In this episode, Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson enjoy a conversation with Kilian Valkhof, founder of Polypane, a browser built for developers who care deeply about their craft. The discussion explores the shifting landscape of online developer communities as conversations migrate from Twitter to Blue Sky, Mastodon, Discord, and local meetups. Kilian shares how this decentralization has shaped advocacy around accessibility, performance, and front-end principles, while Rob and Danny reflect on what developers lose and gain when there’s no longer a single central hub. They also dig into guiding principles for building quality front-end experiences, from usability and accessibility to balancing trade-offs between performance, readability, and SEO.

Key points from this episode

- Developers are finding their communities scattered across Blue Sky, Mastodon, Discord, and meetups, changing how ideas about accessibility and performance spread.

- Practical frameworks like “rule of three” and “make it run, make it right, make it fast” give developers clearer guidance than vague advice such as “don’t repeat yourself.”

- Building with craft means going beyond visual accuracy to include accessibility, usability, and small details that improve the overall user experience.

- Teams need to agree on priorities so they can navigate trade-offs between things like accessibility, performance, SEO, and readability.

Kilian Valkhof on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kilianvalkhof/

Rob Ocel on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robocel/

Danny Thompson on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dthompsondev/

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