158 Rachel Andrew Talks CSS Grid and Perch CMS

This week, we are blessed to have Rachel Andrew as our guest. Rachel is an accomplished web developer, co-founder of Perch CMS, a Google Developer Expert, an invited expert to the CSS Working Group (which sets the direction for how CSS works in the future). For the past four years, Rachel has also been the leading authority on CSS Grid, which is set to be supported in most major browsers in early 2017. We're very glad Rachel spent some time with us, and talked about both the past and the bright future of the web. You can find Rachel in various places. Here are just a few: Website: https://rachelandrew.co.uk/ Perch CMS: https://grabaperch.com/ Edge of My Seat: http://www.edgeofmyseat.com/   Table of Contents for Episode 158 0:00 Podcast intros 2:50 Rachel's origin story: How she became a web developer 5:05 Are we entering the next Golden Age of the web? Especially when it comes to CSS and layout? 8:24 Have CSS frameworks killed the creativity of the web? Will CSS Grid end up being a replacement for Bootstrap? Or will industry-wide the creativity return? 11:12 What are some of the things that you will be able to do with CSS Grid as browser support becomes more widespread? 13:26 Why do CSS specifications take so long to get full implementation in browsers? 20:33 What are some ways that the Perch CMS differs from other CMS like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla? 23:45 What have some of the challenges been developing and supporting a CMS? 26:15 How has the growth been with the e-commerce add-on for Perch? 28:33 Have Rachel and Drew ever considered taking VC money to invest in Perch? Why or why not? 30:23 What are Rachel's thoughts on open-source, and how does open-source contribute to the development of the web? Is there a balance that needs to be struck between donated time and sustainability? 36:12 How the Perch business model is both sustainable and supporting the growth of the agencies that use it. 37:45 Why Perch is built to be streamlined, and why that is in the best interest of the businesses that build their sites on top of Perch? 41:30 Does Rachel feel that hosted solutions like Wix or Squarespace are the main competition to Perch? How has the market for websites changed in recent years? 45:00 Rachel says specialization is the way to stand out as a web service provider. 48:59 Podcast outros.   ===================   Other Links mentioned during the show:   CSS Zen Garden http://www.csszengarden.com/ Grid By Example http://gridbyexample.com/ Using Flexible Boxes (MDN) https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Flexible_Box_Layout/Using_CSS_flexible_boxes W3C CSS Working Group https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/members.en.php3 CSS Working Group - Drafts on GitHub https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts Perch Runway 3 as a Headless CMS https://grabaperch.com/blog/archive/perch-runway-3-as-a-headless-cms The High Price of Free http://alistapart.com/article/the-high-price-of-free   ===================   Find bonus content for this episode on the WP-Tonic website: