Notes
Quick notes, thoughts and ramblings.
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I've got Covid. Both my wife and I. 😷
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Rebekah Baggs was asked; "What does the tech industry need more of? Less of?"
Her response:
Less artificial intelligence. More actual intelligence. Less moving fast and breaking things. More prioritizing the right things so you can get them done in a sustainable way.
I agree wholeheartedly.
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Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert's "A Definitely Real-Life Front-Interview Experience" is both brilliant and unfortunately really close to the mark. Eish! 😬
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I prefer a vanilla approach and tend to steer clear of using JavaScript frameworks if I can help it. Not that I have anything against JavaScript frameworks. I think they can be wonderfully powerful tools if we first keep the user in mind rather than prioritising the developer experience. At the moment I don't think we're getting that balance quite right.
Saying that, I think frameworks like Svelte, Astro, (and possibly Vue.js), are helping redress this imbalance.
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I'm exhausted. A few too many Groundhog Days.
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I see myself as a user-centric frontend developer and am particularly interested in projects focussed on building web interfaces that are as usable, accessible, performant, resilient and future-friendly as possible.
So when I mention this to someone recruiting for a role, I get… "Do you know React?". 😶
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Heading to the beautiful Lakedown Trout Fishery on Saturday for some fly fishing. Such a gorgeous spot away from all the noise.
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A calm sea a sailor does not make.
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Well, it looks like my season at IAG Loyalty will be coming to an end on 30th September. After 3 years of working for this great company with fab people, it's time to move on. I'm never that good at ending things I have to say.
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Well, here I am writing CSS-in-JS. Styled components to be specific. Right now, I have to say… it feels like all the gears are grinding.
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Let's go ahead and lift all restrictions why don't we. Feels a little like open season…
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Una Kravetz's talk and demo on calculating colours and creating dynamic theming with CSS Variables is fantastic. I will most certainly be playing with this very soon.
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Acronyms and initialisms. I really, really, really don't like them. I never have. I find them exhausting.
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We—web developers—have broken the web. We’ve built the front end around JavaScript, which is a fragile house of cards… it’s unreliable and easily broken.
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Getting back in the saddle again after falling off last week.
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I can't believe it's already been a year since my friend Peter Hart passed away. I miss you Pete.
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Trying to find a way to implement a micro-frontend solution that's not a ballache for a developer to use but also - (more importantly) - doesn't create some sort of frankenstein output that makes it awful for the user… Not been successful yet.
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Working with Next.js, React and Storybook at the moment and I'm missing 11ty and Fractal already.
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I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else… Kindness - that simple word. To be kind - it covers everything, to my mind. If you're kind that's it.
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Gulp! I took the plunge and have enrolled in Zell Liew's Learn JavaScript course. There have been so many good reviews for this course and I'm keen (I think!) to take my JS 'chops' to the next level. So here goes…
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I can't tell you how nice it is not to hear his voice anymore. Hopefully the last 5 years of poison can make its way out of our system now.
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Am also considering dipping my toe in the NextJS pond. In particular the SSR side of things and the
getServerSidePropsfacility it provides when needing authenticated areas on an SSG site.But who knows when I'll find time for that!
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I'm having fun playing with SVG animation using GreenSock at the moment. Cassie Evans and Jason Lengstorf's Interactive SVG Animations Using Greensock video provided a welcome spark of inspiration.
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Oh my, here we go again. National lockdown number 3 in England within a year. I guess it makes sense and isn't totally unexpected but it's still a case of processing the fact…
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I have an itch that's needed a good ol' scratch for a long long time. Time to pull my finger out and begin the journey of getting my PPL. Sussex Flying Club looks like a super spot to start.
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You create your own life by how you see the world and your place in it.
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Maybe this is an ‘odd’ question at 47 years of age but it keeps coming up for some reason. “I’ve worked in the web industry for over 15 years and have mostly enjoyed it - and think I’m fairly good at it as well. However, I’m not sure it’s ‘my element’. If not, I wonder what ‘my element’ is?”
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Just watched the docudrama Official Secrets. Brilliant but disturbing. A reminder that courageous honesty is needed more than ever in these crazy times.
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The updates to NPM packages seem to be f'ing endless these days!
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Chernobyl. Gosh! I was completely engrossed. One of the most compelling and unsettling things I've watched in a long time.
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Aargh! Bastian Allgeier says it way better.
In practice, this dependency hell has bitten me so often already that my life expectancy probably sank by 2-3 years. You want to build a JS file? Please update Webpack first. Oh, that new version of Webpack is no longer compatible with your Node version. Oh, your new Node version is no longer compatible with that other dependency. Oh, now you have 233 detected security issues in all your node_modules but you can't fix them because that would break something completely unrelated.
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Christ has existed 'from the beginning', so the Christ cannot be the same as Jesus.
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Dabbling with typography sizing / scaling using the new
clamp()CSS function. Do like it I must say. For now, I've added it to my site to handle headings. -
If you're not failing at something then you're not trying hard enough. Failing is part of it. If you're not trying hard enough to even fail, I think you're in trouble. Cause that… you know… teaches you more.
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And here I was thinking the new Dumbo movie would be a good choice to watch with my 11 year daughter…. Nope! Half way in she was asking when it was gonna finish.
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Clearleft, thanks so much for reminding us that; "It's OK."
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Gees I'm missing seeing a mate's actual face. Thanks WhatsApp and Zoom but I could do with some real human interaction now.
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Great software is not built by great programmers. It's built by great teams
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Appropriateness is something I keep coming back to when it comes to evaluating web technologies. I don’t think there are good tools and bad tools; just tools that are appropriate or inapropriate for the task at hand.
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The Apollo 11 documentary movie. How the heck did this go by me!? 😮
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Mark Price takes gorgeous photographs of landscapes.
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I'm looking to get myself back into photography again. Specifically landscape photography. I've missed the space it used to give me. The way it helped me to look up — to really pay attention to my surroundings — to be present in the moment. Things our technology-obsessed age seems to have forgotten about.