Small Wins in a Complex Web
This year I came across canvas-confetti, a small JavaScript package that creates an on-page confetti effect using a virtual <canvas> element. It is remarkably straightforward: drop it into any page and trigger the effect whenever you like.
Finished a tutorial? Confetti. Hit a new feature for the first time? Confetti again. It is a tiny, tangible reward system for daily development moments, and it is easy to get hooked on.
The longer I use it, the more I value those little celebrations. Browser development has grown intricate over the past decade. The boundary between client and server has eroded with full-stack frameworks like Next.js and Redwood. Even a basic create-react-app setup pulls in over 1,400 dependencies just to reach “Hello, World!”.
Still, looking at the past year, there is clear sign that the complexity curve has started to flatten, or even point back down. Platform improvements have made it possible to ship more with less tooling. Projects such as esbuild and Snowpack (full disclosure: I work on the latter) are enabling faster, simpler build pipelines. Eleventy offers an HTML-first development style that feels refreshingly direct.
If that trend continues, web development stands to become both more approachable and more enjoyable — with room for a little more confetti along the way.
