Lessons from Building for the Bottom of the Web
Most of us build for the web we see every day: zippy networks, evergreen browsers, and devices that feel dated after two years. But there’s another web living alongside it - a web with wobbly connections, aging devices, and browsers that treat your CSS as mere suggestion.
This talk is about what happens when you have to make the web work under conditions you never endure, the unexpected techniques that emerge, and why building for the bottom of the web was the most rewarding experience of my career.
About Mike Hall
Mike Hall is a web developer and Doctor Who fan, but not in that order. He has been building for the web since 1998, and in that time has been a frontend lead, a backend lead, a CTO, a devops engineer, a full-stack developer, a PHP guy, a JavaScript guy, a TypeScript guy, a CSS guy, and a pain in the neck. He is currently Lead Engineer at a Manchester-based startup named Zaptic, creating software for frontline workers in the manufacturing sector.
In his spare time, he is active in the fields of science communication and scientific skepticism, advocating for evidence-based thinking and reason. He produces and presents a weekly podcast called Skeptics with a K, is on the board of directors for The Skeptic magazine, and is co-founder of the Merseyside Skeptics Society. In his other spare time he likes to rest, but there isn’t much of that to go around.