Bugblogging
Tags: bugblogging, tipblogging, writing, sharing
Published: 2022-05-25 09:33:06

---
title: Bugblogging
published: true
date: 2022-05-03 10:51:46 UTC
tags: bugblogging,tipblogging,writing,sharing
canonical_url: https://adactio.com/journal/19043
---

A while back I wrote a blog post called [Web Audio API weirdness on iOS](https://adactio.com/journal/17709). I described a bug in Mobile Safari along with a hacky fix. I finished by saying:

> If you ever find yourself getting weird but inconsistent behaviour on iOS using the Web Audio API, this nasty little hack could help.

Recently [Jonathan Aldrich posted a thread](https://twitter.com/JAldrichPL/status/1517005793958236160) about the same bug. He included [a link to my blog post](https://twitter.com/JAldrichPL/status/1517005797447847936). [He also said](https://twitter.com/JAldrichPL/status/1517101239749722112):

> Thanks so much for your post, this was a truly pernicious problem!

That warms the cockles of my heart. It’s very gratifying to know that documenting the bug (and the fix) helped someone out. Or, [as I put it](https://twitter.com/adactio/status/1517040088592519168):

> Yay for bugblogging!

Forgive the Germanic compound word, but in this case I think it fits.

Bugblogging doesn’t need to involve a solution. Just documenting a bug is a good thing to do. Recently I documented [a bug with progressive web apps on iOS](https://adactio.com/journal/18897). Before that [I documented a bug in Facebook Container for Firefox](https://adactio.com/journal/18328). When I documented some weird behaviour with [the Web Share API in Safari on iOS](https://adactio.com/journal/15972), I wasn’t even sure it was a bug but Tess was pretty sure it was and [filed a proper bug report](https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=203221).

I’ve benefited from other people bugblogging. Phil Nash wrote [Service workers: beware Safari’s range request](https://philna.sh/blog/2018/10/23/service-workers-beware-safaris-range-request/). That was _exactly_ what I needed to solve [a problem I’d been having](https://adactio.com/journal/14452). And then that post about Phil solving my problem helped Peter Rukavina solve a similar issue so he wrote [Phil Nash and Jeremy Keith Save the Safari Video Playback Day](https://ruk.ca/content/phil-nash-and-jeremy-keith-save-safari-video-playback-day).

Again, this warmed the cockles of my heart. Bugblogging is worth doing just for the reward of that feeling.

There’s a similar kind of blog post where, instead of writing about a bug, you write about a particular technique. In one way, this is the opposite of bugblogging because you’re writing about things working exactly as they should. But these posts have a similar feeling to bugblogging because they also result in a warm glow when someone finds them useful.

Here are some recent examples of these kinds of posts—tipblogging?—that I’ve found useful:

- Eric wrote about [flexibly centering an element with side-sligned content](https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2022/04/26/flexibly-centering-an-element-with-side-aligned-content/) using CSS.
- Rich documented [how to subset a variable font](https://clagnut.com/blog/2418/) on a Mac.
- Stephanie wrote about a CSS technique for [animating in a newly added element](https://thinkdobecreate.com/articles/css-animating-newly-added-element/).

All three are very handy tips. Thanks, [Eric](https://meyerweb.com/)! Thanks, [Rich](https://clagnut.com/)! Thanks, [Stephanie](https://thinkdobecreate.com)!