Adam Argyle is speaking at Epic Web Conf 2024

Hey, what is up, Adam? I am super excited that you're coming to Epic Web Conf. I'd love for the attendees to get to know you a little bit. So why don't you introduce yourself to us? I can do that. My name is Adam Argyle. I work at Chrome. I'm in the DevRel team, and I focus on CSS and UI, making sure that you all have the elements that you need,

the styles that you need to get and make beautiful interfaces for your users. We want things to be seamless. We want things to be smooth. We want things to be easy for you. We want you to feel like the platform gives you the stuff that you need to be effective and feel good about what you do. I'm really happy to do that. I'm also on the CSS working group.

I'm a skateboarder, punk, nerd. I'm just artsy, as I'll get out, love crafting, and just love the web. So I'm super happy to be speaking at Epic Web. Dude, that's awesome. I love all of those things that you said. You didn't mention the OneWheel, but that's

part of the skater stuff, too, I guess. Definitely. That thing has been so amazing since COVID. So many miles logged, so many trails shredded, a couple of biffs, and it's all good. I love it. Fantastic. Yeah, also super grateful to you and everything

that you're doing with the Chrome team, getting the web platform up to snuff, especially around the elements that we need and CSS stuff as well. I know that there's been a lot of excitement about the stuff coming to the web platform and stuff. And your coworker, your manager, Yuna,

is going to be talking about that a little bit as well. Why don't you give us a quick idea, a rundown, of what you have planned for your talk at Epic Web Conf? Yes. The web of web, well, I don't know. It just could be very easily turned into just a bunch of wah-wahs.

So I'm going to be talking about custom properties, which might not be too surprising to a lot of people. It's a five-minute lightning talk, and I'm going to show you the power of what these custom properties can contain and how to type them, and then just show you, based on these couple of features that they have, which are pretty loose features, a bunch of amazing things that they can pack in a little bit of a punch.

So it's going to be like a little grain of spice that you're like, oh, surely that basil leaf won't change this dish, and oh, yeah, that basil leaf is definitely going to dominate. And so, yeah, it should be enlightening and quick. Ooh, enlightening. And we'll all be hoping that we're the one with the basil leaf in our bowl of soup.

I got it. I got the basil leaf. I know my kids are excited when they are the ones that get the basil leaf. But I think that is awesome and exciting. Custom properties have been around for a couple of years, and I think that people still are just figuring out what we can do with those. So I think that giving people some exposure

to what you've been able to do with custom properties will be pretty awesome. So also, Adam, we do got a second more. What are some of the things that you're most excited about with the stuff that you've been working on recently in Chrome and CSS? I got to love, I'll just shout out,

there's a few things to shout out. Color has been awesome. The relative color syntax is like this dreamy moment where you've always wanted to create a variant of a color. You're like, I just need a transparent version. I just need a slightly altered color for a hover effect. I didn't get it from the designer. And that gets applied for you. Really cool. View transitions, I just see them now.

I'll see an interaction that a designer makes, and I'm like, oh, it's a view transition. I could totally automate that. And I love the view transitions. You're just like, here's state one, here's state two. They can be completely different DOMs. And the browser's like, oh, I'll find the shared elements and just morph them beautifully between. And it's so cool.

And then the last one is scroll-driven animations. I'm just seeing those everywhere now too. Just had an article go out on it. They're all over my website. Just some cool interaction animation and color features have hit the browsers. It's just so cool. That is awesome. I love it all. I guess you'd say those are safe things for people

to come and talk with you about at the conference. Absolutely. And they're also really neat features because you can progressively enhance into the scroll-driven animations and view transitions. And so it's not like you either have it or you don't. There's like a have your cake and eat it too scenario. And I'm super happy to walk you all through it. Yeah, come say hi. Yeah, awesome, awesome.

Adam is a very nice person. I think, actually, if I'm trying to remember, I don't think we've actually met in person before. We have not. You've met my younger brother. Yeah, that's right. So I'm really looking forward to meeting you in person. And I do hope that you bring your Onewheel. I'll bring all of mine, and we can go for a ride.

That'll be sweet. Do you fly with yours? Do I just take my GT apart and fly with it? Or what's the flow? I have a flying Onewheel. It's the pint. So that one is allowed in the cabin. I put it in my bag. It's like basically everything I've got.

And then I've got clothes around it and stuff. But yeah, I check that, or I carry on with that. I have heard people have success just disconnecting the battery from the motor. And then you can check that, I guess. Probably look that up first, because that

would be pretty awful if the TSA was like, nope, sorry. Yeah, I modified my pint, so I've made it unflyable. I put a double-sized Chinese battery in it, and now I can't. I'm worried that if they open it up, they're going to be like, hey, this says it has this much juice in it. And I'm like, it does.

And they're like, well, that's above the juice limit. And I'm like, I know. That's too bad. Oh, well, that's OK. I'll bring an extra for you to ride, and we're going to have a really good time up in Park City. Sweet. I'm excited. There's also that site Friend With A. Maybe I'll go there and see if I can bring one for $40 or whatever. Totally, totally.

Well, dude, thank you so much for chatting with me real quick and giving the opportunity for people to get to know you a little bit. And yeah, we'll look forward to seeing you in Park City on April 11 at Epic Web Dev. Be there.

Adam Argyle

CSS/UI/UX Chrome Developer Advocate

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