Weeknotes 25:23

Posted 4 days ago

Week of June 1–7

CSS Day

Ana Rodrigues giving her presentation, Refactoring CSS. Photo by Josh Tumath

I was really excited a couple of weeks ago when I found out that CSS Day was going to have a live stream option available for purchase. CSS Day is one of the few, if only CSS focused conference that I am aware of. I would love to attend it in person but being in Amsterdam makes that a bit cost prohibitive to me. Maybe in the future. My employer graciously agreed to pay for my ticket.

I watched the afternoon sessions for Thursday and Friday, which coincided with my morning. I watched 3 sessions on Thursday and 4 on Friday. My favorite talks of the ones that I watched were:

  • Cyd Stumpel’s CSS tried to come for my job where she talked about view transitions
  • Ana Rodrigues’ Refactoring CSS, which was extremely relevant to me in my new job.

I also enjoyed hearing Rachel Andrews. Brecht De Ruyte is a great story teller and very entertaining. I enjoyed hearing from Hidde and getting some very practical tips on environmental sustainability.

I am looking forward to watching the sessions that I missed over the next two weeks. I am particularly looking forward to Ahmad Shadeed’s Smart Layouts, Adam Argyle’s Level Up Your Scroll UX, and hearing from Chris Coyier. I saw Chris give his first conference talk at the inaugural Front-End Design Conference in 2009.

Looking elsewhere

After feeling a bit discouraged after reading Behind the Curtain: Top AI CEO foresees white-collar bloodbath, on Monday, Robb Owen’s article, Looking Elsewhere, was a breath of fresh air for my craftsman soul. My heart resonated with so much of what Robb wrote.

“Against the backdrop of mass layoffs, LLMs, site-builders and vibe coding what does it mean to conscientiously build for the web, and where do we go from here?” Robb does a brief survey of the current landscape in front-end development (hype-driven development) and suggests a way forward looking to two other industries–the tailor made fashion houses of Paris and the farm-to-table movement in restaurants- and how they upheld higher standards.

I appreciate that Robb does not think any of the ideas presented in his article are the miraculous savior of the industry. But it gave me hope that there are other artisans and craftspeople of the Web who are willing to look for a better way forward.

I wrote my own post sharing my thoughts in response to what Robb wrote. I had seen Kevin Powell use this format in video and audio where he read sections of Josh Comeau’s The Post Developer Era. I decided to try something similar in written form. I secured permission from Robb to reprint his article with my commentary.

Read my response, Looking elsewhere, a reflection

Front End Study Hall

I saw a link on Bluesky on Tuesday to Front End Study Hall, an HTML and CSS focused IndieWeb popup meeting. I decided to check it out. There were about 11 of us. The moderator gave us a question to answer and the discussion went from there. I wasn’t shy and chimed in on several topics. I enjoyed the time and plan to participate again in the future.

The kickoff question was: “Cyberculture’s post about prominent books by Siegel, Zeldman, and Nielsen books, 3 gurus of 90s Web Design. What other authors from that time were notable? And what authors and writers would you add up to today?” I plan to write a post with my answers in the near future.

Stepping away is always the right move

I had shared last week how I hit a roadblock on a freelance project I was working on. It was frustrating to spend 2-3 hours on something and come away with nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Between some busyness in my personal life, the need to step away from the problem, and a deadline that was not immediate, I decided to not work on it again that week. But I did do some thinking about it in some of the free spaces I had.

I decided to take time off on Wednesday from my day job so that I could take care of some personal business and so that I could spend some concentrated time on the problem. After doing some research, I began to see a solution appear. It was nice to have more concentrated time rather than a couple hours at the end of the day to give attention this project.

I was able to come up with a working solution pretty quickly and then spend a little bit of time refining it. It was load off of my shoulders to solve the problem. And it was good to get some personal business done that day as well.

I have found that it is always the right move to step away from problems when I get stuck. It can be hard to tear yourself away. I want to work on something until I can solve. It is hard to step away and not let it consume you or take attention away from the important relationships at home. But I have found time again that a little bit of space leads to a fresh perspective and usually a fairly quick solve to the problem.

Articles I read

What I listened to

Flexbox is not easier than Grid (Kevin Powell) – “Today I’m tackling a topic that’s been on my mind: the perception that Flexbox is easier than Grid. I share my frustrations and insights while revamping my CSS Demystified course.”

What I watched

CSS makes sense when you realize it’s a collection of algorithms (Kevin Powell, YouTube) – I appreciate how Kevin explains the why behind CSS and helps people to understand why things may not work the way you would expect.

  • CSS Day 2025 livestream – I watched 3 sessions on Thursday and 4 sessions on Friday of CSS Day over livestream. You can buy recordings of the 2025 sessions for $99.
  • M*A*S*H (MeTV)
  • NCIS (Netflix)
  • Rogue One (Disney+)
  • Thunder vs. Pacers, Game 1 of NBA Finals – What a game. We were rooting for the Pacers. What an ending.

Books I am reading

Walking

  • Monday – 4.03 miles in 1 hour and 14 minutes
  • Wednesday – 4.05 miles in 1 hour and 13 minutes

What I played

  • MLB The Show 20 (Twins)
  • NBA 2K25 (Nuggets)

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