2026 – Painter Theme

What actually happens between keypress and pixel

Five stages, one honest read on your rendering pipeline. Here is what each stage costs, what usually stalls it, and the single change that moves your numbers.

chrisSeptember 2, 20262 min read

Guides

Preloading fonts without making everything else wait

A preload tag moves a font to the front of the queue. It also moves everything behind it further back, which is the part nobody mentions.

chrisAugust 31, 20261 min read

CSS

Container queries without the rewrite: a seven-day migration

Swapping every media query in one afternoon is why teams abandon container queries. Here is the slower path that gets you there with your sprint intact.

chrisAugust 26, 20261 min read

Guides

A migration checklist for teams that cannot stop shipping

Every migration that failed was attempted in one branch. Here is the shape of the ones that landed.

chrisAugust 19, 20261 min read

Guides

Bundle math: how much JavaScript you actually need

The 170 KB budget is a number someone tweeted in 2016. Your real number depends on your audience’s devices, their network, and how much of the page arrives as HTML.

chrisAugust 19, 20261 min read

Guides