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I think “it’s simple” shouldn’t be used to explain something.
Alex Kearney looks back on two years of owning her own data.
With a fully functional site up and running, I focused on my own needs and developed features to support how I wanted to use my site. In hind-sight, that’s probably the most indie thing I could’ve done, and how I should’ve started my indieweb adventure.
This really resonates with me.
One of the motivating features for joining the indieweb was the ability to keep and curate the content I create over time.
Terrific post!
Here’s to two more years.
This resonates a lot—we’ve been working on something similar at Clearleft, for very similar reasons:
We rode the folk knowledge train until it became clear that it was totally unscaleable and we struggled to effectively commute know-how to the incoming brains.
At Made By Many, they’ve sliced it into three categories: Design, Technology, and Product Management & Strategy. At Clearleft, we’re trying to create a skills matrix for each of these disciplines: UX, UI, Dev, Research, Content Strategy, and Project Management. I’m working on the Dev matrix. I’ll share it once we’ve hammered it into something presentable. In the meantime, it’s good to see exactly the same drivers are at work at Made By Many:
The levels give people a scaffold onto which they can project their personalised career path, reflecting their progression, and facilitating professional development at every stage.
We don’t want the field to de-democratize and become the province solely of those who can slog through a computer science degree.
So we need new tools that let everyone see, understand, and remix today’s web. We need, in other words, to reboot the culture of View Source.
I love the way Matthias sums up his experience of the Beyond Tellerrand conference. He focuses on three themes:
I heartily agree with his reasons for attending the conference:
There are many ways to broaden your horizons if you are looking for inspiration: You could do some research, read a book or an article, or visit a new city. But one of the best ways surely is the experience of a conference, because it provides you with many new concepts and ideas. Moreover, ideas that were floating around in your head for a while are affirmed.
I love seeing people go from Codebar to full-time dev work. It’s no surprise in Zara’s case—she’s an excellent front-end developer.
I frequently see web developers struggling to become better, but without a path or any indication of clear direction. This repository is an attempt to sharing my experiences, and any contributions, that can help provide such a direction.
It’s broken down into four parts:
I don’t necessarily agree with everything here (and I really don’t like the “rockstar” labelling), but that’s okay:
Anything written here is open to debate and challenges are encouraged.
This is a really great screencast on getting started with React. I think it works well for a few reasons:
There’s a little bit of “here’s one I prepared earlier” but, on the whole, it’s a great step-by-step approach, and one I’ll be returning to if and when I dip my toes into React.
Charlotte shares her thoughts on the elements of a fruitful mentorship:
- Learn from each other
- Find the right level of challenge
- Reach out
- Meet with intent
- Offer feedback and ask for feedback
The transcript of Josh’s fantastic talk on machine learning, voice, data, APIs, and all the other tools of algorithmic design:
The design and presentation of data is just as important as the underlying algorithm. Algorithmic interfaces are a huge part of our future, and getting their design right is critical—and very, very hard to do.
Josh put together ten design principles for conceiving, designing, and managing data-driven products. I’ve added them to my collection.
- Favor accuracy over speed
- Allow for ambiguity
- Add human judgment
- Advocate sunshine
- Embrace multiple systems
- Make it easy to contribute (accurate) data
- Root out bias and bad assumptions
- Give people control over their data
- Be loyal to the user
- Take responsibility
It’s a short list, but this brief guide for coaches at Codebar is packed with excellent advice for anybody getting into teaching or training:
- Do not take over the keyboard! This can be off-putting and scary.
- Encourage the students to type and not copy paste.
- Assume that anyone you’re teaching has no knowledge but infinite intelligence.
This is a free online video course recorded by Jake a couple of years back. It’s got a really good step-by-step introduction to service workers, delivered in Jake’s typically witty way. Some of the details are a bit out of date, and I must admit that I bailed when it got to IndexedDB, but I highly recommend giving this a go.
There’s also a free course on web accessibility I’m planning to check out.
A write-up of the BrightSparks programme that Clearleft is taking part in.
Each company agreed to help support one local child from a low-income family, on free school meals or with a yearly household income of under £25k.
Before leaving Brighton to head back to Sweden, Siri describes how Codebar helped her get started with front-end development:
I went along every week to work on my site, and was overwhelmed by the support and dedication of the mentors. Seeing the talented and diverse programmers in action made me re-think my preconceptions, and I soon realised that anyone can learn to code, from a 68-year-old retired teacher, to a twenty-seven-year-old female career-changer like me.
Its the sequel to Flexbox Froggy—this time it’s grid!
I’m a sucker for CSS gamification.
Yesterday was a good day with Amber. She’s been marking up her CV and it was the perfect opportunity to take a deep dive into HTML.
An online training course that will banish all fear of the command line, expertly delivered by the one and only Remy Sharp.
For designers, new developers, UX, UI, product owners and anyone who’s been asked to “just open the terminal”.
Take advantage of the special launch price—there are some serious price reductions there.
A really inspiring post by Jen outlining all the benefits of the new CSS layout features …and the problems with thinking framework-first.
I know a lot of people will think the “best” way to use CSS Grid will be to download the new version of Bootstrap (version 5! now with Grid!), or to use any one of a number of CSS Grid layout frameworks that people are inevitably going to make later this year (despite Rachel Andrew and I begging everyone not to). But I don’t. The more I use CSS Grid, the more convinced I am that there is no benefit to be had by adding a layer of abstraction over it. CSS Grid is the layout framework. Baked right into the browser.
A nice straightforward introduction to web development for anyone starting from scratch.