Thanks to everyone who joined us for the March meetup! A huge thank you to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event—we really appreciate the support. Another big thank you to Codeweavers for hosting and supporting the meetup—their continued generosity makes these sessions possible.
Talk
Use the platform
Fiona Knight — Senior Lecturer, Staffordshire University
What the web can do today without frameworks, libraries or fudges.
Fiona’s presentation explored the evolving web platform, focusing on CSS advancements while touching on HTML and JavaScript. She discussed how web standards now update continuously, and browsers follow an “evergreen” model with automatic updates, making it challenging for developers to keep pace—something 21% reported struggling with in a Google I/O 2024 survey.
She highlighted key initiatives like “Baseline” and “Interop,” which improve cross-browser compatibility, and showcased major CSS developments, including variables, container queries, masonry layouts, and new selectors. She also covered accessibility enhancements, such as media queries that adapt to user preferences like dark mode and reduced motion.
It was a fast-paced and engaging talk, and Fiona mentioned that additional HTML and JavaScript content could be explored in a future session. She wrapped up with a demo of web manifests, showing how web apps can be installed like native apps with offline functionality via service workers.
Thanks, Ian Knight, for photographing the event for us.
Staffs Web Meetup 