... works as a web developer in Hveragerði, Iceland, and writes about the web, digital publishing, and web/product development
These are his notes
Unpopular opinion: an OSS project that is constantly getting feature changes and additions is de facto unstable software that shouldn’t be used in production. If it has an LTS release, use that. If it doesn’t, only use the project when you have a really good reason.
It’s weird that the Github Readme retelling of the story of why the lucky stiff omits any mention of the fact that he left because he was doxxed, and instead opts for bullshit mythologising.
Maybe it’s not so weird, but it’s still bullshit.
“A Note to Self on Churn - Jim Nielsen’s Blog”
“Humans get good at what they practice. Doesn’t matter what it is.”
“Notes: Hammock Driven Development by Rich Hickey - Jim Nielsen’s Blog”
“A classic. I’ve listened to it a few times, but never taken notes. I wanted to write down what stood out this time around.”
“talk-transcripts/HammockDrivenDev-mostly-text.md at master · matthiasn/talk-transcripts · GitHub”
“Step Away from the Computer or Hammock-driven Development”
This is a really good talk on problem solving in dev.
As an industry, we’re bad at the whole package: HTML, JS, CSS, accessibility, security. Only CSS gets hate. The more research I do into web dev communities, how it’s taught, the starker this disconnect becomes
Why? Because CSS’s visual nature makes our own incompetence obvious.
The difference in how web devs treat CSS and JS
CSS: write broken code that looks ugly because they don’t understand the lang. Complain about how the language sucks.
JS: write broken code because they don’t understand the lang. Ship it because they can’t tell that it’s broken.
“How to do Discovery and Delivery at the same time … with Pivot Triggers”
Interesting idea.
Decidedly uncomfortable about how pervasive singularity-style progress myths seem to be among note-taking app vendors.
Dudes, (it’s always dudes) you aren’t making consciousness-expanding brain extensions! You’re overselling notes so hard you make it sound like a cult.
“Better Footnotes in WordPress JetPack – Terence Eden’s Blog”
“Develop Mastery by Revisiting the Basics - Jorge Arango”
This doesn’t apply to just apps. If you ever start feeling stuck with CSS, JS or HTML, take a step back and give yourself a win by revisiting the basics.
“Can I include a tag to a tag? Based on HTML Spec WHATWG”
Useful more often than you’d think.
“Pair programming sucks - Go Make Things”
Don’t know which bucket I’d fall into as I’ve never managed to convince a manager that it wasn’t a waste of resources so never got the chance to try.
“(the return of) Tables, Tequila and Beer – HTML Accessibility”
“Decoupling HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in design systems - Go Make Things”
Been doing a bit of research in various JS/web dev online communities and, wow, there’s a lot of bad advice out there. Stuff like “you should never use the form element in a modern framework” 😰
“You should be ready, willing, and able to read the source code of your dependencies -> Changelog”
This is great advice. And getting into the habit of reading other people’s code will improve your own.
“Let’s Talk about Native HTML Tabs - daverupert.com”
Interesting proposal. Could work.
This is really good advice.
“CSS { In Real Life } - Evaluating Clever CSS Solutions”
I’m not the only one worried about the popularity of ‘clever’ solutions in the CSS community.
I wrote a short blog post on reading for skills development: you need to change how you read and apply new reading strategies if you don’t want to plateau.
“How I Structure My CSS (for Now) · Matthias Ott – User Experience Designer”
Is ITCSS the most influential CSS strategy that nobody really talks about? See it’s influence almost everywhere these days.