Weeknotes 25:13

March 30, 2025

Week of March 23–29

I have two weeks before I start my new job on April 9. It is nice to be able to enjoy some “free time” now that the pressure and stress of the job search has been relieved. I am taking some time to reflect on the year to help identify lessons that I learned both personally and professionally. It has been good to give myself this space at the end of a long job search and time of trial.

I enjoyed getting to celebrate my new job with people online and in person this week. I shared the news on LinkedIn and took the time to reach out to several people who had played a bigger role in helping me over the past year.

I will be traveling up to Michigan in two weeks to onboard for my new job at Revive Our Hearts. I booked flights and made a rental car reservation. I also got to give some input into the new work computer that they are ordering for me. I am looking forward to getting to meet people in person and start this new chapter.

Tinkering

I spent some time tinkering on my site on Saturday. Jeremy Keith mentioned having a “on this day” page in his archives and I liked the idea. I had recently wrote some PHP scripts to do this very thing on my Memory Keeper personal project. I took that script and tweeked it a bit to create my very own “on this day” page for my site. As Jeremy mentioned, it is probably of no interest to anyone but me. But I consider myself my main audience for my site so it was worth taking some time to add it.

If it works, it’s right

I like the attitude behind Andy Bell’s post, If it works, it’s right. He mentions how he disagreed with another person’s approach to solving a problem. It is not the approach that Andy would use, but as Andy points out, the other person was not wrong. The approach worked for that person. In the end, it is not about coming up with the right solution but finding the solution that works best for you or your team.

CSS and development in general is very flexible. There are more than one way to solve a problem. There is not a definitive right solution. And there are times when what works is more important than doing it “right.” There are solutions that I know I could have done better but the important thing is to ship and launch projects and that means that our solutions are not always as good as we want them to be. Not that we are negligent and ship “bad” products.

One reason this article stands out to me is that I was having a conversation with my son yesterday. He is taking a Web design class. He has been working on a design and will start coding it out later this week. I told him that I would love for him to send me a zip of the files later in the week so that I can see what he comes up with. He made some comment that his code would not be as good as mine or something along those lines. I had seen some of his code earlier in the semester and made a comment about all the IDs he was using. I was just explaining to him that is sort of a best practice to avoid using IDs in CSS because of the high specificity. But the thing is that it is not wrong for him to use IDs. I just have a preference to not use them.

I tried to assure him that I will not judge his code. I think about how often I look at older code I wrote and want to put my hand over my face. But the code worked. And at that point in my development, it was right because it worked. I might do it differently but it is not wrong. My son is just learning. I don’t want to discourage him. So I need to be careful what I say. I needed that gentle reminder that Andy’s article highlights.

It reminds me of something Andy Budd once shared in a talk. He told us to never be ashamed of our past work and to remember that it reflects where we were at in the process at the time. We are all growing and developing and continuing to hone our skills. So take it easy on others. And take it easy on yourself.

Built-in accessbility checker in Figma

Joey Banks

joeyabanks.me

Woohoo, a big win for accessible design! @figma.com now includes a *built-in* color contrast checker, making it easier to design for everyone. ?

Articles I read

• Derek, the Jesus Geezers and Gene Hackman (Stephen McAlpine) – Stephen’s reflection on community and the sad death of Gene Hackman.
• Text-a-Mess: A one-day app build challenge (John F. Morton) – I love reading about other people’s experiences of taking an idea and just building it. It is a great way to “practice” and acquire the skills from what you are learning. John set a couple of parameters, he wanted to explore building with React again and he wanted to do it in one day.
• The Value of Experience (Jim Nielsen) – A good reminder from Jim.
• I like having a links page (Andy Bell)
• If it works, it’s right (Andy Bell) – I appreciate this perspective from Andy. I try to have this approach as well. So much of the work we do does not have one right way to do it.
• Not an excuse. An explanation. (Chris Ferdinandi)
• Roundabout (Jonathan Snook)
• NIL and the Fate of Men’s College Basketball – I heard one of the announcers during a NCAA men’s basketball tournament game mention that there are less upsets in the era of NIL. I was curious why that was and this article helped answer the questions for me.
• The Midlife Crisis Is Dead. All Hail the Daily Midlife Crisis (Justin N. Poythress)
• Why Christian Men Need Friendship, Not Just “Accountability” (Samuel James)
• Here Comes the Sun (Jonathan Snook)
• The Sons of Sceva and Gen Z’s Spiritual Anxiety (Cyril Chavis Jr. on The Gospel Coalition)
• Five years (Jeremy Keith)
• When the Paychecks Stop: Spiritual Care for the Unemployed (Joe Carter on The Gospel Coalition) – I would like to think through this one more. Having just emerged, it was very personal and I would like to help my own church think through how to care for the unemployed.
• Chris’ Corner: The New Web Safe (Chris Coyier on Codepen)
• The environmental impact of the web we build (Chris Ferdinandi)
• Wokeness as a Tax on Human Nature (Samuel James)
• How Anora Signals the End of Hollywood’s #MeToo Era (Joseph Holmes)
• On Failure (Alan Noble)
• Studio Notes #25 (Dan Cederholm) – Somehow I stopped getting these emails but I resubscribed this week.
• Proving Binaries (Jim Nielsen)
• Cowardly Defaults and Courageous Overrides with Modern CSS (Tyler Sticka on Cloud Four)
• Why Agencies Use Low-Code Tools (Delicious Brains) – I have to say that this article has me reexamining my opinion about this subject.
• I Sold My Agency SuperFriendly (Dan Mall)
• The Paradox of Ease: Why Friction Is Good for You (Trevin Wax on The Gospel Coalition)
• Ohtani, Judge, Soto, Skenes featured in MLB’s ‘Heroes of the Game’ anime campaign (ESPN) – I read this after one of the spots caught my eye (or more appropriately caught my daughter’s eye).

Books I am reading

• Sunday Matters (Paul David Tripp) – I read one devotional a week.
• Everyday Gospel (Paul David Tripp) – Reading through the Bible this year with this devotional.
• The Lord of Psalm 23 (David Gibson)

What I watched

• Assorted third and fourth round games of NCAA tournament (CBS)
• NCIS (Netflix)
• Mad About You (Samsung TV Plus)

Walking

• Sunday – 1.1 miles in 19 minutes (my walk was interupted by phone call from my son who had car trouble on his way back to school in Kentucky)
• Tuesday – 4.17 miles in 1 hour and 12 minutes

What I played

• MLB The Show 20 (Twins) – I went 10-2 this week. I have been having a lot of fun with the Twins. I am taking advantage of the time before I start my new job.
• NBA 2K25 (Nuggets) – I played one game this week and beat the Magic.

Colophon

I wrote this post while listening to Laufey’s Bewitched album. The jazzy, mellow songs were perfect for this activity. I had listened to it while writing another weeknote in the past so I decided to try again today.