Pittsburgh is and always will be my home city. I'm back for an long trip over the holidays and in between some east coast conferences, and it's been a wonderful trip. The grey skies and wintry weather are a welcome break from the monotony of LA sunshine (it's nice but...not for me). Here's what I've been up to.
I'm eating a breakfast burrito at LAX before my flight back to Pittsburgh. Breakfast burritos at the airport before early flights are a ritual for me, and I felt like writing about it.
As part of my mission to conquer Twitter anxiety, I've figured out a solid workflow for quieting notifications on my phone. These things may be obvious, but they are not the default, so decidedly not obvious.
Most of the websites I work on at work are not accessible and won't be any time soon. I had a bit of a realization this week about how to deal with that – accessibility doesn't have to be all or nothing. One step at a time.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.
I have a new project coming up that is the perfect opportunity to refine my WordPress process. Building the site as a "headless CMS" and finally digging into React was at the top of my mind, but after some research, I've decided the head will stay on.
This post has been marinating in my drafts for a few weeks, and I'd like to get it out into the world before I learn a whole bunch through talks and conversations at WordCamp US this weekend and refine my views accordingly.
I’m studying up for a real-deal interview. There will be whiteboards. There will be coding questions much more involved than FizzBuzz. There will be algorithms and math and data structures and all of the things I have successfully avoided for much of my career. This is potentially a […]
JavaScript and I have had a rocky relationship over the past few years. My consulting work doesn't really require a deep understanding of JavaScript, but my newfound resolve to level-up my skills and to obtain a full-time job have deemed that deep understanding quite necessary.
Lara's Dream Employer seeks a UX-Oriented, Senior Front-end Web Developer with advanced HTML/CSS knowledge, working JavaScript knowledge, and a background in illustration or visual design. This role is part of a small front-end team that operates as the link between design and back-end development.
Actually, I'm from a small town in Pennsylvania, but my years in NYC made enough of an impact on me that this article from the New Yorker describes the LA vs. NYC phenomenon impeccably.
In the coding classes I’ve taught (which, for the record, have been part-time, not bootcamps) students’ intentions are often to make their own websites, work on existing ones, or to incorporate web development into a freelance practice. Regarding bootcamps, I’ve met several graduates who began their careers with freelancing, where […]
This is "Year in Review" has a bit of a negative tone. I considered editing this post to make it sound more I-love-my-life-and-work-always for potential employers, but that's no fun! Go ahead and read about 2015, the year that made me want to leave NYC, move to Utah, and work at a bar (which I did end up doing).
I think we've gotten to a point where non-impostors, myself included, are using impostor syndrome as a way to describe ever-human insecurity. The web is in its awkward twenties, and so are many, many of the people working on it. Fortunately or unfortunately, with your twenties comes the inevitable, quarter-life identity crisis.
For those unfamiliar, the Pastry Box Project is a curated collection of thoughts and articles from anyone who works with the web. I wrote an article about cocktails and websites, i.e. my two favorite things, and it was published! You can read it here.
At An Event Apart last week, one speaker asked, “How many of you refer to yourselves as designers? … Developers? … Or maybe you design and develop…so…unicorn?”. The latter had the most hands, along with a few modest chuckles. Let’s take a step back here.
This week, I had a guest post published on CSS-Tricks. You should read it. It kinda blew up. Well, definitely blew up. What started as legitimate comment thread on the post turned quite sour when the article was shared on r/programming: Not a nice way to rephrase my post […]
In a nutshell, progressive enhancement is building "content out", separating the structure of a website (HTML) from its presentation and behavior (CSS and JS). Content should be available regardless of the capabilities of the device, and should not rely on styling or scripting to function at a base level. There are some strong opionions for and against, but it sounds like a good idea to me!
All too often, someone new to the tech world sees coding as some kind of magic language we coders are born with. When you see a programmer slapping away at the keyboard, it’s no wonder! But it’s not magic. Really. Coding is not like this This morning I read a […]
