Weeknotes 19:04
April 29, 2019
Week of April 21-27
Two weeks ago, I started on a new project. It is a survey tool that evaluates progress and then offers a chance to put together an action plan. There are some suggested actions steps and the user can add their own to the action plan and print it out.
After evaluated the design, we decided to use Vue.js. This is my first time using the framework. I am excited about getting my feet wet. I have worked through some tutorials in the past but nothing beats building a real product to really get to know a tool.
Because I am using Vue, I have also had to use Vanilla Javascript. So another challenge for me is learning how to select things not using jQuery. I have learned about these things through books and articles but not really applied it much in my work. So a real-world project has been a great opportunity to learn it and get more comfortable writing scripts without jQuery.
Reading
I did not read any articles this past week but I bookmarked several to read later. Here are some that I hope to read in the near future:
- Tabs It’s Complicated from CSS Tricks
- Inclusively Hidden – I want to get a lot better at writing code that is accessible. Hiding and showing content is one of the areas I still need to think about and develop better habits in coding.
- Top 5 Questions Asked in Accessibility Trainings – Keeping with the theme of reading and thinking more about accessibility and inclusive development
- How Functional Animation Helps Improve User Experience – I have been doing more work with animation and am looking forward to reading about how it helps improve the experience for the user
- Preload, prefetch and other <link> tags – Always good to learn how to improve the page performance
- The WebP Manual – I did get a chance to read this short e-book from Smashing Magazine in one setting. It is a really good introduction to this performance-friendly image format. Has a lot of good tips on getting started.
I am very excited to read Andy Clarke’s Art Direction for the Web. It came in the post on Saturday. Although I have the digital copy already, I waited to read the book until I had the physical copy. I wanted to enjoy the graphical design of the book and you cannot really do that with a digital version.
I have been looking forward to reading this book since last summer when Andy wrote an article to whet our appetites. Originally the book was suppose to come out in September of 2018. Then I thought it was going to come out near the end of the year. And then about four weeks ago, I learned about the launch in an email from Smashing Magazine. The book took much longer to produce than Andy originally planned. So I have waited a long time for this one and was excited when it finally reached my mailbox.
Andy’s books have always inspired me as he explores the creative possibilities of HTML and CSS. I am really looking forward to being inspired by this one.
Avengers: Endgame (No Spoilers)
Another highlight of the week was seeing Avengers: Endgame on opening night. Been looking forward to this one since I saw Avengers: Infinity War on opening night a year ago. My son and I re-watched Infinity War on Wednesday night so it was fresh in our minds when we saw Endgame on Thursday.