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Things I wrote

  • Tweeting and Posting

    I've been reading about all the changes at Twitter lately with a bit of sadness and also a bit of understanding. I can see the point of view of the company as they want to own the product and profit from it, but as a geek I also see the point of view of the developers and many others who have spent countless hours to make Twitter what it is.

  • Programming

    I just read a fantastic article on learning to program by Bret Victor, Learnable Programming. I've spent the last few months really concentrating on learning more about programming. I've been reading books and doing exercises using both JavaScript as the language and I've dipped my toes into Python as well. I've talked about this on the blog before, my quest to become a better JavaScripter and to really understand how to program.

  • XOXO

    I spent the past two days in an old building in SE Portland with an absolutely amazing group of people, hearing passionate people talk about doing what they love. I am still amazed that I was there and feel so lucky that I got to attend XOXO. I went into the weekend not quite sure what it was going to be like, but super excited not just for the speakers and fringe events, but excited for the attendees.

  • Thank you community

    So I recently purchased some more books on JavaScript, specifically things that Rebecca Murphey recommended to me via Twitter and on her site. (As a complete aside, she's become a coding hero of mine.) I've been making my way through <em>Eloquent JavaScript</em> and it is the one book that is starting to make sense to me.

  • Interesting things (to me)

    I've spent a lot of time this week listening to things and reading things so I just thought I would share some of the things I'm finding interesting in case you missed them.

  • Going deeper into responsive

    This week I read Tim Kadlec's <em>Implementing Responsive Design</em>. It's a great read and I think the perfect book to pick up after you've read <em>Responsive Web Design</em> by Ethan Marcotte.

  • Content strategy for mobile

    Highlights from Content Strategy for Mobile

  • Read and heard

    I've been spending a lot of time with my head down in the weeds of learning python and improving my JavaScript skills over the past week or so, but I've also been taking breaks to read and went to an online conference, so here's a few tidbits that have been making me think over the past few weeks.

  • JOMO

    Anil Dash wrote a post recently entitled JOMO, Joy of Missing Out. He talks about living in New York City where there is so much going on and you are always missing something great, but that there is a certain joy in realizing you would rather be doing other things.

  • Humility, passion, hyper(links), history

    I just finished the third issue of The Manual. I tried really hard to savor it because it is so good, allowing myself only one essay per day. But yesterday I broke down and read all that I had left. It is such a wonderful publication and if you haven't checked it out, I really recommend that you do, now, immediately.

  • Agonizing over code

    The past few weeks I've finished one project and then worked on a mini exercise to hone my skills with a particular CSS style. In both of these situations I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I'm coding. Sometimes I have to tell myself to loosen up and just get the work done, because I'm almost agonizing over what I'm writing.

  • How I learn

    So I have been working on a project for the past several weeks and it's been a challenge for me in several ways, but by far the biggest thing I've had to adjust to is that I am it. I am doing this thing on my own. For most of my development career I've worked in teams.

  • Busyness revisited

    Yesterday I was quite lazy and spent my Sunday watching some things on Netflix and reading my twitter feed and anything interesting that was linked to. I think about five people linked to an opinion piece on The New York Times site, <em>The 'Busy' Trap</em>. It was no surprise to me that so many people really resonated with the article.

  • SMACSS Workshop

    Just one week ago I rose a bit earlier than is normal for me, made my way across the river to the NW section of Portland in order to attend the SMACSS (Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS) workshop that Jonathan Snook put on. In a one word summary of the day, fantastic.

  • Responsive is hard

    I'm working on a new project that is all responsive. It's the first time I've worked on a responsive site with a designer as my experience has been limited to my own site. A week and a half into coding this site my conclusion is that this stuff is hard. I know there are many who are probably thinking, umm, yeah, we already knew that.