Web platform docs by @bsmth

I'm a Staff Technical Writer on the MDN Web Docs team at Mozilla.
I write about JavaScript, CSS, APIs, the web platform, and open source software.

Blog posts:

I'm in the 512KB Club

Since February 2025, my website’s now listed on The 512KB Club! This collection of small websites is a showcase of what’s possible when you set out to do a lot, using only a little. Let’s see what that’s all about and why it matters.

- 5 min read

2024: MDN HTTP content, GitHub, Firefox

It’s that time of the year again - 2024 is coming to a close wrapped. Let’s look at what I did over the last year on GitHub. I’ll share some stats that I collected from my work, visualize the data to understand it a little more, and show the categories and types of work I focused on.

- 8 min read

Intl.Segmenter for l10n in JavaScript

Earlier this year, JavaScript Intl.Segmenter gained support in all three major browser engines, meaning it’s achieved Baseline status of “newly available”. Now, your applications can natively retrieve meaningful information from strings in a variety of locales in the latest browsers.

- 9 min read

New exclusive accordions in HTML

Giving the same name to a group of <details> elements makes them behave like exclusive accordions. This is good news for developers who have been writing custom accordions from scratch because it’s soon supported across all major browsers. Let’s explore what this means with some quick examples.

- 7 min read

New JavaScript Set methods

There’s some fresh JavaScript Set features that have just achieved cross-browser support, so let’s have a look at what they can do. Read on if you’re new to Set in JavaScript and you’re curious how to use these new JavaScript methods. I’ll highlight some advantages with basic examples to show why you might reach for these instead of building your own implementations.

- 16 min read

Page Visibility API usage & hints

Checking document visibility gives you insight into how visitors are interacting with your pages and can provide hints about the status of your applications. This post takes a look at what page visibility is, how you can use the Page Visibility API in your websites, and describes pitfalls to avoid if you build features around this functionality.

- 9 min read

2023: GitHub, Interop, Firefox release notes.

Now that 2023 is coming to a close wrapped, I thought I’d take a look back at what I managed to achieve over the year. I joined Mozilla in 2022 as a Staff Technical Writer on the MDN team, which made 2023 the first full year that I focused entirely on MDN Web Docs. In this post, I’ll share some stats that I collected from my work on GitHub, visualize the data to understand it a little more, and show the categories I focused on.

- 5 min read

JavaScript console methods

Earlier in the year, I wrote about using grep on the MDN Blog for code search under the “developer essential” category. I categorize it this way because I think it will give people unfamiliar with grep a massive productivity boost and exposure to skills like working on the command line and regular expressions. This looks like it’s becoming a series of posts on “essentials” (or what I think are incredibly beneficial skills, at least) for working effectively as a web developer.

- 2 min read

For older posts, check posts by tag or have a look at all posts.