If we haven't met yet, hi! I'm Lara. Thanks for coming.
I love to write about and share my work with web technologies, as well as general life topics and creative undertakings. Hopefully you'll find something of interest, and maybe learn something new!
If you'd like to keep abreast of new posts, you can subscribe via RSS or write me a note encouraging me to set up an email list for this purpose (something that's been on my to-do list for, um, a while).
I'm really loving the medium of trustworthy email newsletters lately – here is a compendium of my favorite weekly-ish ones, both within the web dev sphere but also outside it.
I've been researching design systems lately, and this is an evolving list of the resources I've found particularly resonant for my purposes. Have anything to add?
Things are going *really well* for me right now, and that calls for a blog post! This one is much more personal than my posts usually are, but it's healthy to open up a bit now and again, right?
The code we humans write cannot be read by computers – it must be translated into machine code. Compilers and interpreters do that, and the browser is an interpreter!
What is programming, anyway? I just love, love, love this talk from Felienne from earlier this year. It both affirms a ton of my own thoughts, and poses a wonderful, more inclusive alternative to "engineering" for talking about what we do as programmers.
This is the first in a potentially long series about browser mechanics, in my own words. Read on to learn about one of the first steps a browser takes: decoding bytes to Unicode code points.
I set my standards too high for blog posts. I know that they are too high because I don't publish them. It's too much pressure! (It's got to stop, it's got to stop)
And a cool thing: I was magically able to write blog posts again after publishing this one!
I highly suggest watching Brittany's full talk – she is a brilliant speaker, and her presentation is full of both fun facts about programming jargon and critical information about the impact of the terms we use.
Want to learn how a browser works? Computer Science fundamentals? This is a great place to start! A long list of resources for my research for my talk at CSSConf EU, the Algorithms of CSS.
I'd seen dimmed properties before, and I always thought of them as the properties that are there by default, or ones I'm not supposed to manipulate. It turns out that's pretty much correct. The technical term for that is that dimmed properties are non-enumerable vs. enumerable properties.
This should be required reading for anyone who works in tech...and anyone who uses tech! In particular, wouldn't it be great if every new boot camp and college graduate was required to read this book?
This post is a response to a tweet critiquing the "code export" capability of design tools, and a talk called "Stop Drawing Dead Fish" that calls for better tools to allow artists to create visual art without code. Should designers code? Should artists code? It's a nuanced, interesting topic and I had some thoughts.
I started the year exceptionally motivated and productive, with a reasonably-sized to-do list that has now expanded by a factor of at least three. This article by Frank Chimero about the increasing complexity of web development came about at the right time, and it deserves a share.
A non-computer hobby of mine is to illustrate friendly monsters. In an effort to get them out of my sketchbooks and onto walls, I've launched a Kickstarter #Make100 project!
What's the difference between actions and filters in WordPress? In this "Sloppy Screencast", i.e. a recording from a tutoring session, we will explore.
I always think I will remember more than I do. This is the first in an attempt to create a habit of writing "Things to Remember" round-up posts when I feel inspired to do so.
My 2017 Year In Review post ended up morphing into a longer article, so for now, here are some goals and plans for 2018. They can be boiled down to WordPress, Computer Science studies, and writing.
![Thumbnail for "Designgineering Chronicles [WiH]: The First Month"](https://notlaura.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/dc92c56306439c91a5f96da3cfc04f81-500x500-c-default.jpg)
