wrong side of write
An opinionated blog about writing. I’ve subscribed in my feed reader.
Link tags: language
255
UI Pattern: Natural Language Form
I only just found this article about those “mad libs” style forms that I started with Huffduffer.
Artifice and Intelligence
Whatever the merit of the scientific aspirations originally encompassed by the term “artificial intelligence,” it’s a phrase that now functions in the vernacular primarily to obfuscate, alienate, and glamorize.
Do “cloud” next!
Is HTML A Programming Language? (Webbed Briefs)
I’m glad that Heydon has answered this question once and for all.
I’m sure that’ll be the end of it now.
When Women Make Headlines
This is a great combination of rigorous research and great data visualisation.
The impoverished language of business | Clearleft
A good post by Andy on “the language of business,” which is most cases turns out to be numbers, numbers, numbers.
While it seems reasonable and fair to expect a modicum of self-awareness of why you’re employed and what business value you drive in the the context of the work you do, sometimes the incessant self-flagellation required to justify and explain this to those who hired you may be a clue to a much deeper and more troubling question at the heart of the organisation you work for.
This pairs nicely with the Clearleft podcast episode on measuring design.
Sans Bullshit Sans — Leveraging the synergy of ligatures
As part of my content buddying process, I am henceforth going to typeset all drafts in this font. I just tested it with this sentence:
We can leverage the synergy of a rich immersive user paradigm shift.
Beginner JavaScript Notes - Wes Bos
A very handy collection of organised notes on all things JavaScript.
Data isn’t oil, so what is it? - How To Measure Ghosts
The discussions around data policy still feel like they are framing data as oil - as a vast, passive resource that either needs to be exploited or protected. But this data isn’t dead fish from millions of years ago - it’s the thoughts, emotions and behaviours of over a third of the world’s population, the largest record of human thought and activity ever collected. It’s not oil, it’s history. It’s people. It’s us.
Words To Avoid in Educational Writing | CSS-Tricks
This old article from Chris is evergreen. There’s been some recent discussion of calling these words “downplayers”, which I kind of like. Whatever they are, try not to use them in documentation.
esoteric.codes
Languages, platforms, and systems that break from the norms of computing.
This Word Does Not Exist
This is easily my favourite use of a machine learning algorithm.
Front-of-the-front-end and back-of-the-front-end web development | Brad Frost
These definitions work for me:
A front-of-the-front-end developer is a web developer who specializes in writing HTML, CSS, and presentational JavaScript code.
A back-of-the-front-end developer is a web developer who specializes in writing JavaScript code necessary to make a web application function properly.
Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction
A fascinating crowdsourced project. You can read the backstory in this article in Wired magazine.
Talking out loud to yourself is a technology for thinking | Psyche Ideas
This explains rubber ducking.
Speaking out loud is not only a medium of communication, but a technology of thinking: it encourages the formation and processing of thoughts.
What Makes CSS Hard To Master - Tim Severien
If we, as a community, start to appreciate the complexity of writing CSS, perhaps we can ask for help instead of blaming the language when we’re confused or stuck. We might also stop looking down on CSS specialists.
Parties and browsers
Tess calls for more precise language—like “site” and “origin”—when talking about browsers and resources:
When talking about web features with security or privacy impact, folks often talk about “first parties” and “third parties”. Everyone sort of knows what we mean when we use these terms, but it turns out that we often mean different things, and what we each think these terms mean usually doesn’t map cleanly onto the technical mechanisms browsers actually use to distinguish different actors for security or privacy purposes.
Personally, rather than say “third-party JavaScript”, I prefer the more squirm-inducing and brutually honest phrase “other people’s JavaScript”.
Russell Davies: Writing for snobs
They came for the writers of car brochures, but I wasn’t a writer of car brochures, so I said nothing.
CSS Vocabulary
This is a nifty visual interactive explainer for the language of CSS—could be very handy for Codebar students.