Code & Development
Open Transclude
The Website Obesity Crisis
A Talk by Maciej CegłowskiWeb Design - The First 100 Years
A Talk by Maciej CegłowskiVisualizing Algorithms
An Article by Mike BostockAias
A Profile by Nick TrombleyThe Future of Programming
A Talk by Bret VictorWhat Makes Software Good?
An Article by Mike BostockAn incoherent rant about design systems
An Article by Robin RendleNo matter how fancy your Figma file is or how beautiful and lovingly well organized that Storybook documentation is; the front-end is always your source of truth. You can hate it as much as you like—all those weird buttons, variables, inaccessible form inputs—but that right there is your design system.
...being honest about this is the first step to fixing it.
Right-Angle Doodling Machine
A Game by Clive Thompson- You draw one single line. It can be as long as you like.
- To start the line, you put your pen down.
- You can make right-angle turns only, either 90 degrees or -90 degrees.
- You cannot back up. You must always move forward.
- You don’t lift your pen until you’re ready to stop. When you lift the pen, the doodle is done.
What do I need to read to be great at CSS?
An Article by Baldur BjarnasonA rule of thumb is that the importance of a blog in your feed reader is inversely proportional to their posting cadence. Prioritise the blogs that post only once a month or every couple of weeks over those that post every day or multiple times a day...Building up a large library of sporadically updated blogs is much more useful and much easier to keep up with than trying to keep up with a handful of aggregation sites every day.
Designing with code
An Article by Matthew StrömRecently I’ve had a few opportunities to use code to create design. In two of my bigger projects at The Wall Street Journal, writing code has led to new ideas. Problems that typically plague early designs — e.g. “how does this look with real content?” — are easy to solve. By exploring visual ideas directly in code, I’ve started to see the amazing potential of code as a design tool.
Picking better names for variables, functions, and projects
An Article by Tom MacWright- Avoid weasel words
- Follow patterns religiously
- Don’t cheap out on characters
- Call things the same thing
- Don’t name internal projects
- When things change, change their names
this vs. that
A Website by Phuoc Nguyentixy.land
A Websitesin(t * x) * cos(t * y)
Creative code golfing.
Front-of-the-front-end and back-of-the-front-end web development
An Article by Brad FrostA succinct way I’ve framed the split is that a front-of-the-front-end developer determines the look and feel of a
button
, while a back-of-the-front-end developer determines what happens when thatbutton
is clicked.The Great Divide
An Article by Chris CoyierOn one side, an army of developers whose interests, responsibilities, and skill sets are heavily revolved around JavaScript.
On the other, an army of developers whose interests, responsibilities, and skill sets are focused on other areas of the front end, like HTML, CSS, design, interaction, patterns, accessibility, etc.
Painting With the Web
An Article by Matthias OttSo much about [Gerhard Richter's painting process] reminds me of designing and building for the Web: The unpredictability, the peculiarities of the material, the improvisation, the bugs, the happy accidents. There is one crucial difference, though. By using static wireframes and static layouts, by separating design and development, we are often limiting our ability to have that creative dialogue with the Web and its materials. We are limiting our potential for playful exploration and for creating surprising and novel solutions. And, most importantly, we are limiting our ability to make conscious, well-informed decisions going forward. By adding more and more layers of abstraction, we are breaking the feedback loop of the creative process.
Technical debt as a lack of understanding
An Article by Dave Rupert"If you develop a program for a long period of time by only adding features but never reorganizing it to reflect your understanding of those features, then eventually that program simply does not contain any understanding and all efforts to work on it take longer and longer.” — Ward Cunningham
bees & bombs
A Blog
What 80% Comprehension Feels Like
One of the major principles of extensive reading is that if a learner can comprehend material at 98% comprehension, she will acquire new words in context, in a painless, enjoyable way. But what is 98% comprehension?
98% comprehension
You live and work in Tokyo. Tokyo is a big city. More than 13 million people live around you. You are never borgle, but you are always lonely. Every morning, you get up and take the train to work. Every night, you take the train again to go home. The train is always crowded. When people ask about your work, you tell them, “I move papers around.” It’s a joke, but it’s also true. You don’t like your work. Tonight you are returning home. It’s late at night. No one is shnooling. Sometimes you don’t see a shnool all day. You are tired. You are so tired…
95% comprehension
In the morning, you start again. You shower, get dressed, and walk pocklent. You move slowly, half- awake. Then, suddenly, you stop. Something is different. The streets are fossit. Really fossit. There are no people. No cars. Nothing. “Where is dowargle?” you ask yourself. Suddenly, there is a loud quapen—a police car. It speeds by and almost hits you. It crashes into a store across the street! Then, another police car farfoofles. The police officer sees you. “Off the street!” he shouts. “Go home, lock your door!” “What? Why?” you shout back. But it’s too late. He is gone.
80% comprehension
“Bingle for help!” you shout. “This loopity is dying!” You put your fingers on her neck. Nothing. Her flid is not weafling. You take out your joople and bingle 119, the emergency number in Japan. There’s no answer! Then you muchy that you have a new befourn assengle. It’s from your gutring, Evie. She hunwres at Tokyo University. You play the assengle. “…if you get this…” Evie says. “…I can’t vickarn now… the important passit is…” Suddenly, she looks around, dingle. “Oh no, they’re here! Cripett… the frib! Wasple them ON THE FRIB!…” BEEP! the assengle parantles. Then you gratoon something behind you…