Adactio: Links

My biggest challenge with JavaScript | Go Make Things

This really, really resonates with me:

I think the thing I struggle the most with right now is determining when something new is going to change the way our industry works for the better (like responsive web design did 5 or 6 years ago), and when it’s just a fad that will fade away in a year or three (which is how I feel about our obsession with things like Angular and React).

I try to avoid jumping from fad to fad, but I also don’t want to be that old guy who misses out on something that’s an important leap forward for us. I spend a lot of time thinking about the longer term impact of the things we make (and make with).

Artificial Intelligence for more human interfaces | Christian Heilmann

An even-handed assessment of the benefits and dangers of machine learning.

Resilient, Declarative, Contextual

This is really good breakdown of what’s different about CSS (compared to other languages).

These differences may feel foreign, but it’s these differences that make CSS so powerful. And it’s my suspicion that developers who embrace these things, and have fully internalized them, tend to be far more proficient in CSS.

I dunno | Brad Frost

I think being simultaneously curious and skeptical of new technology is healthy attitude to have.

I concur.

I want to learn new things in order to keep making good websites. I also think there’s a lot of value in talking about the difficulty in learning new things.

Web Components Club – A journal about learning web components

Andy Bell is documenting is journey of getting to grips with web components. I think it’s so valuable to share like this as you’re learning, instead of waiting until you’ve learned it all—the fresh perspective is so useful!

Brendan Dawes - Holding the Door Open for Others

I continue to write stuff down on my little corner of the Web (does it have corners?) and I encourage you to do the same, as all these little bits of flotsam and jetsam become something a lot lot bigger.

Four short stories and what I learnt writing them (31 May., 2018, at Interconnected)

I’ve been enjoying the stories over on Upsideclown so it’s great to get a peak inside Matt’s writing brain here.

I also happen to really, really like his four stories:

I wouldn’t say I’m great at writing fiction. I find it tough. It is the easiest thing in the world for me to pick holes in what I’ve written. So instead, as an exercise—and as some personal positive reinforcement—I want to remind myself what I learnt writing each one, and also what I like.

Solving Life’s Problems with CSS | CSS-Tricks

It turns out that Diana Smith isn’t just a genius with CSS—she’s a fantastic writer too. This post is somehow heartfelt and lighthearted at the same time. It’s also very humorous, but beneath the humour there’s an excellent point here about the rule of least power …and doing things the long, hard, stupid way.

Because something about those limitations just calls to me. I know I’m not alone when I say that a rigid set of restrictions is the best catalyst for creativity. Total artistic freedom can be a paralyzing concept.

That can sometimes be the case with programming. If you have the most powerful programming languages in the world at your disposal, it starts to seem natural that you should then have no difficulty solving any programming problem. With all these amazing tools offering countless solutions to solve the same problem, it’s no wonder that we sometimes freeze up with information overload.

CSS and Markup in Javascript is an Evolutionary Dead End

The bet to make is that we’re going to see more use of specialized languages. And HTML and CSS are the grandaddy specialized languages that have enough social consensus and capital investment to be the seeds of the next generation.

My Struggle with Testing Code - daverupert.com

It me.

Coding with kids

James shares his experience of teaching a class of 9 and 10 year old children how to code, and offers some advice:

Don’t dumb it down

Use real-world examples

Make it hands on

Set clear expectations

Award certificates and/or stickers

As members of the web community we have a responsibility to share what we have learned. I can’t think of a better way of doing that then helping kids get started.

Hear, hear!

The Wisdom and/or Madness of Crowds

The latest explainer/game from Nicky Case is an absolutely brilliant interactive piece on small world networks.

Leaving Clearleft – Jon Aizlewood

Following on from Ben’s post, this is also giving me the warm fuzzies.

I, in no uncertain terms, have become a better designer thanks to the people I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside at Clearleft. I’ll forever be thankful of my time there, and to the people who helped me become better.

Episode 52 - Going Offline | with Jeremy Keith - Relative Paths

I really enjoyed chatting with Mark and Ben on the Relative Paths podcast. We talked about service workers and Going Offline, but we also had a good musical discussion.

This episode is also on Huffduffer.

So long, and thanks for all the beer. – Ben Sauer

Ben is moving on from Clearleft. I’m going to miss him. I found this summation of his time here very moving.

Working at Clearleft was one of the best decisions I ever made. 6 years of some work that I’m most proud of, amongst some of the finest thinkers I’ve ever met.

He also outlines the lessons he learned here:

Writing and speaking will make you a better thinker and designer.

Autonomy rules.

Own stuff.

Aim high.

Should you ever choose to work with, or work for Clearleft, I hope these words will give you some encouragement — it is an exceptional place to be.

Apart From Code

A good developer…

debugs

follows the KISS principle (and respects YAGNI)

knows how to research

works well with others

finds good developer tools

tests code

Sara Soueidan: Going Offline

Sara describes the process of turning her site into a progressive web app, and has some very kind words to say about my new book:

Jeremy covers literally everything you need to know to write and install your first Service Worker, tweak it to your site’s needs, and then write the Web App Manifest file to complete the offline experience, all in a ridiculously easy to follow style. It doesn’t matter if you’re a designer, a junior developer or an experienced engineer — this book is perfect for anyone who wants to learn about Service Workers and take their Web application to a whole new level.

Too, too kind!

I highly recommend it. I read the book over the course of two days, but it can easily be read in half a day. And as someone who rarely ever reads a book cover to cover (I tend to quit halfway through most books), this says a lot about how good it is.

the Origins of Opera and the Future of Programming – The Composition

An interesting piece by Jessica Kerr that draws lessons from the histories of art and science and applies them to software development.

This was an interesting point about the cognitive load of getting your head around an existing system compared to creating your own:

Why are there a thousand JavaScript frameworks out there? because it’s easier to build your own than to gain an understanding of React. Even with hundreds of people contributing to documentation, it’s still more mental effort to form a mental model of an existing system than to construct your own. (I didn’t say it was faster, but less cognitively strenuous.)

And just because I’ve spent most of last year thinking about how to effectively communicate—in book form—relatively complex ideas clearly and simply, this part really stood out for me:

When you do have a decent mental model of a system, sharing that with others is hard. You don’t know how much you know.

inessential: The View-Source Web

Lesson learned: the discoverable and understandable web is still do-able — it’s there waiting to be discovered. It just needs some commitment from the people who make websites.

A Framework Author’s Case Against Frameworks - YouTube

A terrific talk by Adrian Holovaty. I really hope front-end developers talk its message to heart.

Tags: learning

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