10 Things we Learned from the DaWanda Responsive Relaunch

Luca Ongaro, Lead Frontend Engineer @ DaWanda

1. Media Queries Aren’t Easy

• Choose a strategy (mobile first?) and be consistent

• Leverage a preprocessor like SCSS: variables for breakpoints, mixins for queries

2. Touch Event API from Hell

• If you need to react on both click and tap, use an active element (<a> or <button>) and only bind click

• If you bind tap, never ever move/hide the target

3. IE, old B@$#^&d...

• IE8: no support for media queries

• IE9: max 4095 CSS rules per file

• IE10: nasty bug with pseudo-elements, text-

size/line-height and relative units

4. JavaScript Memory Leaks

• DOM manipulation: don’t mix jQuery with vanilla JavaScript

• Unbind your event handlers!

5. Think About the Future!

• Make documentation and styleguide easy to write, maintain and access

• Write tests, and keep them fast!

6. Have A Standard Place for Everything

7. Most Magic is Black Magic

8. Make State Explicit

9. Small Steps can Go on a Long Way

10. Don’t Sweep Things Under the Carpet

Thank You!@lucaongaro

PS: We’re Hiring......and it’s a lot of fun at DaWanda!

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