Zell Liew
zellwk.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2016
Zell Liew, a front-end developer who writes tutorials on JavaScript, CSS, and typography, including async code, units, and vertical rhythm.
What HN saysHN commenters link his posts on vertical rhythm and async/await in loops, mostly as references; one commenter uses the async piece to argue for blocking models.
25HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
156stories submitted
735story points
4 months agolast shared
2016people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Why Is Vertical Rhythm an Important Typography Practice?5 people · 94 points · first shared 2016 · 27 comments on HN
- 2Introduction to commonly used ES6 features3 people · 7 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 3JavaScript Async and Await in Loops3 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · 1 comments on HN
- 4REM vs. EM – The Great Debate2 people · 95 points · first shared 2016 · 25 comments on HN
- 5How to think like a programmer2 people · 6 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 6Setting Up Windows for Development2 people · 5 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 7Maybe we should step away from the online-world for a bit2 people · 4 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 8How to build a responsive grid system2 people · 4 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 9A new (and easy) way to hide content accessibly2 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 10Inconsistent behavior among browsers when clicking on buttons2 people · 3 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 11The Spirit of CSS Tricks is now gone2 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 12PX, EM or REM Media Queries?2 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 13‘This’ in JavaScript1 people · 170 points · first shared 2017 · 97 comments on HN
- 14How to choose and pair typefaces1 people · 105 points · first shared 2017 · 10 comments on HN
- 15What makes a good front end developer?1 people · 20 points · first shared 2018 · 2 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
chrismorgan · 2023-05-19
Ah, I think you copied the list from https://zellwk.com/blog/why-vertical-rhythms/. It says these might be properties of “better”, largely without quantifying what they mean, as part of comparing something with simple rhythm (and quite ugly in its spacing, in my opinion) with something that’s deliberately terrible.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has treated “rhythm” in any way rigorously, and it’s mostly just a crock, something that sounds good on paper but is utterly without actual reason or value, rather like modular scales for typography.
I don’t respect that article. Its analogies are lousy, its examples of non-rhythm unnecessarily bad (straw-man arguments), its rhythm not great in any case (and lacking any attempt at anything like baseline alignment), and after the first instance it only really shows rhythm with an unrealistic superimposed grid which obviously makes rhythm look better than non-rhythm. I get the sense that the author has read a bit of various things, and then attempted to justify an opinion in any way they could, and ended up producing an incoherent and completely unsound argument.
There are certainly major places where consistent spacing and sizing is of value. But slavishly following it page-wide without something like a background pattern that you’re aiming to match (which is absolutely a legitimate use case, but is æsthetic rather than functional)… I’ve never come across any argument that seemed to hold any water, and I’d like to understand…
beders · 2023-08-20
the mental gymnastics.
Having fun using async/await in loops?
https://zellwk.com/blog/async-await-in-loops/
An actual blocking model is much easier to grok.
hnbad · 2023-02-20
Chris built it. Geoff was the chief editor and had been with CSS Tricks for half its lifetime (i.e. seven years) when Chris sold it to Digital Ocean and left. Pretending he was just "an employee" is seriously underselling what this layoff means.
Yes, Chris leaving caused more damage to CSS Tricks than Geoff being laid off. But Geoff being laid off is the killing blow to what CSS Tricks used to be. I'm not the first person to say this: https://zellwk.com/blog/spirit-of-css-tricks/
ratww · 2020-05-05
> Is there some other "efficient" way to read a website that involves some non-linear sequence of jumps around the page?
Yeah, it's called skimming and scanning [1].
This is why things like information hierarchy [2] and vertical rhythm [3] are emphasized in modern design.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading#Skimming_and_scanning
[2] https://zevendesign.com/designers-guide-to-visual-hierarchy/
[3] https://zellwk.com/blog/why-vertical-rhythms/
ddebernardy · 2017-01-31
OP is likely referring to vertical rhythm in typography:
https://zellwk.com/blog/why-vertical-rhythms/