as they should. But these posts have a similar feeling to bugblogging because they also result in a warm glow when someone finds them useful.

Here are some recent examples of these kinds of posts—tipblogging?—that I’ve found useful:

• Eric wrote about flexibly centering an element with side-sligned content using CSS.
• Rich documented how to subset a variable font on a Mac.
• Stephanie wrote about a CSS technique for animating in a newly added element.

All three are very handy tips. Thanks, Eric! Thanks, Rich! Thanks, Stephanie!

Can you feel the rhythm‽ · 13 March 2024

Adam makes a very good point here: the term “vertical rhythm” is quite chauvanistic, unconciously defaulting to top-to-bottom writing modes; the term “logical rhythm” is more universal (and scalable).

Why I’m Ready to Party Like It’s 1999…Again | The Internet Review

You can feel it in the air. What’s old is new again. Blogs are returning. RSS is again ascendant.

We’ve been waiting 20 years for this - The History of the Web

Blogging isn’t one thing and that’s kind of the point. It exists fractured by intention and it can be many things to many people. And now, 20 years after the last blogging revolution, something like a fractured digital presence is once again appealing.

I’ll never stop blogging: it’s an itch I have to scratch – and I don’t care if it’s an outdated format | Simon Reynolds | The Guardian

It me:

I’d do this even if no one read it. Blogging, for me, is the perfect format. No restrictions when it comes to length or brevity: a post can be a considered and meticulously composed 3,000-word essay, or a spurted splat of speculation or whimsy. No rules about structure or consistency of tone. A blogpost can be half-baked and barely proved: I feel zero responsibility to “do my research” before pontificating. Purely for my own pleasure, I do often go deep. But it’s nearer the truth to say that some posts are outcomes of rambles across the archives of the internet, byproducts of the odd information trawled up and the lateral connections created.

POSSE: a better way to post on social networks - The Verge

A good overview of syndicating from your own website to social network silos:

The platform era is ending. Rather than build new Twitters and Facebooks, we can create a stuff-posting system that works better for everybody.

References and contributors include Cory Doctorow, Manton Reece, Matt Mullenweg and, of course, Tantek.