Side projects are often done as a for-fun and potentially for-profit outlet for web developers looking to break free from client projects where they have little control. Unfortunately, just like client projects, side projects can easily spiral out of scope to the point of developer exhaustion. In this episode, Matt and Mike explore how scope creep can derail personal projects, offering practical strategies to prevent it. They discuss defining a solid MVP, niching down to maintain focus, and prioritizing features using methods like the MoSCoW framework. By setting clear boundaries and establishing achievable milestones, developers can avoid common pitfalls and keep their side projects on track. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/side-projects-the-eternal-loop-of-never-ending-features Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

In this episode Matt and MIke, continue their deep dive into the toughest concepts in web development. The guys tackle topics like mastering responsive design, ensuring web accessibility (a11y) for all users, and the complexities of server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), and client-side rendering (CSR). They also explore the challenges of event-driven architectures, managing project dependencies efficiently, and setting up smooth CI/CD pipelines. Whether you're building scalable web applications or just want to level up your dev game, this episode has actionable insights to help you through some of web development's most intricate concepts. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-toughest-concepts-in-web-development-part-2 Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode, enjoy 40% off your subscription using our link and code (Link: https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD40  Code: HTMLPOD40) This offer is only available for the first 10 people that use the link and code!! Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Web development is not easy! Websites need to work on multiple devices, respect SEO best practices, and must deliver everything from blogs through complex design programs. These demanding sees web developers navigating not only demanding topics, but ones that are also difficult to engineer, implement, and maintain. In this episode, Matt and Mike start a discussion the toughest concepts in web development. In this first of two parts series, the duo discussed: Asynchronous programming & promises, state management, security concerns (ie XSS CSRF, SQL Injection), performance optimization, scalability & architecture, and cross-browser compatibility. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-toughest-concepts-in-web-development-part-1 Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Matt and Mike had a great conversation with Shashi Lo this week! Shashi is a senior software engineer at Microsoft and founder of Gridiron Survivor - an open source NFL Survivor pool SaaS application that’s designed to help the junior developers working on it further their skills and knowledge through real-world experience. Unlike self-taught personal projects, Shashi walks us through how his mentees on the Gridiron Survivor project are guided through corporate standards such as writing clean code and covering all the bases with proper testing - concepts that may seem superfluous on small portfolio project, but are a must-have in a corporate setting. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/mentoring-developers-with-shashi-lo Companion Article: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/blog-posts/bridging-the-skills-gap-empowering-junior-developers-through-apprenticeship-programs  

While trying to solve a coding problem this week, Matt found himself buried in a collection of solutions offered by ChatGPT and Google search results. Some of the solutions were completely new to him and so he got to thinking about how "safe" it would be to implement them. Not from a security perspective, as there wasn't any private data involved in this particular case, but his concern was more for the page UX itself. How efficient were the solutions he was about to implement, would it slow the web page down? Were these new topics even being used in the correct context and being implemented appropriately? In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed how to think through problems like this in terms of project architecture, website performance, and troubleshooting/research time spent. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/is-your-code-too-complex-troubleshooting-fixing-and-implementing-solutions Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode, enjoy 20% off one-time purchases and subscription using our link and code (Link: https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20 Code: HTMLPOD20) Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

There is a lot of tech out there! It seems every day someone is coming out with a new way to edit images, use AI, build websites, assist developers, and the list goes on and on. This week, Matt and Mike decided to zoom in and discuss some of the tech that they enjoy using at the moment including Svelte/SvelteKit, TailwindCSS, Supermaven, and much more! The technologies that web developers change all the time - and not always obvious things like frameworks and plugins, but also more logistical elements of the job like where to host, compress images, etc. What are you using in your projects?   Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/tech-we-love-as-web-developers-sveltekit-vercel-supermaven-and-more   Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Scope creep is a very dangerous thing that can endanger a team's productivity and mental health. It involves taking the original scope of a project, and slowly but surely, adding more and more tasks to it. Often times scope creep is not done nefariously, as those that request tasks from developers are ignorant of the technical complexities of their requests. Unfortunately, there are those that will add to a project's scope willingly to take advantage of their employees, or there may be some mismanagement within the company that leads to additional work in a short period of time. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the who, what, where, when, and why of pushing back against customer requests in order to keep projects in-scope. They discussed the importance of pushing back sometimes, when to push back, and whether it's appropriate to push back when acting as a freelance contractor. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/saying-no-to-scope-creep-how-web-devs-can-push-back Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode, enjoy 20% off one-time purchases and subscription using our link and code (Link: https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20 Code: HTMLPOD20) Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Code quality matters! When developers write better, cleaner, and safer code - their deliverables improve significantly. When code is safer, there are less problems with crashes and unintended errors. When code is cleaner, team members find it easier to read, peer review, and add on to down the line. Improving the quality of your code is easier said than done, however, as it takes more than just "getting good" at coding. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the importance of and how to improve your code quality by keeping coding styles consistent with your team, refactoring, writing good tests, using prettier formatting, and linting. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/why-code-quality-matters-testing-linting-refactoring Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Should AI run in the cloud or on-device? Some people think that on-device is the only way forward as it ensures a certain level of privacy, while others worry that our local hardware (PC, smartphone, smartwatch) is not powerful enough to deliver cutting-edge features. In this episode, Matt and Mike explore how on-device AI and cloud-based AI work. The guys discussed the benefits of each approach while analyzing and debating their differences on both a hardware/software and user-experience level. Are you worried about your AI information being out in the cloud?  Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/should-our-ai-data-be-in-the-cloud---on-device-ai-vs-cloud-based-ai Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode, enjoy 20% off one-time purchases and subscription using our link and code (Link: https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20 Code: HTMLPOD20) Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

This week Matt and Mike took a trip down memory lane to discuss, debate, and reflect on some of their biggest projects that shaped their careers as web developers. As with many tech careers, the road to becoming a web developer is anything but straightforward. In the case of Matt and Mike, their planned IT startup took a hard right turn based on the opportunities they were afforded over the years such as working for a large medical clinic under the scrutiny of strict government regulations, being caught up in Chrome OS fever as Chrome Apps landed on Windows, helping a large fast food franchise deliver important info to their franchisees, and many more! The pathway to becoming a web developer is anything but linear and the guys hope that this episode's conversations prove that there is no one single pathway to success in the web dev game. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/our-biggest-projects-how-we-became-developers Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

It's often said that in order to become a junior developer, you should learn the three foundational pillars of web development before moving onto a framework, plugin, or other specialty. These pillars are of course: HTML (for site structure), CSS (for page styling), and JS (for advanced UI interactivity) - we refer to them as vanilla tech. Way back in the day, these pillars were pretty much the only thing most developers used to create websites (minus backend tech), but these days most jobs require that you have experience with a popular toolset like React + Next.js, or Svelte + SvelteKit. In this episode, Matt and Mike check in on HTML, CSS, and JS in 2024. The duo discussed these technologies through the frontend lens exclusively, pushing aside things such as JavaScript usage in the backend, or being typed by TypeScript - in order to capture what these technologies were initially used for. Through this discussion the guys question how relevant vanilla tech is 2024, and whether or not it is primarily used as a learning tool by today's standards. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/is-vanilla-tech-just-for-juniors-exploring-the-role-of-html-css-and-js-in-2024 Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode, enjoy 20% off one-time purchases and subscription using our link and code (Link: https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20 Code: HTMLPOD20) Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

In this episode, Matt and Mike dive deep into the results of the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2024, uncovering the latest trends, technologies, and tools shaping the programming world. From the most popular programming languages and frameworks to the evolving work environments and career satisfaction of developers, the guys break down the data to give you a comprehensive look at the state of software development today. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights into where the industry is headed and how you can stay ahead of the curve. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/developers-hate-technical-debt-stack-overflow-survey-2024 Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Today, we're diving deep into the vital topic of navigating ethics in web development. As developers, we face numerous decisions that fall under the umbrella of ethical practice, from ensuring digital privacy and user consent to integrating accessibility features and prioritizing data security. We'll explore how ethical considerations influence our choices, such as selecting sustainable hosting options, responsibly implementing cutting-edge technologies like AI, and making mindful UI/UX design decisions. Additionally, we'll discuss the complexities of client intentions and our responsibility as developers to uphold ethical standards. Join Matt and Mike as they unpack these essential aspects to create a more ethical web. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-right-way-to-code-navigating-ethics-in-web-development Magic Mind Trial using our link (https://magicmind.com/HTMLPODTRIAL) and our code (HTMLPODTRIAL) - Full details can be found in the show notes! Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio    

Web development is regarded by many as an absolute cluster f*ck. You can't just grab the "right" language and start making a website, there is a seemingly endless supply of no-code tools, libraries, JavaScript frameworks, and more. Even if you and a developer friend are trying to make the exact same project, your finished product will likely be largely the same...but the technology that powers it can be wildly different. What makes matters worse is that problems in the industry are addressed relatively quickly by community projects that of course spawn competing alternatives, and then rather quickly (at times) become old and outdated by even more modern solutions that push them out of the way. While it's great to have such an active community, if you're looking from the outside in, the web development industry looks like a total disaster. In this episode, Matt and Mike explore why web development seems so messy. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/why-is-web-development-a-cluster-f-ck Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Explore the dynamics of synchronous vs asynchronous work as Matt and Mike discuss, analyze, and debate these two popular team workflows. Learn the pros and cons of both work styles, including security, flexibility, and team collaboration. Discover how these methods impact web developers with practical examples of onboarding, mentoring, and deep work. Tune in to understand how to effectively balance sync and async environments for optimal productivity and employee satisfaction. Whether you're a team leader or a solo developer, this episode has valuable takeaways for everyone in the tech industry. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/async-work-for-web-developers-revolution-or-redundancy Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers.  

In this episode we dive into the toughest situations web agencies face. From budget cuts and impossible deadlines to social media crises and viral success, Matt and Mike discuss practical strategies for managing stress, negotiating with clients, and maintaining quality. Learn from the guys' experience as they explore real-life scenarios like “The Budget Slash,” “The Perfect Storm,” and “The Design Diva,” offering insights and solutions to keep your agency thriving. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/navigating-difficult-situations-as-a-web-agency   Thank you to this episode's sponsors! Check them out below. Limited Time Magic Mind Discount: Up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one time purchases. Use our link and code (at checkout) to claim the discount! Link (affiliate): https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20 Discount Code: HTMLPOD20 Wix Studio: The Web Platform for Agencies and Enterprises Give Wix Studio a try today: https://www.wix.com/studio

In this episode, we dive into the challenges companies face when balancing rapid feature development with maintaining stability and processes. We explore what it means to build fast, including establishing a tech stack that allows for quick iteration, easy rollback, and efficient database management. We discuss the importance of getting ideas from concept to production swiftly, while ensuring quality through early QA involvement. The episode also covers why it’s sometimes okay to break things, especially when dealing with a small user base, and the critical areas where building fast is not advisable, such as user data security. Join us as we unpack strategies for maintaining velocity without compromising on quality. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/build-fast-and-break-things Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers.

In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed time management and time respect as a web developer, specifically diving into their thoughts on different types of billing, invoicing, and availability requirements. Some freelancers feel as though they should charge for every minute that they're on the clock since they're trading their time for money - while others believe more in the project angle, they're dedicated to getting the job done and therefore will often work "unpaid overtime" or will essentially be on-call for no additional pay. For small business owners, the duo also discussed their thoughts on invoicing, comparing and contrasting invoices will very little detail, versus ones that describe every thing that was done and how much those items cost. Then towards the end of the episode, the guys zoomed in on package deals - and how loose or strict you should be when enforcing the confines of a package deal (ie website maintenance package). Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/do-you-respect-your-time-as-a-web-developer   Limited Time Magic Mind Discount: Up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one time purchases. Use our link and code (at checkout) to claim the discount! Link (affiliate): https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20 Discount Code: HTMLPOD20

Learning web development is not a clear linear path. At the highest level there's frontend development and backend development...but these categories break down into a tonne of different technologies including (but not limited to) React, Vue, Svelte, SvelteKit, HTML, CSS, JavaScript....and the list just keeps going on. For a beginner, this spider-web of technologies seems like an insurmountable learning path. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed where they think you should start learning web development, touching on different pathways, and eventually laying out their preferred path in detail. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/where-the-f-ck-do-i-start-learning-web-development Scrimba 20% discount - time limited, details in show notes: https://scrimba.com/?via=htmlallthethings

The classic 5-page website is often called a "small business website" or a "basic website" among web development agency owners. It's a staple of the industry because it symbolizes a basic site that many businesses will start their online presence with, and it can easily be sold as a package deal alongside hosting to onboard new clients. As the web has matured, other tools such as Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow have come up with DIY solutions that bring the power of web design, ecommerce, and hosting to users with often a single affordable monthly fee. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the small business website landscape to-date in 2024. Through their discussions they debate whether it's worth it for a web dev agency to offer 5-page small business websites anymore, if there's any value in a 5-page website in today's SEO, and whether a business' budget makes a difference which direction they should go. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/do-small-businesses-need-web-dev-agencies-in-2024 Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/links/htmlallthethings

This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with Clark Sell, the creator of THAT Conference to discuss the importance of community among developers, and different relationships that you can have with your community. We also discussed at length the who, what, where, when, and why of THAT Conference - diving into Clark's inspiration when creating THAT, what the event is all about, and what the speaking landscape is like there. We even talked a little bit about Clark himself and what he used to do before THAT. Get 10% off Wisconsin 2024 tickets with promo code: HTMLALLTHETHINGS Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/what-is-that-conference-w-clark-sell Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/links/htmlallthethings  

JavaScript has seen its fair share of insults and critiques over the years, with some developers outright refusing to touch it and other skirting around the edges by relying heavily on the server-side of things (ie PHP). Love it or hate it, JavaScript is what the web runs on and it's been that way since 1995. Vanilla JavaScript runs in the client's browser, bringing interactivity to user interfaces, while keeping the server out of calculations and computations. With the introduction of Node.js, JavaScript escapes the client-side, and moves it's way into the backend scene. With such a versatile language, why does JavaScript get so much hate? Is JavaScript really that bad? Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/is-javascript-really-that-bad Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/links/htmlallthethings

Creating a website is not a one-size-fits-all scenario, as projects can vary wildly in complexity and amount of work needed. Over the years we have come up with a process that defines a clear structure while providing enough flexibility to accomodate most web development projects for small to medium businesses. The process helps keep development on-track, payments flowing, mitigates working with clients that aren't serious about their project.  Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/our-website-creation-process-2024 Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Sometimes web development deadlines can come up faster than expected, or even worse, your workload may overwhelm the amount of time you have left until a deliverable is due. When this happens, it's easy to panic, procrastinate, or even quit altogether. Thankfully, development has a lot of wiggle room in how tasks are performed and can typically be worked on anywhere (in office, at home, on-the-go). This week, Matt and Mike discussed how to save time when you're working on your website's UI, more specifically, Matt reflected on a recent busy week where he pulled out all the stops on time saving while doing front-end development. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/time-saving-tips-for-front-end-developers Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with Jacob Jackson, the creator of TabNine and Supermaven to discuss AI as a whole. It's no surprise that LLMs are taking over most of the current chatter in the tech world, but their rapid rise in popularity has also led to a rapid rise in concern. Many people believe that AI is coming for our jobs, working to replace human developers and other workers. On the other side of the fence, people are using AI to boost their productivity both at work and at home. Developers seem to be getting a great deal of this productivity boost with the creation of tools like Supermaven that can help speed up coding. If you've ever had any questions or doubt surrounding AI, or LLMs in general, then you're not going to want to miss this episode. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/will-ai-replace-us-w-the-creator-of-tabnine-and-supermaven-jacob-jackson Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings  

Web development is a multifaceted field that demands the integration of numerous technical skills for success. Given its complexity, it's common to encounter various pitfalls while navigating the terrain. In this episode, Mike divulges a list of insights he wishes he had known before embarking on a career in web development—advice that could have spared him time and frustration. This includes mastering your tools to fully leverage them (such as AI), recognizing the importance of completing projects, the advantages of engaging with a community, and many other valuable tips. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/things-i-wish-i-knew-before-becoming-a-web-developer Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

What should you do when you need to build a website quickly? While Matt and Mike often say that you should take the time to create a website that you're happy with and will last a long time, sometimes your situation demands that the job be done quickly. In this episode the guys discussed how to build a website quickly using not just ready-made solutions like no-code tools and templates, but also productivity drivers such as hiring out developers while you and your team work on content at the same time. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/how-to-build-a-website-quickly Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings  

Transitioning from coding to management can be a career goal for some, and a dreaded pathway for others. In his recent work experience, Mike has been managing a team of developers while continuing to code a bit himself. In this episode, Mike shares his recent experiences and enlightens us with some of the lessons he's learned along the way. While managing a team of developers may seem easy for those at a senior development level, it's easy to forget that the code is not the only thing you have to worry about, the human element becomes a factor that can make or break a team's productivity and effectiveness. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/lessons-ive-learned-from-managing-a-team-of-developers Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

SEO is an important part of a healthy website, but it can be a lot harder than it looks. When you follow advanced SEO guides, or use programs that scan your site for SEO problems, you'll commonly come out with a laundry list of fixes that will take weeks to implement and a developer's expertise to install. These advanced SEO checks can help you modify your site down to the smallest SEO molecule, but it's a large undertaking that can easily be pushed off for months or years. In this episode, Matt and Mike steer away from the intricate and daunting, opting to cover SEO tips that you can implement on your website today. The guys touch on topics like writing more content, defining your website, learning keyword research, and technical SEO. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/seo-tips-you-can-implement-today Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Hiring junior developers has become a hot topic as of late with AI threatening to take their place and some employers outright refusing to hire self-taught developers citing the quality of their work as justification. The problem with taking out this critical career starting point is that we're breaking the traditional career cycle - junior developers get hired, learn skills to become a senior developer, then eventually change over to management, or decide to retire. By "turning off the tap" of new talent we're essentially limiting the amount of professional developers that there will ever be, forcing salaries to rise, and companies to poach each other's talent (more than they already do). In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed why you should still be interested in hiring junior developers at your company in order to keep the industry happy and healthy. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/we-need-to-hire-junior-developers Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

What is the best way to make a website? Websites can be made with no-code builders, custom code, marketing software, and unique combinations of available tech. Even if we narrow down our choice to custom code, we're still left wondering what our tech stack should be. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed if there is in fact a best way to make a website. Websites are complex and they're made for humans, whom are also complex. Beyond technical requirements we have to consider the site's audience, who will be editing content, deadlines, and social limitations. Just like many things in life, there may be an objectively best way to make a website...somewhere in the gray area, after you've analyzed your needs, wants, and realities. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/is-there-a-best-way-to-make-a-website Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Today we celebrate this past week's milestone of 300 released episodes. Now we know that this number is a bit wishy-washy because we have some "side episodes" like Tidbits and Web News...and it doesn't help that we changed how we number our episodes in the feed at some point down the line. But despite all that, we're considering the episode that released just this past Tuesday as of recording this, as episode 300! In this special edition episode, we won't be talking so much about web development, but instead of reflecting on the past 300 episodes of the HTML All The Things Podcast and discuss our future goals on where we want HATT to be in the future. Thank you all for listening and here's to another 300! Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/celebrating-300-episodes-whats-next-for-html-all-the-things

This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with the creator of MacOS Web, Puru Vijay to discuss how creating projects can help land you a job in the web development field. MacOS Web has come up in Puru's job interviews and has helped him build a connection with the development community, including those that are hiring. He is also passionate about contributing to open source projects and ensuring that navbars at the bottom of smartphones have left-handed and right-handed detection. Matt and Mike had a blast with this interview and hope that you enjoy it too! Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/make-a-project-get-a-job-w-puru Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

AI is a hot topic these days with LLMs dominating much of the tech talk we see online. In the web development scene, chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot are able to develop and debug code through simple conversational prompts that don't require complex developer-level knowledge. This simplicity has brought with it a lot of discussion and debate about AI's role in the development space. Will it replace all developer jobs? Is it simply another tool to increase a developer's productivity? Should aspiring junior developer use AI in their learning. In this week's episode, Matt and Mike discussed learning to code alongside ChatGPT and Copilot. The guys explored the dangers of using AI while you learn, when you should reach for a chatbot, and then touch on their thoughts surrounding the future of the industry. Will Devin take all our jobs? Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/should-junior-developers-use-chatgpt-to-help-them-write-code Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Vendor lock-in in web development refers to a situation where a company becomes overly reliant on a single vendor's products or services, making it difficult and costly to switch to another provider. This can lead to several issues, such as reduced flexibility, high switching costs, and a lack of interoperability with other systems. This might mean that a business is using a specific technology stack or platform that does not easily allow for migration to other systems, potentially leading to increased costs and limited innovation. On the flip side, vendor lock-in can provide benefits to a business such as great pricing (ie sales and loyalty benefits), increased productivity as users master a limited toolset, and the avoidance of "reinventing the wheel" repeatedly with custom code. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed vendor lock-in in both a negative and positive light. Breaking down what you should be looking out for when choosing vendors to build products with. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/beware-of-vendor-lock-in Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Free tiers are no stranger to web developers as many look to them to get them started on a new tool, try out hosting, or help with some basic design work. The problem is that free tiers are sometimes downgraded, or even completely removed from existence if a service decides that they're more trouble than they're worth. For those relying on free tiers to do their work, this can spell disaster and even cause some businesses to shut down. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the dangers of free tiers, what they're good for, and why you should be ready to pay up at some point down the line. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/free-tiers-are-dangerous Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings  

Kevin Powell, known to many as the King of CSS, joins Matt in this packed episode to discuss the current status of CSS, how to tailor your content absorption for learning, and more. The duo discussed whether or not popular CSS toolkits (ie SASS, TailwindCSS) outweigh the need to learn vanilla CSS. They also discussed whether naming conventions like BEM are still relevant since most web developers use frameworks that have localized CSS per component. And that's just getting started, the guys also discussed tutorial hell mitigation, browser support + using features in production, focusing your educational content absorption, and much more. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-styling-the-web-learning-through-content-w-kevin-powell Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

WordPress is a very popular tool for making websites that can be easily extended to get the job done. While the original focus of WordPress was blogs, over time other websites started being created with it through the use of plugins like WooCommerce (eCommerce sites), ACF (dynamic data-driven sites), and Elementor (sites that can be built visually). This versatility fuels WordPress' continued popularity, but also brews a community that believes it's a bloated and dated tool. Having recently make a website with WordPress, Matt takes us through a deep dive of what he believes is an identity crisis stemming from Gutenberg/FSE, no built-in disaster recovery, and limitations forcing the use of multiple plugins. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/wordpress-is-a-no-code-tool-that-requires-coding Learn with Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

With the tech job market seemingly exploding with layoffs recently, nailing your technical interviews is possibly more important than ever. With that said, there are a lot of opinions out there on how much prep you should be doing and whether you should be applying everywhere, or just to a few select places so you can focus your studies. This week we had that pleasure of speaking with Kyle from TechSquidTV to discuss all things technical interviews. We also discussed what to do after you've been laid off and then switched gears to discuss the marrying of hardware and software together into unique projects. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/technical-interviews-exposed-w-kyle-techsquidtv Learn with Scrimba - https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Progressing through your web development career is unique depending on the companies you decide to work for, but there are some common positions that companies will use to help guide their promotion process. These positions include junior developer, developer (intermediate), senior developer, tech lead, and staff engineer. Each one of these positions will have a unique flare depending on who's setting up the teams but in general as you climb the ladder through them you'll collect more cash, more responsibility, and slowly transition to less code/more management. In this episode Matt and Mike discussed the common promotions that web developers progress through and how they can vary company to company. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/junior-developer-vs-senior-developer Learn with Scrimba - https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Work-life balance is an important topic to talk about in the tech field, especially in 2024 with the recent layoffs and overall industry downturn. It can be easy to sacrifice some personal time to log extra hours at the office in an attempt to give yourself some job security or impress your boss. The problem is that this can be a slippery slope that leads you to work all the time for no additional pay and if your company restructures, or has problems keeping up revenues, you may still get a layoff. Digital availability is also a major problem in the tech field and other industries that rely on technology heavily - work is always ready to be done 24/7, with messages and emails coming in at all hours of the day. It's easy to just "check one email" when you get home from a long day at the office, quickly leading to getting pulled into a situation that could have you working throughout the evening. During these trying times it's important that we keep our families, friends, and mental health in mind alongside our careers. In this episode Matt and Mike discussed the importance of work-life balance for web developers during these trying times. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/work-life-balance-for-web-developers-in-2024 Learn with Scrimba - https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings  

Running a web development agency isn't easy from both the technical and customer service side of things. Luckily, Matt and Mike have been running their web development agency for 7+ years, making plenty of mistakes, and claiming even more successes over the years. In this episode, they lay out the top 5 tips insider tips that have helped them maintain a successful business for all these years including: presenting technical solutions to non-technical customers, avoiding scope creep, pushing back on customer ideas that won't work, and more. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/top-5-insider-web-developer-agency-tips Learn with Scrimba - https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Almost everyone has a unique story on how they joined the field in which they eventually made a career, but many aren't as unique as Francesco Ciulla's. His development journey has lead him to work with the European Space Agency as a full-stack developer, developer relations at Daily.dev, become a Docker Captain, and most recently create a massive YouTube following in just a few short weeks. This week Matt and Mike had the pleasure of sitting down and discussing Francesco's unique developer journey at length discussing his previous jobs, education, passion for teaching and much more! Show Notes - https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/francescos-unique-developer-journey Learn with Scrimba - https://scrimba.com/?ref=htmlallthethings

Web development, often hailed for its versatility, empowers us to create websites, progressive web apps (PWAs), mobile applications, and robust web-based tools. However, beneath the surface lies a complex landscape far from utopian. To make web development sustainable without the need for networking engineers, IT managers, and server admins - tools that go beyond the vanilla platform (HTML, CSS, JS) have become staples of the industry (NodeJS, Svelte/Kit, Angular, etc.). These tools provide web developers with the ability to perform complex and time-consuming tasks with relative ease and without having to touch the underlying layers of technology. The side effect is that many web developers are left learning an absolute ton of technology at a high-level, with very little expertise in one area versus another. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the current mess that web development finds itself in as they converse about the sheer amount of material to learn, abstraction layers, and more. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/web-development-is-a-mess-do-we-need-frameworks-is-there-too-much-to-learn Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Learn how to land a web development job with this week's guest, James Quick. James is a content creator that focuses on teaching web developers through his YouTube channel and podcast. Our discussion this week focused on landing and keeping a web developer role with our conversation focusing on what you should do before landing the job, immediately after getting into your role, and how to keep your career going into the future. First off, our conversation on what to do before getting a developer job focused on studying, coding practice, and standing out as an applicant. Second, we discussed what to do right after landing the role conversing about whether you should keep learning on/off work hours and whether you should make an effort to learn job-related tech or branch out. Lastly, we discussed what to do once you've had a developer job for a while, touching on whether you should bother having a side hustle, how much learning you should do, and if you should update your portfolio or not. At the end of the interview, we asked James to expand and explain Astro, a web framework for content-driven sites. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/how-to-land-a-web-development-job-w-james-quick Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Back in the days of Internet Explorer web developers struggled with keeping their websites compatible across various versions. This problem exemplified as more modern browsers like Firefox and Chrome were added to the mix, forcing many web devs to create websites that could utilize modern features and fall back onto old ones for users still on IE. Today, these problems are largely solved, but not entirely. There is still some feature disparity between Edge, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox...and even now some developers need to continue to support Internet Explorer. It's also widely known that as newer versions of these browsers seem to squash more of these differences, users won't always have the most up-to-date version of the browser due to update neglect, or system compatibility. In this episode, Matt and Mike focus on CSS feature disparity between browsers and how to handle site development when your user base doesn't all have the latest features that you're utilizing. When is it safe to use a new CSS feature on a production website?  Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-browser-support-when-can-i-use-this Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

React is a powerful tool that empowers web developers to create reactive websites and web apps. Unfortunately, sometimes projects built with React can struggle to reach their maximum performance potential. To solve this, Million 3 (million.js) steps in to help make your React project up to 70% faster. Million boasts a simple setup using an easy-to-use installer so that you don't need to spend hours installing and troubleshooting. In this interview episode, Matt and Mike discussed Million.js with Aiden and Tobiloba, exploring when Million should be used, when it should not be used, and what it helps with the most. With the release of Million 3 just this week, the guys learned about some cool new features that should help Million be even more useful than it already is. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/make-react-faster-using-million-3-million-js-w-aiden-tobiloba Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

When a junior developer is assigned to your team, it's easy to give them the "new guy" treatment. You might give them jobs you don't like to do or play some sort of harmless prank on them, but take it a step further and you're in danger of becoming a toxic workplace. Handing over jobs that are simply too difficult for a junior developer and ridiculing them when they inevitably fail is one large example of how a team joke can take a dark turn, forming a habit of treating junior developers poorly in the hopes that they'll "rise to the challenge." In reality, most teams would benefit from having another experienced developer, so why not help the newbie grow into someone you can trust? In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed how to challenge and mentor a junior developer by giving them achievable challenges, avoiding a "trial by fire" that they will inevitably fail.  Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/working-with-junior-developers-teaching-training-and-mentoring Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Subscription fees are any household budget's worst nightmare, but they're not limited to just your favorite TV subscriptions. Web developers are also constantly bombarded by subscription fees for everything from development tools, analytics software, and WordPress plugins. Perpetual licenses (one-time fees) are almost a thing of the past and so everything you reach for at the paid tier ends up becoming a recurring cost that you'll need to make the most of to maximize value. Not only can these costs very quickly spiral out of control, but they're also a hard sell when dealing with a client. Every WordPress developer has surely come across a client that expects a feature-add for free, when the plugin to do so is behind a monthly subscription. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the hidden costs of web development reviewing the dreaded ballooning monthly bill made up of premium WordPress plugins, SEO software, development tools, and more. Thanks to this episode's sponsor Magic Mind. Use our link (https://www.magicmind.com/JANhtml)  and promo code (HTML20) for up to 75% off in January 2024! After January? Our code is still good for up to 20% off! Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-hidden-costs-of-web-development Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Three web development topics grace this episode's contents as Matt and Mike discussed the seemingly never ending tech layoffs that keep making headlines. The guys also discussed HTMX, a lightweight UI library that has taken off in popularity recently to the pleasure of some and dismay of others - is HTMX the "Tailwind CSS" of backend technology? Finally the guys discussed how to handle your family and friends approaching you with their ideas and wanting you to work on them. We've all been there, you're at a family gathering, and someone wants to work with you on their new idea that's sure to "take the world by storm" - or in a twist, sometimes they just want you to be their mentor...what do you do if you just don't have the time?  Thanks to this episode's sponsor Magic Mind. Use our link (https://www.magicmind.com/JANhtml)  and promo code (HTML20) for up to 75% off in January 2024! After January? Our code is still good for up to 20% off! Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/more-tech-layoffs-htmx-is-real-friends-with-ideas Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

This week we revive an old episode format where Matt writes the show notes and interviews Mike without him knowing any of the questions or topics before recording. In this "blind episode" Matt and Mike explore building out your web developer portfolio versus a personal website that covers both your personal and professional life. The guys also discussed choosing your developer career path if you were starting out in 2024, what kind of project they would create if money were no object, and philosophically "look back" at their careers once they've come to a close. Thanks to this episode's sponsor Magic Mind. Use our link (https://www.magicmind.com/html) and promo code (HTML20) for up to 75% off in January 2024! After January? Our code is still good for up to 20% off! Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/building-your-web-developer-portfolio-choosing-your-path-as-a-developer-and-making-an-impact-with-your-career Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

It's a new year, maybe it's time for some new gear? If you're a web developer just getting started this year, or looking to maximize your productivity with the latest gadgets, this week's episode has got you covered. We broke up our gear selections into three budgets including minimum, moderate, and max. Matt and Mike discussed gear ranging from budget refurbished laptops that can help you get started on your web development journey, to fancy sets that can accommodate not only web development but gaming and content creation as well. Our gear guide is sure to help anyone out there wondering what they need to get started coding up websites in 2024. Thanks to this episode's sponsor Magic Mind. Use our link (https://www.magicmind.com/html) and promo code (HTML20) for up to 75% off in January 2024! After January? Our code is still good for up to 20% off! Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/essential-gear-guide-for-web-developers-in-2024 Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

We've all heard of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - the latter being used in both frontend and backend technologies. Despite the utility and versatility of JavaScript, other languages still exist and thrive off of large fanbases such as PHP and Python. Why is this? Isn't JavaScript enough? In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed programming languages that you might find useful as a web developer (or other developer for that matter) other than JavaScript. The duo covered the pros and cons of each of these other languages as they discussed which ones you may be interested in learning after mastering the art of JavaScript. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/is-javascript-enough Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Learn web development for free with learning resources from all over the web including courses, YouTube channels, and written guides.  The holidays are in full swing with many people spending their newfound free time trying their hand at learning web development for the first time. Some are even planning to learn coding as their new year's resolution so they can try their hand at a new career. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed a collection of free learning resources so that you can supercharge your learning without having to commit a small fortune to getting started. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/get-started-in-web-development-for-free Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

AI tools have taken off over the past year touching almost every aspect of the internet, and web development is no exception. Chatbots like ChatGPT and Copilot (Bing Chat) can be used to help write code, troubleshoot, and learn web development in a way that is much more interactive than a traditional Google search. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed how they use these AI tools in both their learnings and production work. The duo covered how to approach these new AI chatbots as they're something that is well beyond the commonplace assistants that we have today like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri. Learn how to add AI to your web development toolkit and get work done faster. Thanks to this episode's sponsor Magic Mind. Use our link and promo code (HTML20) for up to 50% off!  Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

There are a lot of courses and guides out there to help you start learning web development. Despite this abundance, it's unfortunately very easy to fall into a common learning pitfall, such as following a tutorial that's out-of-date, or taking a course that glosses over important parts of the process. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed commonly learning pitfalls and how to avoid them. They also discussed how to go beyond courses to ensure you're learning as much as you can before landing a job. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/youre-learning-web-development-the-wrong-way Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Web developers have a lot of tools to build websites with, but this vast selection opens the door for needless complexities. Needless complexities weigh projects down and can make troubleshooting problems a nightmare. Unforeseen issues arising from tangled webs of WordPress plugins, third-party services updating their endpoints unexpectedly, and installed-yet-forgotten features have taken down more websites than we can count. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed how and why you should avoid needless complexities in your projects and why some complexities are necessary evils. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/make-web-development-easy-avoid-needless-complexities Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

AI has been taking the tech world by storm for the past year or so as new chatbots and tools are created seemingly every day. These tools can help revolutionize the every day workflow for a web developer and Mike has been embracing these changes with open arms. In this episode Matt and Mike discussed this "AI revolution" and how Mike uses these new tools to compliment and enhance his every day tasks on the job. The guys also discussed the massive shake up that OpenAI had with their CEO Sam Altman being fired then potentially landing a position at Microsoft. Please note this OpenAI news is developing quickly so our comments may be out of date by the time this episode is published- original recording date can be found in the show notes for context. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/learn-to-use-ai-to-become-a-better-web-developer Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Are web developers required to do too much? Websites and web apps are getting more complex as some startups rely on web developers to deliver critical company infrastructure, marketing sites, and ecommerce stores. The problem with all these responsibilities is that the knowledge base for web developers has grown exponentially over the past decade, making it a struggle to keep up for existing developers and increasingly difficult for aspiring devs to break into the field. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed Matt's recent critique of the learning journey that web developers need to embark on to get job ready due to the vast amount of skills that are needed in the field. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/are-we-expecting-too-much-from-our-web-developers Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

When you deploy a website how long do you think it'll last before it needs some maintenance, or a design refresh? Will it keep running as long as the hosting bill is paid? This week, Matt and Mike discussed the longevity of a website and whether or not its realistic to assume that they'll run forever - eternally, if you will. Even though they're pieces of software, websites are susceptible to problems that require maintenance, and some websites need regular preventative maintenance to keep things running smoothly. Not to mention the need, or rather want, for design refreshes in order to keep up with the modern standard and competing websites. When clients ask for a website, but don't think they'll need to maintain it after deployment, are they running themselves into a risky situation? How do we keep website maintenance budget friendly? Show Notes - https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/are-websites-eternal-the-longevity-of-a-website Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Out of all the developer productivity tips, enhancing your focus is probably the most important because it can increase your work output, helps keeps you motivated, and can improve your quality of code. In this episode Matt and Mike discussed why focus and concentration is so important to developers and what you can do to help improve it through practice and habit forming. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/why-improving-your-focus-will-make-you-a-better-web-developer Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Learning web development is difficult, even if you're already familiar with it and just looking to update your skills. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss Matt's continued learning journey as he works towards understanding modern full-stack development through Svelte and SvelteKit. This time, Matt has taken a step back from his original project, a passive income tracker, and instead decided to change his approach. Instead of learning full-stack development, struggling through creating and deploying a web app, instead he's decided to break it up into three smaller projects. The first of which will be a modified to-do/grocery list app that will just be using Svelte. Followed by another project focused on backend technologies with SvelteKit. Finally, he'll return to his passive income tracker idea with all he's learned for the grand finale. With this new approach, Matt hopes that he'll retain more information and have a better understand of all the topics he covers, rather than struggling through each and every step of the passive income tracker. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/3-web-development-projects-full-stack-struggles-3 Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed a collection of web development topics including git in school, what makes a good code review, and the return of PHP. Git for version control is a major part of most web developers' toolkits although there seems to be a lack of git training in schools, the place where learning git basics could help future graduates' resumes look a bit more favorable. Code reviews are commonplace in web development teams, but they're not all cut from the same cloth - what makes a code review good? PHP has been called dead by many web developers (even though WordPress uses PHP and is a major contributor to content on the web), but lately it seems like people are talking about it...is PHP back? Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/git-in-school-good-code-reviews-is-php-back Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

You can't get a job without experience and you can't get experience without a job - a classic problem for many beginners across several industries. This problem also plagues web developers as junior devs are left handing out hundreds of applications sometimes failing to get an interview let alone a job. For some, the opportunity to work for free will come up as a low barrier to entry to get some experience, but this move is controversial. Not only are you missing out on money, but you're also providing value to someone else's business for free. Working for free with nothing but experience is nothing new though, as unpaid internships are apart of some college and university programs across many different degrees. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed whether a junior developer should work for free to get work experience, or if they should wait until a paid opportunity arrives. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/should-a-junior-developer-work-for-free-to-get-experience Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT  

When you take your first job as a junior developer you may be nervous about what type of tasks you'll be assigned and the expected quality level of your deliverables. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed some of the types of tasks that you may be assigned as a junior developer. They walk through how and what a manager may ask you to do, and how much detail you're likely to receive before getting started. These tasks range from simple tests of your UI layout skills, through your ability to pull in information from an API and display it appropriately on the site. Every workplace is different and so Matt and Mike also covered some of the common struggles that junior developers may face in their new role including legacy codebases, lack of mentorship, and a toxic work environment. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/what-id-expect-from-a-junior-developer Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Documentation helps web developers navigate CSS frameworks, WordPress plugins, and helpful npm packages. Without it, we're left doing trial-and-error for hours, or left to community support from potentially dated forums. When documentation is bad, it can cost the documentation owner customers and trust from the community, but when it's good, it can save developers time and drive trust in the product. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the price of bad documentation and what makes documentation good from the perspective of a web developer. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-cost-of-bad-documentation-and-how-to-fix-it Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Svelte 5 is coming and with it the addition of Svelte 5 Runes, a replacement for the let, =, export, and $: that we use in Svelte today. Runes replaces this old syntax with function syntax to achieve the same old things and more. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss a brief history of Svelte before diving into what was shown off so far about Svelte 5 Runes. The duo then discuss the learning experience for those studying Svelte 4 and whether they should stop and wait for Svelte 5. This leads to a debate about keeping websites up and running with maintenance, and how updates like Svelte 5 can help or hurt a site in production. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/sneak-peek-at-svelte-5-learn-to-embrace-change Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is how websites prepare and portray themselves to search engines like Google and Bing. The goal of SEO is to generate as much traffic (ideally organic traffic) as possible from the right people - namely prospective customers. The problem with SEO is that many industries and specific keywords are very competitive and require a lot of effort by someone that knows what the search engines want. In order for them to operate effectively they'll need to work with a developer and/or CMS to ensure good technical SEO and be given control over at least some of the website's content (ie blog posts) so that they can try and rank in as many relevant keywords as possible. For small businesses, having someone do their SEO for them seems like a massive gamble, so its a hard sell. If the small business tries to do their own SEO, they may find that their efforts aren't yielding any leads because SEO is not only time consuming, but can also get complex. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss how to deliver the best possible SEO service to a small business that is on a tight budget, with minimal free time to dedicate to content and keyword research. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/seo-for-small-businesses Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Authentication is a critical part of modern websites and web apps. Everything from ecommerce stores through membership sites will almost always have some form of authentication for their users. As a web developer, creating an authentication system can seem daunting because of the security that's involved in storing people's passwords and sensitive account data. It's difficult to keep up with all the security threats out there when you're juggling a DIY authentication system, maintenance, and developing new features. Luckily, there is tooling available for web developers that can help them authenticate their users with minimal effort. Products such as Firebase, Lucia, and NextAuth.js all provide ways to help offload authentication from your developer to-do list. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss why you would (or would not) roll your own auth, and your available options if you don't want to make your own. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/web-development-pitfalls-the-dangers-of-diy-auth Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

It can be difficult to choose the right tech stack for your website or web app because there are so many to choose from. There are more traditional stacks like LAMP, MERN, and MEAN...as well as new serverless stacks that use Vercel/Netlify, Next.js, and Planetscale (MySQL). Furthermore, if you're working for a client in an agency or freelance, a single tech stack might not cut it. It's not uncommon for a client to bring you in to work on their website, setup their newsletter, and code up a new web app. Projects like this might use LAMP w/ WordPress for the website, serverless technologies for the web app, and Constant Contact for the newsletter. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss choosing your tech stack based on its pros and cons, the project's requirements, and how to avoid personal bias that could cost you money. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/how-to-choose-the-right-stack-for-your-clients Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Project planning sounds like it's the job of a project manager, but the truth is that a web developer interacts with so many parts of an online project that project management skills are crucial. When working as a freelancer, or for a small business, there might not even be a project manager on staff, leaving the web developer to manage their own team, time, and communications. Sprints/scrum and agile seem to dominate the project management space and have helped a lot of teams be successful, but as a project manager its important that you use what's right for your team. You might only be working with a few developers and a Kanban board (ie Trello) board, and if that works? Then why change it? In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss project management from the perspective of a web developer - covering how to manage stakeholders, communication channels, and organizational techniques. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/project-planning-for-web-developers Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Side hustles are a popular choice when looking to make additional money on top of your primary income. There are seemingly countless ways to make a little money on the side and many of them are done online. With that said, web developers, whose job it is to create online experiences, should arguably have an upper hand in this space with their technical knowhow and exposure to online marketing. This week, Matt and Mike discussed whether a web developer should start a side hustle. They covered the pros and cons of side hustles, the difference between side projects & side hustles, and whether junior developers have enough time between their job applications & learning to have a side hustle at all. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/do-web-developers-need-side-hustles Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT  

Finding a job as a web developer is difficult right now. We're hot off the heels of the crazy hiring spree during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now companies are tightening their belts. We see tech companies constantly laying people off, and we've been hearing about a recession for the past year or so. The good news is that finding a job as a web developer isn't impossible, as there are still a lot of companies looking for web developers. Many of these companies are outside tech, however, instead they can be found in finance, retailers, logistics, etc. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the current job market, why it's the way it is, and how to navigate it. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/why-is-the-web-developer-job-market-so-tough-right-now Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Choosing the right web host is crucial for your project's success. Web hosting should be seen as the foundation in which your website or web app is built upon. It doesn't matter if you make your app with this framework, that plugin, or have the best content in the business - if the hosting goes down, your project goes down. The problem here is that as a web developer and especially a junior developer, you've spent the majority of your time building and learning on your local machine. Hosting projects locally is fantastic for building, but it doesn't reflect the real-world demands of a website being used by the public. Once deployed your project must withstand varying amounts of traffic while remaining performant, both of these things rest largely on the web host's shoulders - having the right server configuration with the proper networking infrastructure supporting it is crucial. In this episode, Matt takes a look at various web hosting types including shared, dedicated, WordPress, reseller, and nodeJS. Each of these unique hosting types have their own pros and cons ranging from how powerful they are, what their scalability looks like, and how much they cost. The focus of this episode is on what is commonly called "traditional web hosting" or "traditional web hosts" provided by companies such as HostGator, Hostinger, BlueHost, and more. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/what-type-of-hosting-should-you-use-shared-vps-dedicated-reseller-wordpress-nodejs

Your first week as a junior developer can be nerve wracking and anxiety inducing. Not only are you meeting a team of new people, but you're starting a new job as a newbie to coding. This week Matt and Mike discuss how to make the most of your first week of the job, making a great first impression on your team members, and hopefully letting you absorb as much knowledge as you can. By handling social situations with grace, asking valuable questions, and being honest about your capabilities; you'll be well on your way to becoming a valuable development team member.  Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/succeeding-in-your-first-week-as-a-junior-developer  

Web development hackathons can be a fun way to do some friendly competitive programming. The result is often a few great portfolio pieces for those involved and a cool prize for those that come out on top. For Paolo Ricciut and Antonio Sarcevic they not only won the Best Ecosystem Integration award at the SvelteHack Hackathon, but they created a project that could help push the Svelte/Kit industry forward with the creation of SvelteLab. SvelteLab is an in-browser code editor that quickly sets up SvelteKit environments where you can test and share your projects easily. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/how-a-hackathon-changed-their-life-w-paolo-and-antonio Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Learning JavaScript from scratch can be as much about syntax as it is programming concepts, especially when it's your first language. Concepts like knowing how and why you need a place to store bits of data (variables), re-using code snippets instead of writing them repeatedly (functions), making decisions (conditional statements), and working with collections of data (arrays and looping) are all second nature to experienced developers. These concepts are the foundational building blocks that let you solve problems by thinking like a computer (sometimes this is called programmatic logic). In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss these key JavaScript basics including variables, functions, conditional statements, arrays, and looping. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/javascript-basics-learn-these-concepts-first Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Failure is a hard pill to swallow, but it's failure that allows us to grow as developers. When you're learning a language like JavaScript, there are a lot of concepts to take in, and even more ways to accomplish the same task. Sometimes, you'll choose a method that works...only to find out later that it's the "wrong" way to do it because of security, or efficiency. When that happens, many JavaScript developers will take the failure hard and let imposter syndrome take hold. In reality, these things will happen to you, and they should seen as a steppingstone as you work your way through junior developer all the way up to senior developer and beyond. Thanks to this episode's sponsor Clio Websites: https://cliowebsites.com/ Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/failure-will-make-you-a-better-javascript-developer Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Next.js is a popular React framework that recently made some controversial changes with its 13.4 update. App router was moved to stable in this release bringing React server components, nested routers & layouts, simplified data fetching, streaming & suspense, and built-in SEO support. Unfortunately, some web developers are not excited for this release, with a few questioning if these changes align with what React initially aimed to solve. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the Next.js 13.4 update, covering the difference between client and server components, and the community drama that stemmed from these changes. Thanks to this episode's sponsor Clio Websites: https://cliowebsites.com/ Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/next-js-13-4-app-router-client-components-vs-server-components Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT  

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are foundational web development technologies that Matt and Mike recommend web developers learn before trying out a framework (ie React, Svelte). Out of these three pillars, JavaScript is the most difficult to learn, especially for people that have never been exposed to programming before. Learning how to think and solve problems like a computer (programmatic logic) coupled with writing and understanding a brand-new syntax is no easy feat. These difficulties have sparked several guides, courses, and bootcamps all aimed at teaching people JavaScript and other web technologies using unique combinations of theory and project-based learning. Some people, however, will skip taking in any theory at all and go straight for project-based learning, referring to documentation and other written material only when they're really stuck. With such a difficult learning curve for junior developers, can they learn JavaScript through only project-based learning? Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/can-you-learn-javascript-through-only-project-based-learning Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Full-stack development is one of the most difficult web development positions as it covers both the frontend and backend of a website. The frontend is responsible for the user interface, including any logic that powers that interface (ie animations, show/hide elements). The backend is responsible for features working from a server, typically handling security-heavy functions (ie credit card usage), and data manipulation (ie saving your profile changes). Luckily the combination of Svelte on the frontend and SvelteKit on the backend can make full-stack development easier than you might think with a fast development server, easy-to-follow file structure, and syntax that is easily picked up if you're coming from another JavaScript framework. This week Matt and Mike discussed how Svelte and SvelteKit can help you develop full-stack websites and apps faster than some of the other tools out there. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/how-sveltekit-makes-full-stack-easy Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

The tech world moves quickly, and web development is no exception...except that it seems like web development keeps re-inventing the wheel. Us web developers can make a blog in WordPress, Svelte + SvelteKit, React, Webflow, and many more. It seems like we spend most of our time arguing and creating new tools to develop the exact same end products, when we could be innovating and creating the next best thing. For our non-techie customers, they see no difference and form no opinion on whether their blog should be created using Svelte or React - yet we waste tons of hours learning different technologies that can pump out the same projects, with little difference. While the rest of the tech world looks to Apple for what they're calling "spatial computing" with the Vision Pro, and Meta for their affordable AR/VR experiences...websites remain large the same as they were a number of years ago. Does this mean that websites are being left behind, are they old news?  Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/are-websites-old-news-are-they-going-the-way-of-the-newspaper Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT  

Learning JavaScript from scratch can be a real challenge, but once you're through it, your newfound programming knowledge will pay dividends for years into your career. JavaScript is one of the foundational technologies on which the web is built, alongside HTML and CSS. Knowing it gives you insight into how to "think like a computer" and offers a running start when you're ready to learn a JavaScript framework like React, Vue, or Svelte. This week, Matt and Mike discussed how to get started learning JavaScript as an absolute beginner looking to work their way through junior developer and beyond. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/learning-javascript-from-scratch Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT

Coming back to a web development project after a long hiatus is difficult enough for a senior developer, let alone a junior developer. As a newbie when it comes to Svelte and SvelteKit, Matt tried to return to his passive income app weeks after his last visit, only to find himself stumped on what to work on next, and how everything he already had worked. This led him to question whether he should be restarting from scratch, re-engineering everything with the knowledge he remembered up to that point, or to start up a Udemy course to get situated with Svelte and SvelteKit again. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the course of action that Matt took to get himself unstuck on his coding problem so he could continue programming and learning Svelte and SvelteKit. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/full-stack-struggles-2-i-was-at-the-gates-of-tutorial-hell Scrimba Discount: https://tinyurl.com/ScrimbaHATT We receive a monetary kickback if you purchase a Scrimba plan using our link

On top of the growing collection of "must-know" tools in a web developer's arsenal is the famous (or maybe infamous?) TypeScript - a high-level programming language that adds static typing with optional type annotations to JavaScript. Developed by Microsoft, TypeScript can improve the developer experience by allowing the data that is passed around the code to be typed to something specific (ie Boolean), with TypeScript ready to throw an error if the types don't match appropriately through the program. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss TypeScript at length discussing whether you need to learn TypeScript and how to learn it whether you're a beginner, or veteran coder. Using our affiliate link, get 10% off all Scrimba plans - click here! Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/do-you-need-to-learn-typescript-in-2023

Practice makes perfect, so it makes sense when senior developers tell aspiring juniors to "just code" and it will all work out. The problem with "just code" is that a complete beginner will have no idea where to start, or what to code up. Should they use HTML, React, or PHP? What type of project should they code up? In this episode, Matt and Mike hope to lay out a clear pathway on where to start learning web development for absolute beginners. We hope that the discussion will also help those that are acting as mentors for soon-to-be junior web developers. 

The web development community has a collection of hot takes that seem to continuously come up time and time again in social media discussions and podcast debates. Hot takes like the debate of whether or not HTML is a programming language, or if React is good. These, among several other hot takes, are typically rooted in divide among the community as friction points about what tools to use and how to use them spark fierce debate among those that work closely with them. In this week's episode, Matt and Mike discussed and debated a collection of these hot takes, offering their opinions on each one. Using our affiliate link, get 10% off all Scrimba plans - click here! Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/web-development-hot-takes-is-html-a-programming-language-does-react-suck

No-code platforms are useful tools for those that don't have the expertise to code up a web app, website, or mobile app themselves, but what if we told you that they can be useful for programmers too? No-code tools can save web developers time by offering a quick and easy creation platform that can typically be expanded upon with code (usually JavaScript). This week Matt and Mike discussed the importance of no-code being used alongside code to help teach new developers and assist veteran programmers with their tight deadlines. Using our affiliate link, get 10% off all Scrimba plans - click here! Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/coding-for-no-coders-javascript-editing

Squashing bugs in your code can be as easy as finding a missing semicolon, but sometimes it can be a grueling process filled with torn out hair and console logs. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the various ways that you can debug your code using methods that span HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. For HTML, the DOM inspector, markup validation, and accessibility checkers can ensure you have a clean structure for the rest of your code to work from. Then in the layout department, CSS debugging methods can include things like using the Computed tab in your dev tools, obvious visual markers (ie red borders on targeted elements), and various Chrome extensions. And finally, JavaScript - the part of your website that is most likely already acquainted with debugging includes methods like using alerts, breakpoints, asking AI to correct errors, and much more. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/debugging-html-css-and-javascript

This episode is for all of you out there that are hesitant to release your website, blog post, or whatever it is you're working on - scared to hand it over to the audience that is supposed to consume it. Instead of releasing what we have on schedule, some of us may hesitate due to perfectionism, burnout, or anxiety over what the users may think. Sometimes a delay is warranted, but often these delays can impair your future decision making on how to update/upgrade your project as you'll have no user feedback to work from. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss working towards a project that is good enough to release, without focusing on all the "what ifs" for release. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/good-enough-is-better-than-perfect-how-to-avoid-burnout-and-launch-your-website-faster

With the current job market seemingly handing out nothing by layoffs, it may seem like landing a junior developer job is an impossible task. While we acknowledge that it is more difficult than it was a year or two ago to land a junior developer job, all hope is not lost. There are always people hiring, even during the worst economic downturns and those that keep at it have a higher chance at succeeding. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss how to help a junior developer in your life succeed through mentorship, connections, peer code reviews, and more. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/helping-junior-developers-succeed

Can an AI chat bot like ChatGPT teach a junior developer web development from scratch? What about an experienced web developer looking to update his skills on a new framework? In this premiere episode of Full-Stack Struggles, Matt documents his experience getting situated with Svelte. As a beginner, he found himself needing assistance quite often and instead of reaching for a blog post, or some documentation, he instead reached for an AI chat bot - namely Bing AI. With the recent advancements in AI technology (especially chat bots), they've been the talk of the internet with how useful they can be as an alternative to Googling and sifting through countless results. Was chatting with an AI enough to answer all of Matt's questions? Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/full-stack-struggles-1-can-ai-teach-me-web-development

In this interview episode, Matt and Mike sat down with Bob Ziroll the head of education for Scrimba to discuss all things React, escaping your comfort zone, teaching courses, and much more! Bob Ziroll is known for his React courses on both Scrimba and freeCodeCamp, he also anticipates starting a YouTube channel sometime soon. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/teaching-you-how-to-react-w-bob-ziroll  

CSS animations are somewhat of an advanced CSS topic that many people skip out on when they're developing their site's MVP, or first few versions. Further into its life though, CSS animations (and transitions for that matter) add a level of polish to a website that can subtly bring about a premium feel for its UI/UX. It's quite easy, however, to go overboard with animations and transitions to the point where they feel out of place, sometimes looking like they're just being done for the sake of another animation instead of complimenting the content on the page. This week, Matt and Mike discussed CSS animations and CSS transitions, discussing the good, bad, and the ugly when it comes to using them on your next project. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-animations-can-make-or-break-a-site  

The advanced technical nature of web development coupled with what seems like a completely new dictionary to memorize can easily overwhelm junior developers before they've completed their learning journey. There is a lot of technical jargon and technical terms that must be understood to read documentation and hold a conversation with developer colleagues. These terms include things like data structures, algorithms, syntax, and much more. This week, Matt and Mike try and help simplify these terms into easy-to-understand definitions, so you don't get bogged down in memorization. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/junior-developers-guide-to-confusing-terms

CSS is a crucial skill for frontend developers to learn and eventually master, but it's flanked by other tools that many employers demand skills in.  Bootstrap, TailwindCSS, and SASS are all tools that assist in the development of user interfaces, by augmenting and expanding what vanilla CSS already offers. With this in mind, it's easy for a junior developer to start questioning when to move their learning journey on from vanilla CSS to something that an employer may have interest in. Many times this question can result in analysis paralysis and over a long period of time, may result in CSS tutorial hell. This week, Matt and Mike discuss this transition from learning vanilla CSS to learning the next step that applies to your goals.  Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/youve-learned-enough-css-heres-whats-next

Do you know enough JavaScript to move onto something else like React, or Svelte? How do you know if you'll be ready? This week, Matt and Mike discuss the vanilla JavaScript fundamentals you need to know before learning new tooling like React, or Svelte. We hope that this episode helps clear the air for any junior developers wondering if they should start the next step of their JavaScript learning journey, or if they still have more vanilla JS to learn.   Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/javascript-fundamentals-you-need-to-know-before-learning-react  

The popularity of WordPress partly comes from its ability to transform into virtually any website creation tool you need. From a membership site managing tool, to an inventory control system with ecommerce, the WordPress plugin offerings seem to be able to make anything happen - with low, to no-code. This is, however, as long as everything keeps working the way it should. With critical errors like the WordPress white screen of death threatening websites at almost every turn, we discuss why knowing how to code (or at least manage hosting files) is a critical skill that many WordPress users don't realize they need...until it's too late.   Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/if-you-cant-code-dont-use-wordpress

Tech layoffs are in full swing right now, with companies shrinking their teams for a variety of reasons. This is a stark contrast to the hiring spree that we experienced and grew used to during the chaos that was the COVID-19 pandemic. Does this mean that junior developers should pack up and find work elsewhere? Should people that are still learning web development leave the field entirely?

The most popular social media & video sharing websites out there now support (or are centered around) vertical video in the form of short-form content that commonly comes in under a minute in length. As the popularity of these short-form videos has taken off in recent years, we've seen this form factor escape smartphones, arriving on desktop computers and TVs. Unfortunately, this presents designers with a perplexing problem as vertical video (portrait aspect ratio) is not ideal for screens that are almost always landscape (widescreen). In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the rise of vertical video (short-form content), discussing & debating on how it is shaping our user interfaces, and how it could even start shaping the hardware we use in the home.

CSS attribute selectors are a lot more powerful than I thought! I wasn't aware that they could not only select elements based on the presence of an attribute, or the presence of an attribute with a specific value, but that they could also "filter" through that attribute value by placing specific parameters on them using just CSS. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss these "advanced attribute selectors" and cap the episode off by discussing another powerful CSS feature - custom attributes, done the right way!  Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-attribute-selectors-custom-attributes

We all have holes in our knowledge that lurk...just around the corner...lying in wait to pounce and completely destroy our confidence and workflow! This scary truth falls into virtually every corner of web development from WordPress devs that have zero experience with PHP, to frontend developers that have no idea what a web server is. This week Matt and Mike discuss some of the web dev technologies that can scare even the most seasoned developer. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-scariest-web-development-tech  

There are a lot of ways to write CSS either directly or indirectly. By using tools like SASS, Bootstrap, TailwindCSS, and many more - you're largely avoiding vanilla CSS, replacing it with a new syntax, or maybe a website building library to make your workflow more efficient. But where does this leave vanilla CSS? Does anyone write just vanilla CSS anymore? And if so....why?   Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/does-anyone-use-vanilla-css-anymore  

Full-stack development demands both frontend and backend development skills, meaning one individual can spin up a website from the hosting, through the database management, and even the user interface. Recently, some people in the developer community have voiced their observations on how complex both frontend and backend development are on their own, stating that it's not really possible to be a full-stack developer if you want to maintain a high level of skill in all the technologies involved. In this episode, Mike breaks down a stack that he has recently started using that should allow him to provide a full-stack's worth of work through 2023.   Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/full-stack-development-has-changed-in-2023  

Browsers and web development tools are constantly evolving their support for new features. This forever changing landscape of our industry can lead many developers to ask whether they can use whatever they're using in production websites, or if they should stick to older methods that are more tried and true. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed how to choose production-ready technologies based on the type of project you're working on.   Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/can-i-use-this-in-production  

Svelte and React are two frontend JavaScript frameworks that, through their immense popularity, draw a lot of debate and questions from the web development community. For established developers, the question looms as to which one you should use and for what reason. Junior developers are left asking what the differences are and which one they should learn first, or if they even need to learn both at all. Today on the podcast, Matt and Mike discuss the differences between Svelte and React, pitting them against each other to debate their usefulness, best features, and which one you might want to use for your latest project.   Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/svelte-vs-react-what-you-need-to-know

CSS selectors are a fundamental piece of CSS that allow it to select HTML elements based on a collection of parameters that the developer has set. CSS selectors can be used to select elements by type, class, ID, and can be written in a more complex way with the use of combinators. This week we discuss CSS selectors in great detail, covering their syntax, popular use cases, and clearing up (hopefully) some confusing bits that junior developers may struggle with. Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-selectors-crash-course

This week Mike discussed his experimentation with ChatGPT and other AI services, like GitHub Copilot. ChatGPT, Lensa, and other AI have been taking the internet by storm recently, whether it be through cool looking profile pictures, or the controversial ways they operate. In this episode we discussed things like how fast AI has advanced in such a short period of time, the opportunities innovators have to make their mark on the industry, and whether or not something like Copilot will take away your programming job.

Deadlines can be difficult for developers to hit due to the complexity and scope creep that happens to most modern web development projects. We've experienced our fair share of quickly approaching deadlines over the years and have learned a collection of time saving methods that we'll be discussing in this episode. Methods like not oversharing with your client - so they don't constantly contact you about every little thing, and doing projects with the tool that makes the most sense - to avoid pigeonholing your toolset based on preference, and more!

Developer relations (aka DevRel) is a newer position that many companies are starting to add to their teams. It's a popular topic among the tech Twitter community and can be a little confusing for those that aren't fully in the loop. So we brought on an expert on the topic, Raza (@razacodes) to explain exactly what a developer relations role is and how you could try your hand at it yourself.

CSS variables are a powerful vanilla CSS feature that you need to start using on your next project. You don't need any frameworks, plugins, or other tooling to get started. When used correctly, they can be a huge boost to your project's organizing and productivity - helping keep things readable and easily maintained. This week Matt & Mike discussed what CSS variables are and how to get started using them in your next project. Written Guide: CSS Variables – What Are They & How to Use Them | HTML All The Things Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-variables-what-are-they-how-to-use-them  

This week we sat down with Chris Ferdinandi to discuss why he thinks the web is in a state of transition, moving away from bloated frameworks and other tooling, towards the use of more "vanilla" or "native" platform features. This less bloated web is where Chris believes we are already transitioning towards, with the hopes that it makes websites and web apps more efficient. Show Notes: The Transitional Web w/ Chris Ferdinandi | HTML All The Things Podcast

Web development has a lot of dos and donts, so today we decided to focus on what NOT to do in web development. Things that all of us have done, like pushing confidential credentials to a public git repo, through client interactions like undervaluing your work. And don't forget, the classic "don't deploy on Friday" which Matt thinks Mike should do anyway, for his upcoming film.

Your first job as a junior developer can be nerve wracking. Not only are you new to coding, but you're also new to the organizational systems that your office has. This week we try and alleviate some of that anxiety by discussing the onboarding process commonly used for junior developers, including the difference between working solo versus a team, as well as a day in the life of a developer.

Raising your prices as a freelancer, or web dev agency can be a challenging process. You have to weigh the possibility that some of your existing customers may leave for cheaper options, while trying to convince new customers that your pricing is worth it. This week we discuss how to raise your prices and how to justify them with the value your customer will receive from all the work you do.  

Are you a good developer? It's a question that all of us have asked ourselves countless times during our career. It usually happens when we're at our lowest, when a site runs into trouble, and you have no idea what's going on. Sometimes when you're trying to learn something new, and you just can't figure it out. If you were a better developer, would you have these problems? Are you a good developer?

Dynamic content on a website is content that changes over time, based on the user's preferences, or other parameters. One of the most common examples of dynamic content is a blog, where the content changes all the time as writers submit new articles and ad banners flip through new ads based on your unique browsing history. Powered by various CMS, these dynamic websites are something that almost every web developer will work with and create in their career.

CSS pseudo-classes expand its capabilities into a tool that can style web pages using advanced sets of parameters, without the need for JavaScript. In this episode, we'll be looking into the :has(), :is(), and :not() pseudo-classes. We'll explore interesting use cases, using them together, how they work, and whether they're ready to be used in a production project.

Hacktoberfest 2022 is upon us, the annual open-source centric event that rewards those that contribute during the month of October. This year coders, bloggers, video producers, podcasters, and more can contribute their works to participating repos on GitHub and GitLab. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss what Hacktoberfest is, and why you should contribute if you can.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week Mike and Matt discussed the skills they picked up from previous non-developer jobs and how they helped them in web development. Even when working in a kitchen, a factory, or an unrelated tech job - there are some skills that you can't learn anywhere else and yet still transfer over to web development.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week Mike and Matt discussed the many use cases for JavaScript. Over the past several years, JavaScript has been steadily exploding in popularity, with an appropriate number of frameworks and tooling being released alongside all the interest. With that though, is there anything that JavaScript can't do? What about what it excels at?

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week Mike and Matt discussed workplace communications including the importance of communication, some tips on being a better communicator, and of course some funny communication stories from past workplace experiences.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt discussed how to deal with customer budgets that didn't quite reach the amount you were hoping for. Maintaining a fair deal for both the developer and client is important and if implemented correctly there are a few methods in which you can stretch the customer's budget without needing to undervalue your work. These methods include various types of negotiation, breaking a project into separate phases, and cutting superfluous features. As a final note, Matt also discusses avoiding financial abuse from customers that would take advantage of you, and how to ensure you get paid what you're worth.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed the difficult decision on whether you should use a no-code platform or code up a custom solution. The duo go over the differences between custom code and no-code, comparing project types and where they'd create these projects. 

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed the importance of version control focusing on one of the most popular (if not most popular) version control systems, Git. The duo debated when to learn version control in your coding journey and discussed how difficult it is to learn in comparison to the coding language of your choice.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed different ways to learn web development including traditional school (college, university), online courses (free & paid), and the "tackle method." The guys discuss who is best suited for these different methods and debate the importance of project-based learning for absolute beginners.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed whether vanilla JavaScript is viable on modern projects. Vanilla JavaScript is of course the language that the browser understands, but with the increasing complexity in many of today's web development projects, frameworks like React, Vue, and Svelte have seemingly taken over as the tools of choice for web developers. Should you use a framework, or should you use vanilla JavaScript?

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed different ways to start a new web development project covering the differences between starting a completely new project with no prior version to worry about, versus updating/upgrading an old project with a variable amount of technical debt.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike answered a collection of questions regarding web design and web developers. If you're a developer, you might experience some imposter syndrome, or skill gaps, when you try and complete an entire project yourself (or with a small team). Often, the issues come from a lack of design skills, or a lack of confidence in your design ability.

This week we're doing our first-ever feed swap with LogRocket's podcast, PodRocket. This episode features a conversation with Jenn Creighton, a Senior Software Engineer at Netflix and podcast host of the show single-threaded: a software developer podcast. Topics explored in this episode include debugging, error handling, and Jenn's recent conference talk at React Miami.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed the very real possibility that we all face, which is of course the dreaded layoff. Even if the market is doing well, you can be laid off suddenly due to business issues, which means you should prepare yourself even if your employment is going well. 

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed the importance (or lack thereof) of website performance. We all know that Google PageSpeed Insights are used frequently across the industry, but are all those changes necessary? Should you spend time optimizing things that only change your load time by a second or two?

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed using code to enhance your no-code projects. There are a lot of people out there that use no-code tools to run a side hustle, providing clients with websites built on tools like WordPress and Webflow. Sometimes these clients want more than what a no-code tool can provide, leaving you mostly out of luck, unless you learn some coding. 

Get back to basics with our first episode re-release. This week due to Mike being out sick and Matt being on vacation, the duo have decided to shine a spotlight on one of their most popular episodes that take us all back to the very basics of web development. Back to vanilla HTML, CSS, and JS - some of the most useful skills to have when making small websites or transitioning between different frameworks and technologies.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed what starting a new job in tech is like. Since many tech jobs deal with large teams and complex projects, there is a lot of onboarding that needs to happen to get you set up as a new team member. This includes things like getting access to git repos, your email address, and more. In addition to project management to-dos like understanding the team's organizational structure like SCRUM, when they do their standups, how sprints are scheduled, and so on.

This week marks the release of our 200th full episode. We've had additional releases in the form of the limited Before the Show, Tidbits, and standalone Web News - but as of today we've had 200 mainline podcast episodes released to all of you! I hope you've enjoyed the show so far, and I thank you for listening so far. We have so much planned, and we're so excited for the future! 

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed the state of the web development industry with a focus on how no-code is influencing the industry at large. No-code tools are getting more complex by the day, to the point where web developers cannot ignore them anymore. The duo believes that web developers should be using no-code platforms as a tool in their arsenal to help deliver websites and web apps to customers at the right price, as quickly as possible. Matt's Note: This is our 200th episode, so I'd like to thank everyone for listening for these past few years. We hope to hit many more milestones like this in the future!

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed how to think like a programmer. When you're learning to code you may think that syntax is the most important thing since it is so hard to memorize. The problem with memorizing syntax is that if you ever need to move on to a new programming language, you'll have to start memorizing all over again. Instead, Matt and Mike believe that learning programming concepts is more important than syntax, as they allow you to apply that conceptual knowledge across any language you come across - it lets you problem solve as a programmer.

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed serverless technology and how it challenges server-based hosting that has been the standard for years. Mike believes that this has revolutionized the backend developer and hosting game, while Matt is new to serverless and is still stuck configuring his servers the way he always has. Show notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed developer burnout, how it starts, and how to prevent it. Developer burnout can affect anyone and manifest itself in a variety of ways. It is not limited to those of us that frequently work long hours or have significant daily stress (although those are potential causes), it can affect those of us that simply dislike our jobs or have been doing the same tasks for too long. 

Welcome back to the HTML All The Things Podcast your web development, web design, and small business headquarters. This week, Matt and Mike discussed sharing information with clients diving into how much you should share and how much you should keep secret to keep the project on track. It's easy to overshare with a client, overwhelming them with too many details and technical intricacies, but on the other hand, it's also easy to give them too little information, risking them misunderstanding what it is they ordered from you.  

Welcome to the HTML All The Things Podcast, your one-stop shop for all things web development, web design, and small business. This week, Mike and Matt sat down to discuss how good habits can make developers more productive. The duo go over how habits are not a one size fits all situation, but instead should be tailored to each individual that is looking to boost their productivity - whether that's simply setting up a meal plan, choosing to cut off your work hours at a certain time, or just getting to bed the same time each day - we are all different, and so not every habit is best suited for our unique needs.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

This week Matt and Mike tackle the questions "What is iconography" and "What does iconography mean" in a packed episode that covers the basics through the UX of icons. The duo also covers a variety of iconography examples and when text should be used instead of icons, or when text & icons should be used together and why.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Thanks to FlyCode for sponsoring this episode, our listeners get a free trial via flycode.com/htmlall Tech interviews can be good, bad, or...really bad. Some of them take multiple interviews to complete, others involve hours of homework, and the worst of them include all the above. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss tech interviews and how to make them better. The duo cover the good, the bad, and the ugly via a collection of horror stories, followed by some good practices for both the interviewer and interviewee.   Episode Sponsor: FlyCode  FlyCode helps product teams work like software engineers - to ship better products, faster with no-code   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Thanks to FlyCode for sponsoring this episode, our listeners get a free trial via flycode.com/htmlall Some developers see no-code as a threat to their jobs, they treat it as a form of automation, which will eventually replace them. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss why they don't think no-code is coming for developers' jobs. Instead, the duo sees no-code as a mostly positive influence, bringing new and exciting opportunities to the expanding web development industry.   Episode Sponsor: FlyCode  FlyCode helps product teams work like software engineers - to ship better products, faster with no-code   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a crucial, yet exceedingly difficult to learn skill. Many people think it makes a page appear on the first page of Google search results and by doing it right you'll always be at the top, but it's not that easy at all. There's the competing aspect of paid search results versus free, then there's the competition between websites where other sites can steal your spot at any time. In this episode, we discuss all things SEO with Nat Miletic, an SEO and WordPress expert. Nat's Links Twitter | Clio (Web Agency) | SEO Course   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Learning APIs is a crucial skill for web developers to learn. They're commonly used to deliver content to websites from remote and local resources. They can empower entire platforms with vast databases of knowledge or be as simple as a connection to a CMS. This week Matt and Mike sat down with Pratham to discuss everything APIs including his new job at RapidAPI. Pratham's Links Pratham's Twitter | RapidAPI   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Full-stack web developers can work on all aspects of websites from the user interface to the database that drives the content. Combining the frontend developer and backend developer positions, full-stack developers boast a full set of skills that many recruiters find useful. With the ever-increasing number of features that are packed into websites and web apps, are full-stack development positions sustainable? Is it possible to know all the skills needed well enough to do your job on all parts of the stack?    You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Learning new skills is crucial for web developers. Junior developers need to learn all the time to expand their capabilities. Senior developers need to learn throughout their career to update their knowledge. Learning these skills is not easy, however, with so many different frameworks and tools available to learn, alongside the difficult decision on how to learn them - college, university, coding bootcamps, etc. In this episode Matt and Mike discuss how to cut through the noise, identify how you learn, and decide how to learn. Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

There is a lot of web tech that isn't talked about in social media or making headlines. Instead, these pieces of tech sit in the background, silently forming the foundation of what we call the internet. Thousands of sites powered by WordPress, web apps built in PHP, jQuery as a dependency, and much more. In this episode Matt and Mike discuss these pieces of tech, what they are, and why they're so important.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0 represent different eras of how people used the internet. Web1 mostly offered users the ability to read and research, with hardly any way to interact with what they were reading. Web2 got people involved with interactivity and connectivity as ever more power web apps and social media platforms changed how we worked and socialized online. Web3 is the third iteration of the internet that is not quite in full swing yet, but is bringing with it the likes of crypto currencies, artificial intelligence, the metaverse, NFTs, and much more.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike tackle some of your Twitter questions including topics such as Web2 versus Web3, when to learn TypeScript, how to tell when you should change your framework, and why influencers speak about new tech so much. You can find the questions from this episode here. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Web development has a lot of love, hate, and everything in between. In this week's episode, Matt and Mike try and focus on the love and talk about all the things they love about web development...for the most part - sometimes some of the other sides and realities of web development hijack the conversation, but tangents should be no stranger to listeners of this show. Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike jump into part two of "Where Frontend Ends and Backend Begins" an almost entirely example-based episode, going over a basic web page and what parts should/could be frontend, or backend. This example site includes a CMS, slider, static text, calling from an API, authentication, form validation, and much more.    You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with the host of the Scrimba podcast, Alex Booker for a conversation on junior developers, social media, and much more. Alex is a self-taught developer that transitioned into developer advocacy where he helps junior developers break into the industry for the first time. Additionally with that group the guys discuss using social media and feeling at odds with posting, or promoting, yourself.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Frontend versus backend development can be very confusing to a beginner. It's difficult enough to understand all the syntax and rules of thumb that you must follow, let alone be confused by the difference between client-side and server-side programming. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the difference between frontend and backend development, covering what client versus server-side is, and how the lines between the two roles blur more than you may think.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Customer support can be one of the hidden "costs" of doing web development for clients. Without a dedicated support team, the IT support role often falls to the developer or freelancer that created the project. This great investment of time can often be overlooked by web developers that are looking to create more than they are to support. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss some tips and tricks in 5 different areas of customer support including dealing with angry clients, ensuring that you're caring for yourself during all the stress, and ensuring that you know when to walk away.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss Svelte, a framework that Mike has recently switched almost entirely to from Vue. The duo discuss what features of Svelte they enjoy using, some recent milestones in the world of Svelte, and go over some interesting community projects.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Doing business during the pandemic has been great for some, horrible for others, and just plain weird for most everyone else. With Web3 technologies being shoved in everyone's faces, to lockdowns every few months for some parts of the world - the market has changed drastically for everyone in it. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss how they made it through 2021, and plan on making the most out of 2022. Show notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt flies solo to discuss the status of no-code, low-code, and coding as of the New Year. With so many no-code tools available and the low-code industry starting to breach into more areas than ever, the industry is ripe for new innovations and services that bring the power of coding to the masses. While some programmers seem to be against no and low-code solutions, the market value on apps that service this section of the industry speaks for itself.

Time management is a challenging part of any developers' day. Between the coding work that needs to be done alongside planning, and support requests - getting ahead may seem impossible. For junior developers, the added challenge is that they're actively learning, while balancing all the things that come with job searching, working, and even traditional school. In this episode, Matt and Mike cover some time management tips and tricks for developers - with some specific ones in there for junior developers and their crazy schedules.    You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Mentors are key to a junior developer's success. They can help you learn skills a lot faster, can guide you to which skills to learn in the first place, or can even help in avoiding common pitfalls like tutorial hell. Just like teaching, mentoring can be done in a variety of ways - some better suited for certain types of learners than others. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss all the ins and outs of mentoring, including giving code reviews, various teaching types, and much more.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Like all jobs, web development has its dark side - the side where things aren't so pleasant but are a stark reality for the developers that work in the field. In today's episode, Matt and Mike explore that dark side of web development discussing things like if developers should show pride in their work - even if it's for a client, slogging through slow or outdated software, and dealing with thankless customers despite putting forth your best effort.  Show notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Thank you to this episode's sponsors - Shortcut (Free Trial) & Scrimba (JavaScriptmas 2021) Junior developers have their fair share of struggles, being so new to web development. Whether they're lacking confidence about their skills, they've been thrown into the fire at work, or struggling to land a position despite multiple applications and interviews. Where some struggles never go away, even for senior developers, many junior developer struggles can hopefully be mitigated, or avoided altogether with the unsolicited advice we're giving this week. Show notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Thank you to this episode's sponsors - Shortcut (Free Trial) & Scrimba (JavaScriptmas 2021) In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Theo Browne to discuss his journey from working at Twitch, to starting his own thing making creator tools. The guys have a conversation around choosing the right technology for the job and what to do when the wrong one is chosen (even if you've already started!). They also discuss the transition from employee to entrepreneur, and how difficult it can be to be coding all alone with no feedback - even if you're a senior developer. Theo's Twitter Round T3 Tools The Open Source Raid Guild Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Thank you to this episode's sponsor - Shortcut (Free Trial) In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the differences between the entrepreneur and employee mindsets, and how getting stuck in the employee mindset as a business owner can spell disaster for your business. The duo also discuss the related topic of blowing things out of proportion, specifically making small decisions into "big decisions" and hesitating when making them for way too long - wasting everyone's time. Then finally they discuss the what work they bring mobile, how they use their mobile devices to bring their work with them - or if they leave all that for their workstation/desk setup. Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

Thank you to this episode's sponsor - Shortcut (Free Trial) In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Jason Docton to discuss how his web development journey led him to help thousands of people with their mental health. Starting out in World of Warcraft, Jason helped fellow players find the help they needed with their mental health struggles. He started working alongside more people in-game, forming a guild of players willing to help. Fast forward to today, Jason is running RAD (Rise Above the Disorder) a website that has helped 38, 000 people in 133 countries so far.  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss front-end development, covering a roadmap of skills that can be used as a sort of guide through the many front-end technologies. The duo go over a list of topics that you can use to learn front-end development starting at vanilla HTML + CSS, and working into more complex topics like frameworks, JavaScript, some backend tech, and much more.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with João Rosa, host of the Software Crafts Podcast, to discuss his unique career in the development industry. João fulfills interim positions, such as CTO, at various companies as apart of his consultancy practice. He advises on strategic technology implementation and has also worked as a coordinator, software engineer, technical team lead, and more. He also has a passion for heuristics, which is uses alongside other design problems to challenge guests in his own podcast. João's Links (Software Crafts Podcast | Twitter | LinkedIn | Website) Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Richie Lokay to discuss marketing, design, and more. Richie is currently the VP of Product Design and Services at Wunderkind a Marketing Cloud that works in the new field of Performance Design. The guys try and simplify many aspects of marketing, decoding the word soup that can confuse non-marketers and then discuss a little bit about 3D printing and how Richie got into the printing game. Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Michael McGill to discuss his journey through stoicism and mindfulness. The tech industry is forever changing and is always online so it can be a very stressful place to work at times. Having worked in tech for over 20 years, Michael has surely seen his fair share of "fires" and other high-stress situations which makes his comments on stoicism and mindfulness all the more real.  Show Notes   Svelte for Beginners Udemy Course Link with 50% off coupon applied!   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss a bunch of different topics that they've been working with recently including managing stress, learning + teaching Svelte, and crypto with Web 3.0. During these uncertain times stress can certainly take a toll on personal and business actions, the duo discuss how they're dealing with (or lack thereof) the stress of today. With a new Udemy course on the way, the guys are working on learning, using, and teaching Svelte - alongside learning how to make a good Udemy course as it's their first one. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain has been a hot topic lately and with that Web 3.0 is also a hot topic, Mike discusses his exposure to it and confuses Matt with that explanation. Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Pratham to discuss his journey from student to CSS pro. Pratham found a passion in CSS and decided to dive deep into it's innerworkings, producing extensive written guides as he learned new concepts. He has amassed over 120k Twitter follows, produced ebooks, and recently landed a job at RapidAPI.    Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Csaba Kissi to discuss making money online. Csaba has had great success making money online with some of his projects hitting #1 on product hunt and one earning over 7 figures in ad revenue. If you've ever been interested in how to make money online, or monetizing a side hustle, this is the episode for you! Thanks to this episode's sponsors CodeCast and Showwcase (Invite Code: JoinHATT) Show Notes   Csaba's Blog Csaba's Twitter Csaba's Product Hunt Twidesk You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss a series of questions submitted by none other than you - the listeners. We answer questions including, but not limited to: how to freelance, working in agencies, whether you need traditional education to be in web development, and what the future of no-code looks like. Beyond that, the duo also answer some questions about the podcast's intro and the importance of having professional intros when you're starting out podcasting.  Thanks to this episode's sponsors CodeCast and Showwcase (Invite Code: JoinHATT) Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Yuri, a newcomer to development and Tech Twitter. Yuri recently started her programming journey after watching a single random YouTube video that showed up in her feed. Soon after starting her journey, Yuri took to Twitter to share her experiences, netting her a whopping 27.3k followers (as of writing this). The trio discuss Yuri's Twitter content, how she learns new topics, and much more! Thanks to this episode's sponsors CodeCast and Showwcase (Invite Code: JoinHATT)   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Alexandria to discuss her journey through the tech world. The trio discuss things like different paths to get into tech, how tech differs (advantages and disadvantages) for women in tech, and also talk about being a person of colour in tech. If you're interested in unique career paths, workplace diversity, and some straight up tech talk - you're not going to want to miss this episode! Thanks to this episode's sponsors CodeCast and Showwcase (Invite Code: JoinHATT) Show Notes Alexandria's Twitter @AlexandriasTech Alexandria's Youtube Alexandria's Twitch   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss a rather popular topic as of late, work-life balance. With many active discussions going on about the 4-day work week and mental health, the topic of work-life balance is not far behind. The COVID-19 pandemic has made working from home (remote working) has far more common, however, with some employers realizing that employees can be reached virtually any time, work-life balance can take a serious hit. The duo discuss their own work-life balance struggles, the issues that being constantly "plugged in" can cause, and the anxiety of trying not check your work emails/messages. Thanks to this episode's sponsors CodeCast and Showwcase (Invite Code: JoinHATT)   Show Notes     You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss all the ridiculous things that clients ask of us tech professionals with real stories from our Twitter account as well as our own personal accounts. We tackle commonly asked for items like 100% uptime, and the dreaded project scope creep that keeps us working away on something that should have been months ago. It was a funny, enraging, and highly conversational episode that you're not gonna want to miss!   Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Dylan Redekop to discuss all things creators, marketing, and branding. Many people and businesses these days rely on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms to bring their message and products to prospective clients. Even if you're not into becoming an influencer, many individuals use social media to find job opportunities and connect with their professional community. Social media, however, is not easy to grow on and that's where Dylan can help! TWITTER: @growthcurrency NEWSLETTER: Growth Currency ⚡ (on Substack) FREE GUIDE: How To Start, Optimize & Grow Your Newsletter For FREE   Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with TJ Kinion to discuss how to handle, prepare for, and successfully get through coding interviews. As an expert from the recruitment side of things, TJ brings the unique perspective of someone who has seen it all when it comes to interviews. We tap into his wealth of knowledge to bring you a comprehensive guide on how to land that coding job you've always wanted.  Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss Svelte, a JavaScript framework that compiles when you build your app. Other frameworks like Vue and React do a lot of their work in the browser, Svelte's compile step does that work instead. The duo discuss Mike's impressions of Svelte and where it's going in the future, followed by Matt's recent introduction to Svelte and JavaScript frameworks in general. Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Derek Duncan to discuss his company's recent move to a 4 day work week. After the interview, the duo sit down to discuss the matter further, putting their own ideas and opinions together with Derek's first-hand insight. The 4 day work week has been a topic of much discussion lately, giving workers 3 days off to get a proper rest after a hard week's work. Some argue that it is not possible to get 5 days of productivity while others maintain that it is possible, as the extra day off makes the workers more productive all week. Show Notes Derek's Links Instinct Science   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss Googling for developers and other tech professionals. If you've ever worked in IT you may have heard the phrase "we are just professional Googlers." Googling all the time can be spun in a negative way as it can be seen as easy, or something that people only do when they don't know what they're doing. This episode tackles this negative stigma, breaking down why tech professionals need to be such good Googlers, and why Googling all the time does not mean you don't know how to do your job, and why having good Googling skills is so valuable. Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Pratham, a Twitter influencer with over 75, 000 followers as well as a passion for coding and machine learning. At only 16 (at time of recording), Pratham has built up quite a bit of experience in the programming field, and filled the show in with a tonne of insights on getting started with programming for passion versus profit, machine learning (even without math!), and building up a Twitter community. With all that and more this is an episode you won't want to miss! Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss why React is still the #1 framework, despite all the praise and admiration that Mike has dished out for Vue in recent episodes. The duo talk about the advantages of Facebook maintaining React, why it has such a big community, JSX, the huge developer ecosystem (ie next.js, Gatsby, etc), and much more!  Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Chris Ferdinandi to discuss the current state of JavaScript and more specifically why Chris thinks that it's ruining the web as we know it. JavaScript has exploded in popularity over the past few years and with that a rush of new developer talent has adopted the likes of JavaScript frameworks (ie React, Vue) to spin up projects quickly and easily, even if they're not that big (ie a landing page). In addition to this conversation, the trio discuss the importance of documentation, accessibility, and more! Show Notes Chris' Links Go Make Things (newsletter + Chris' contact details) You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode of Web News, Matt and Mike discuss the Windows 11 Reveal Event, which is hot off the presses. Recorded literally minutes after the live presentation, the duo discuss their impressions on Windows 11 and how all the new features and differences will affect their workflow for better, or for worse. More specifically the guys went over the new centered taskbar and centered start menu, widgets, the rounded corners on windows, improvements to game performance, the all-new Microsoft Store, and more! You can watch the event for yourself here on the CNET Highlights YouTube Channel - watch now You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode, Matt and Mike sit down with Carson to discuss HTMX, a project that he built to help you do more with your HTML. Similar (in concept) to how TailwindCSS can extend your HTML with more CSS-like functionality, HTMX brings JavaScript-like manipulation to your HTML. The guys also discuss Carson's previous projects and go over his passion for locality of behaviour. Show Notes Carson's Links: HTMX (Website | Repo) Twitter Hyperscript Repo You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode Matt & Mike sit down with Aderson Oliveira to discuss his many ventures in the world of programming. Aderson brings a unique perspective to the table as a Adjunct Professor at Centennial College, his own podcast - Solo Coder, and mentoring at Brridge (and that's not all). Aderson's perspective stretches from traditional education through influencer activities and even online-only learning. This episode is packed with all the advice you could want for getting starting with programming (and even some no-code in there for you!), seeing if it's right for you, and way more! Show Notes Aderson's Links Brridge.io - https://brridge.io/  The Solo Coder Podcast - https://solocoder.com/  The Solo Coder Group on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/solocoder  Aderson on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adersonoliveira/  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode, Matt and Mike sat down with Alex Lichter to discuss Vue.js, Nuxt.js, and maintaining an open source project. Nuxt.js is a very popular framework that works on top of one of Mike's specialties, Vue.js. While Vue.js is already a framework on top of JavaScript, Nuxt.js acts as another layer that helps make the developer's experiences even easier than with just Vue.js. Beyond the Vue.js talk, the guys discuss Alex's open source experience, learning all about his role as a maintainer on Nuxt.js, and discussing open source projects at length. Alex's Links: Twitter | NuxtJS Discord (link to Tweet w/ link) | Blog Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss all things Tailwind including TailwindCSS, TailwindUI, and Tailwind headless components. The duo also discuss the minor "controversy" amongst the community (if you'd even call it that), about whether Tailwind is a good tool to use as it can make markup a bit messy looking, among other things. If you've ever wondered about using Tailwind then this is the episode for you! Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss a recent trend in the industry, no-code tools. While no-code tools may seem like they're only for non-programmers, they can be extremely useful for teams of all sizes. No-code tools can help small teams take on more work without the need to scale up, while non-tech savvy folks can try out their ideas for apps and websites which may eventually become something more down the road.  Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss something that most (if not all) web developers have heard about - JavaScript. JavaScript can take your web pages to the next level with all kinds of cool animations, interactions, and more...but...if you're new to web development you may not know all the power that is behind this seemingly simplistic language. Beyond that first glance JavaScript can do all kinds of things like make mobile apps, run website backends, and even (although in its infancy) power AR and VR technologies. Come learn all about JavaScript and why it has a high potential of taking over our futures by tuning into this episode! Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this mystery episode, Matt quizzes Mike on how he can level up his junior coding skills after years of being a jack-of-all-trades - juggling business administration, podcast editing, client work and more. Without a stable schedule of duties to complete, Matt has fallen behind Mike a fair bit in his coding knowledge, but his knowledge across the board of running a small business have increased slowly, yet steadily. Now that the HTML All The Things website is about to be completed, it's time for Matt to try and upgrade those junior coding skills so that he can contribute more to client work and content on the new website.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss Vue and React, two major web development tools that promise to improve UI development in their own unique ways. However, as a bit of a twist, the duo won't just be discussing these two JavaScript frameworks/libraries, instead Mike has taken the stance that Vue is better than React and will be presenting his case throughout the episode. Let the React versus Vue wars begin! Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with long-time friend of show, David Lindahl, to discuss all the things he's been up to since his last appearance on the show. From photography, Twitter, freelancing, and being hired again David has been super busy in the last year. After catching up the group discuss being more than just a developer, discussing things like work-life balance, hobbies, and side hustles. Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss weekly growth goals with a focus on the soon be released Weekly Growth Goals web app. The duo discuss the concepts and tech stack behind the web app, going through how the app was designed, how decisions were made, and the struggles that were found along the way.  Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub 

In this episode Matt and Mike are back to basics talking all about the roots of all web development - HTML, CSS, and JS. The duo discuss the new and old capabilities of these foundational technologies, discussing what they do, and how to go about learning each of them. They cover topics like flexbox, CSS grid, box model, using specific HTML tags, and much more! Show Notes You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss how laser focus can help drive you and your projects to the finish line quickly, but with the huge caveat that it's hard to figure out exactly what to laser focus on. Unless you're one of the lucky ones, that knew exactly what they were going to do for a career from high school onward, then the road to your passions and eventually the thing that you're going to laser focus on is a difficult one. While difficult, it is more than worth it as you'll be focusing on exactly what you want to be doing and not something that drives you crazy, or makes you bored on the daily.   Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss asking for help. Even though it sounds simple, asking for help can be an anxiety-inducing activity because you don't want to bother your fellow co-workers, or be called out for not doing enough research if you ask on an online forum. There can also be hesitation to ask because you want to solve your problem yourself, but sometimes you're just way too stuck to go it alone.  Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss dealing with large projects with rapidly approaching deadlines. We all know that managing your time and tasks appropriately can really help alleviate stress and concern over large projects, however, all that management takes time - time you don't always have. Rapidly approaching deadlines can force your hand into just diving straight into a large project with minimal (if any) task/project management - which can put a lot of pressure on you and your team. The duo discuss how they deal with this stress and how they can even push that deadline back a bit without raising too much alarm from a client. Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode, Matt and Mike sit down with Kilian Valkhof to discuss a browser that he made for developers called Polypane. Polypane lets you, the developer, test your website in various resolutions all at the same time - perfect for making responsive websites. But that is just scratching the surface, Polypane can help your website's accessibility, and offers a unique UI that's tailored for development over browsing. In addition to it's features, Polypane is a SaaS product so there's even some interesting business-oriented goodies inside this episode, as well. Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss some of the bad habits that many web developers develop over time. Habits including procrastination, Tutorial Hell, and overengineering. These, among others, can slow down and even stop a web dev project in it's tracks - impacting your growth as a developer and "stealing" precious projects from your portfolio. Luckily, there are ways to help mitigate and correct these bad habits into good ones. Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode, Matt and Mike have a special guest on the show - Monarch Wadia. Monarch is an advocate for new developers running online hackathons among other events in countries all over the world. He also runs his own software development firm out of Toronto, Canada.  Show Notes   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike do something a little different, Matt prepared the whole episode with Mike knowing, dividing it up into smaller parts and then getting Mike's opinion on each part. The overall topic being how to support a lot of users at once using methods like documentation, phone calls, instant messaging, and more. Supporting users can be a real pain, but it's also a necessity, so it's important that you ensure your business is ready to scale from just supporting a few users, to having to use full on productivity and efficiency hacks to ensure that several (maybe even hundreds) of users are properly supported.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this absolutely packed episode, Matt and Mike discuss a mash up of different topics from advanced data structures & algorithms through third-party server migrations. Data structures & algorithms can get very complex, but should they affect your daily web development journey? Imposter syndrome is something that almost everyone experiences in their life, web developer, or not - the duo discuss what they think might be a big cause of the syndrome. And finally, a rather niche - but important topic - server migrations, specifically those that you don't control yourself, but are instead dumped in your lap by third-party service providers. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode of the Web News, Matt and Mike discuss a UX tip that you can use on virtually any project. When you're in early testing of an app, or website, if you reach for something, and it isn’t there, treat that as if it’s broken. As you test with your family, friends, and colleagues you'll notice that they will instinctually reach for things, like a button, or gesture and when they do - nothing happens. While they can easily be overlooked, you absolutely should not let it slide. Instead, treat this missing functionality like a bug, treating it like an important issue that needs to be resolved (or at least discussed with your team).   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss all the ins-and-outs of APIs including what they are, how they work, what they're used for, and more specifically - how to build them quickly using Strapi. Making your own API can easily get out of hand, as you go down the rabbit hole of functionality and usability, luckily Strapi can help you spin up APIs quickly and easily so you can get started straight away. Built on NodeJS, Strapi has free and paid options, so you can get started for free - and then switch on over to the paid version once you start scaling.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode of the Web News, Matt and Mike discuss the topic that's been taking over the news lately and that is GameStop, BlackBerry, and AMC stock. Basically a war has broken out between short sellers (hedge funds) and the people over on /r/wallstreetbets over these stocks resulting in major losses for some, and incredible wins for others.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the art of becoming self-taught. When you want to learn something new you basically have two options, teach yourself, or go to a traditional school/course. While self-teaching sounds like it's the easier option, it's actually oftentimes found in both. Traditional courses can't get into the weeds on every single topic they need to teach you, and furthermore self-teaching is a skill that they usually want you to learn anyway. The duo discuss the differences between self-teaching and traditional courses, as well as some of the best methods to teach yourself the skills you want to know.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode of the Web News, Matt and Mike discuss the value of time versus the value of money. Many people will put in $100 of effort in to save $10, and whilst there are some situations that call for that sort of imbalance of value, in general all that extra effort just isn't worth the time. Some people treat time like it's unlimited and that money is limited, whilst in fact time is limited, and money is unlimited (you can always get another job, or start another side hustle - you can't make yourself younger).   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the eagerly anticipated topic of web bundlers with a specific focus on Webpack and Snowpack. While making websites with vanilla code can be great, sometimes you gotta call on a bunch of plugins and frameworks to put together something really special in a reasonable amount of time. When all that stuff has to work together web bundlers can make compiling a breeze. This episode features a tonne about web bundlers including what they are from the most basic of examples, through how to use them effectively in your projects.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode of the Web News, Matt and Mike discuss a potential UX problem across the board. As UX increasingly makes things easier in tech, it makes very difficult tasks easy - and furthermore makes easy tasks even easier (or even completely automated). The result of this is a generation of people that grew up with tech, that seem to be "tech savvy" but in reality they're moreso just "familiar with tech" having no idea what's actually going on in the background - even at a high level. Is this a problem? You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss how to avoid being overwhelmed when you're already busy. Almost everyone has been there before - you have a full plate, and the phone calls just keep on rolling in. During these stressful times it's easy to become overwhelmed and break down which isn't good for you, or your work. Luckily the tips, tricks, and tactics discussed in this episode will have you powering through these difficult times.  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode of the Web News, Matt and Mike discuss something that's been cropping up on social media, and in the tech news recently - the WhatsApp policy changes. Due to the nature of the changes and of course the affiliation with Facebook, many of you are probably being told to switch to other apps, such as Signal. While Matt doesn't care about the situation, having used WhatsApp and Facebook for a number of years - Mike has done a small amount of research and has a different (yet very similar) perspective on the situation. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss how to start a new side project, with a heavy emphasis on how Mike takes his side projects from concept through production including discussions on free versus paid tools, side projects versus side hustles, and much more. Then in the Weekly Growth Goal, Mike failed to reach his by around 2%, but Matt finished his successfully and will be moving on to yet another section of the new HATT website. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this Web News, Matt and Mike discuss Matt's recent email detox. After several years of having consistent access to his work email, Matt finally took a week away by turning off his work device for the entire holiday season. While there were times of anxiety and desire to turn it back on, he never did. Find out out if it helped, or hurt by tuning in! You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the technologies that caught their eye in 2020 including things like TailwindCSS, Vue 3.0, Snowpack, and much more. Then the duo discuss their sort of personal/professional year-in-review, focusing on some of the defining moments of 2020. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this edition of Web News, Matt and Mike discuss releasing buggy products to the public including some offerings that Google has released, and of course the very topical Cyberpunk 2077 (especially on PS4 and Xbox One). Iterative design is nothing new in tech, but lately it seems like it has been taken to the extreme, where even very large mega corporations are releasing basically alpha, or beta, software into the public without any sort of "early access" tag that lets people know that it is unfinished.  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the difference between side hustles and side projects so you can choose which is right for you! It's easy to assume that a side hustle is something that is "just on the side" and can be ignored whenever you're not feeling it, but a side hustle is a business and ultimately cannot be ignored if you want any consistent success. However, if you're just going for a personal goal, the very similarly named side project might be just what you're looking for. All the technical and product making action of a side hustle, without the commitment of pleasing customers and processing payments. This week changed up the format of the show a bit as Matt and Mike say goodbye to Weekly Pain Points, hello to Weekly Growth Goals, and separate the Web News segment into it's own mini-show that'll be aired right here on this feed! You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss revisiting old projects, whether they be for personal use, or for a longtime client, we all have those projects that are on old codebases, or using a completely different technology from what we use in the moment. Going back to these old projects can be like a time capsule for how we used to code back in the past and while the results may (or may not) be pretty, getting back into the groove can be a real pain. The duo discuss this and much more about old code bases throughout the majority of the episode and then switch over to the Web News to discuss Matt's new two phone life or "Two Fone Lyfe" to be more specific.  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss one of the most overlooked requirements of running a web agency - customer support. It's very easy to think that the biggest hurdle to your business will be learning and keeping up with all the new tools and skills that you'll need to deliver modern websites to your clients, but in reality, support can be equally if not more of a challenge especially when it can derail your entire day's schedule and have you helping someone for little to no money. Then in the Web News, the duo discuss a holiday gift guide, with a twist! Instead of the typical, buy this for a person that likes this, instead, Matt and Mike discuss the mentality around gift giving. If someone is a web developer for work, is it in bad taste to buy them a computer chair for their home office as a gift?  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss all that is right with the world of web development. From the flexibility of where you live (working from home), all the learning resources (free and paid), the plethora of available technologies, and so much more - web development has a tonne of great features that may just make it the right career choice for you. Then in the Web News the duo discuss the new M1 Mac with Apple silicon, as well as do a rundown of the new consoles. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss all the issues with web development like rapidly changing frameworks, dealing with customer relations, inconsistency with pricing, and much more! This episode went a little off the rails with tangents so the Web News has been postponed to next week, hopefully tangents won't derail that too. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the idea of the internet's currency in regards to social media and marketing yourself (or your business) online. Every internet entrepreneur has seen self-help business gurus, marketing experts, and more promise that their methods of posting on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook will make you a successful businessperson. While a lot of this advice is real and can absolutely be helpful, the sheer amount of things that you have to do to climb the mountain of success can cloud or even completely cover up the real reason why you wanted to bring your business online in the first place - the content! Content, above all else, is king!  Then in the Web News the duo briefly discuss some new tech including the Xbox Series X | S, the PlayStation 5, and of course Apple's new bunch of Macs running on ARM. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss package managers (not webpack). They explore what packages are, how you get them, how they work within projects, and more importantly - what you need to know to use them in your projects. Then later in the Web News the duo discuss standardizing technology and how important it is to keeping your more maintainable.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this (Halo) episode Matt and Mike discuss getting started with web development as a second career. Whether you're going to be keeping your day job, got laid off recently, or are retiring this episode covers the basics on getting started and the different types of web development that you might find yourself doing. Then in the Web News, the duo tackle design trends in 2020 from standard 3-column layouts, to the notifications that we all (not at all) allow. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss their own personal inefficiencies and what they're looking at improving upon. It's very important to know what you do well and what you do not - but it is arguably equally as important to know what you want to (and hopefully will) improve on, and what you will not be working on. It's impossible to learn everything, all the time, and being overwhelmed just makes your learning experience more difficult than it has to be. Then in the Web News, the duo discuss their excuses for using mobile tech, even if there is a lack of travel and even typical outings these days. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss their experiences with an ever-growing amount of stacks, plugins, and technologies in the web development world. As a web developer, you may find it important to know many stacks, or specific pieces of tech, but you can't learn them all. This episode covers the pros and cons of multiple stacks, as well as the stacks that Mike uses in any given day. Then in the Web News, the duo discuss a touchy topic that can be summarized with the phrase "Are we only as good as our last ticket?" You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss whether you should open source your project or not. They discuss what open source is, what the benefits are, and how you can start contributing. Then later in the Web News the duo discuss the Hacktoberfest controversy. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss one of the most common and most dreaded things to ever happen to projects of any kind, scope creep. Whether its your clients changing features or asking for new ones, or even if you're being too hard on a personal project - the duo discuss their experiences with scope creep, how it happens, and how to prevent it. Then in the Web News they discuss the world of minimalism when it comes to developer setups. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss all things Vue 3.0, with the release hot off it's heels, Mike has had some time to dive into the patch notes and even plan to use Vue 3.0 in his current projects. The duo discuss the new features and changes, as well as how you might migrate to Vue 3.0 on your projects, or even if you're currently learning Vue 2.0. Then in the Web News they discuss the tech industry as a whole and how things are evolving so rapidly that we might be in the infancy of reaching "The Jetsons" level tech (minus the space part). You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss some of the things that you may find yourself doing as a web developer, without realizing it was apart of the job when learning the ropes. These hidden, or "untold" parts of web development include technical support, marketing, communications, and much more. Then later in the Web News we will discuss Moment.js becoming a legacy project. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the day in the life of a developer, specifically Mike's schedule during regular work days as well as crunch. Then the duo discuss Matt's more sporadic schedule briefly before switching gears in the weekly Web News where they discuss working for passive income involving reseller hosting, affiliate programs, and more. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss a flurry of different topics that didn't quite make the cut in an episode of their own. Whether the topic was too new to them at the time, wasn't meaty enough to fill discuss a lot, or was too specific to expand upon - these topics all together formed an interesting varied episode that the duo hope you enjoy! You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss plugins - from lightboxes, to SEO helpers, and everything in-between they can be a massive help, but can also cause their fair share of problems. The duo discuss how to determine when you need a plugin, what plugins are good for and so much more. Then later in the Web News, they discuss yet another Apple App Store story, this time affecting WordPress and their iOS app. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss vanilla HTML, CSS, and JS versus Webflow, comparing and contrasting as well as discussing their affect and standing in the industry. Then later, in the weekly Web news, the duo discuss whether or not you should be coding for 8 hours straight while working. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss what a JavaScript framework is and why you'd want to use it over vanilla JavaScript - including some tips and tricks for Vue.js specifically. Then in the weekly Web News we discuss the Samsung ecosystem and game streaming.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the power and importance of website content when it comes to layout out your website. Websites can fall into various categories like a small business site, or a business card site - that apply not only to the visual layout but also the technical layout. Getting all of your customer's ideas and vision laid out first is critical in planning out a website for it's months, or years of usage. Then in the weekly Web News we discuss budgeting out a small budget website into various categories of work.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss all things code reviews. Whether you love them or hate them, code reviews keep dangerous bugs out of production software, as well as help junior (and senior for that matter) developers progress their knowledge and skills. Then in the Web News, the guys discuss content creation and being overrun/overwhelmed. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss working from home. With many workers across the globe settling into their home offices for the foreseeable future, we discuss our top 10 tips for being productive from home. Then in the weekly Web News, the duo discuss their plans for more Twitch streams and other content.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Megan Mee to discuss mental health in the workplace. Mental health is extremely important in the workplace as it can affect not only a single employee's productivity and mood, but their entire team as well. We tackle some tough questions on mental health from the perspective of a team member, and a boss - and then discuss "good" vacations' importance in the work-life cycle. Then in the Web News we tackle "solo mental health" for those of us that work as solo freelancers. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss tutorial hell. There's so much to learn out there that it's easy to fall into a rut, jumping from tutorial to tutorial and never getting into the thick of it. Whilst there's nothing wrong with learning new things, there comes a time where you have to break out from your learning cycle and into a real project. Then later, in the Web News, we discuss Apple's move to their own silicon using ARM.  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

It's episode 100! It's been a long journey and we couldn't have done it without you - thank you! As apart of our 100th episode celebration we answered your questions in a Q&A style alongside a discussion on the future of HTML All The Things, and how we've grown along this incredible journey. We didn't get to a Web News this week as our episode was already so packed with goodies, we hope you enjoy! Also, we're announcing that we're doing a Wes Bos course giveaway. We will be purchasing and giving away the course of your choice (if you're a winner, of course). Full details can be found in the next episode!   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Devonta Johnson to discuss imposter syndrome, project management, and workplace diversity. Devonta currently works for The American Board of Anesthesiology and is also an instructor/mentor at Nucamp coding bootcamp, he has also worked at Foster Moore leading the United States Virgin Islands project to launch their new business registry. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss iterative design. No matter what you're designing, or using, it went through some sort of iterations before coming to market. Something as simple as adjusting a font size contributes an iteration and shows a commitment to make a product better. When it comes to web development, if you're not classically trained in design, or UI/UX then iterative design is your best friend - as long as you do your research and pay attention to other modern UI/UX you'll have a great baseline that you can slowly but surely iterate on to eventually make a production-worthy display.  Then in the Web News, the guys discuss their Top 10 JavaScript open source repos for May 2020 including: reveal.js, ws, Fuse.js, and more! You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

Programming for hours, months, or years can easily give way to a cluster of bad habits. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss good developer habits including determining your most productive work times, not begin afraid to Google things, knowing when to take a break, and much more. Then in this week's Web News, the duo discuss why hardly anyone mentions that working in tech is difficult - which makes it seem easy. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with David Lindahl, a long time friend of the show and UI developer. Last time we spoke with David he had recently gotten his first full time development job as a UI developer. Since then a lot has changed, we'll let him tell you the story, but we cover everything from jobs to freelancing, and all the side hustle goodness in between. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss why coding might not be for you.  Many people will just say that you have to keep trying and not give up, and that's absolutely correct, unless of course you find out that coding might not be your thing. We discuss a few of the reasons why coding might not end up being for you at length. Then later we change gears and discuss many of the issues that all developers face, that may make them eager to quit. After all that, this week's Web News features Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and how Microsoft is handling them. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this tidbit, Matt and Mike discuss the recent news that Joe Rogan's JRE (Joe Rogan Experience) podcast will be heading onto Spotify exclusively in just a matter of months. Even though this isn't web dev/design, or small business related - it does affect our medium of podcasting. This also potentially affects the entire structure of podcasting as you used to be able to choose your favourite podcast app and then just listen. Now that we're seeing exclusivity come to light, you may have to have multiple podcast apps just to listen to all your favourite shows. Furthermore, this could affect monetization moving forward as well, where all the podcast apps you have start running premium subscriptions that you will need to subscribe to in order to continue listening. It is important to note that this sort of monetization is not what is happening to JRE, as stated in the announcement the show will remain free on Spotify. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss something more important than your MVP (Minimum Viable Product), project cornerstones. If a feature of your MVP has no viable substitute, focus on ironing that out first - then move on to the rest. These project cornerstones, if left unattended, can lead to a project's complete failure. Imaging working on the UI, text chat, and overall feel of an app like Snapchat, only to find out that the stack you're using won't allow you to use the camera on iOS devices. Problems like that can easily be overlooked and can just as easily result in hundreds of hours of lost work. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss new and interesting web tech such as web assembly, API- first development, Flutter Web, and much more. By touching on a variety of topics like this you'll be able to better converse with other developers even if you're not fully versed in a how a technology works. You'll also get a bit of a feel of how other parts of your team work and maybe even discover something you're interested in pursuing yourself. Then in the web news, the guys talk about ecosystems, focusing on Edge Chromium versus Google Chrome. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this tidbit/web news, Matt and Mike discuss the difference between Peer-To-Peer(P2P) and Centralized cloud computing methods. Recently the difference between these two cloud computing methods has been brought up due to all the data that we process inside of centralized datacenters that are often owned by large corporations like Facebook and Google. With that, there is cause for concern as to what is happening to that data and how/where it is stored. There is also the concern that most of the software used by larger companies, Facebook for example, is not open source - so it is difficult (or sometimes impossible) to tell exactly what Facebook's software is doing without that source code being available publicly for experts to analyze. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss proposing projects to your team in the early stages of an idea. When talking to your team with an idea, it's a lot less formal than preparing research and documentation for an investor, for example. Instead, the idea needs to be mostly flushed out, with some small holes that your team, or additional research can easily remedy. You need and want to sell your team on your idea, so the idea needs to be presented in such a way that you get them excited or interested, not bored and rolling their eyes. Over time as you present ideas to the same people over and over, you'll hone your presentation skills and know what certain people expect in your proposal For example, if there's an accountant on the team, they might want rough numbers on how much it'll cost to make right out of the gate, or may your UX expert wants to know the target audience and devices right away. This week's episode went a little longer than expected so we've spun off our Web News portion in a tidbit that will be published later this week! You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss some of the most popular web design tips, but with a bit of a twist. Instead of just going through the list, the duo tackle them from a developer's point-of-view instead of a designer. As a web developer, especially a frontend developer, it's very common that your job will overlap that of the web designer, or artist. Sometimes you'll not have an artist, or branding expert handy and you'll be left to create a UI all on your own. Luckily iterative designs, familiarity with user interfaces, and a knack for modern design techniques (ie responsive design) are all you need to create a great website. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss taking charge on client projects. Even though you (as the developer/programmer/web dev), aren't the owner of a project, sometimes you need to take charge and just get the project done. Some clients aren't aware of where their job is supposed to end and where yours is supposed to begin, which often times results in long delays and other communication issues. We outline when to take charge, if you should at all, and some other tips/tricks to keep in mind. Then in the Web News we discuss what life is going to be like post-COVID - will things still rely on the internet to function, will take-out be king over eat-in, etc. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this week's episode Matt and Mike discuss learning by doing, rather than learning by tutorials or traditional classes. By working on projects, getting stuck, and then Googling your way through you'll learn faster, have a finished product at the end of the day, and be able to retain what you learned easier because you've researched and implemented the solution yourself. They go through various tactics on how to maximize your learn by doing experience, and then go through an example scenario of how they'd plan a project that they've never done themselves. Then in the Web News, they discuss hardware obsolescence via software with things like Windows 10 + HDDs, and the iPhone battery scandal. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss how to make money online. With so many people stuck at home, anyone without the luxury of being able to work remotely will no doubt be looking at how to bring in a little extra money without breaking quarantine. Often times Google searches on these types of topics will bring up a bunch of different methods from paid surveys, to affiliate marketing, and straight up freelancing. We discuss each of these methods and more in great detail before changing gears over to the Web News where we talk about relieving (or preventing) stress while cooped up indoors. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss where Webflow fits in the current web development landscape. With so many other website builders out there (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy Website Builder, etc.) and web development tools (ReactJS, Angular, VueJS, etc.) Webflow has its work cut out itself, making their own little space in this very crowded market. Then in a bit of a twist of quarantine stir-craziness, our Web News is actually just focused on discussing some of the biggest video games you've all been playing during this quarantine like Doom: Eternal, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss COVID-19, quarantine, and more importantly Svelte. Svelte is compareable to other tools like ReactJS, VueJS and Angular that are already popular among web developers. What does Svelte bring to the table that these don't already serve up? Then in the Web News, the duo discuss NPM being purchased by Microsoft. Is this good for developers? Or will this give Microsoft too much of a hold over developer tools considering all their recent acquisitions? 

This week on the HTML All The Things Podcast, Matt and Mike discuss the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) that's been affecting us all. With social distancing and remote work (working from home) being strongly suggested, or even mandatory in some cases, we discuss our thoughts on the whole situation including how we're holding up, some of our concerns, and what it's like to have so much change in our society so quickly. Then in more programming-related news we discuss our tips for keeping productive if you're new to working from home. We'd love to hear your thoughts, concerns, and and how you're holding up too - so leave a comment, or message us on one of our social channels. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss office politics, discussing common workplace issues such as cross-personnel delays (probably the most common office politics that we're all susceptible too) and third-party contacts (contacting external teams - usually for support - and having to deal with another company's bureaucracy). Then in the weekly Web News we have catch up with you - the audience - to discuss the future of HATT and talk through managing workloads with side hustles.  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss what they need to do better, specifically what questions you should be asking yourself in a self assessment such as - Am I on track? - What are my strengths? - What are our biggest priorities right now? - etc. By asking these questions of yourself and your team, you'll be able to see where you need to improve and create a plan that will help you reach those improvement goals. These goals can be personal ones, so something like - I need to be calmer when an issue happens at work - or something more professional like - I need to learn a new technology before that next project starts. Slowly but surely as you continually self reflect and work on yourself, you'll become a better employee and a better person (based on your own personal goals of course). You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss last week's poll results, and then take a look at a recent survey conducted by Sitejet. The survey focused on a variety of areas in a web designers job from what troubles them most in their jobs, to how long they think a website should take to make. As an added bonus this week, Matt is looking to take his 2020 UX to the next level by removing the need to charge his smartphone via a cable - going for a completely wireless charging solution in the car and at home. Here's the Sitejet survey for those of you that are interested: https://www.sitejet.io/en/article/web-design-statistics-2020 You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the customer experience from the start of their project, through completion, and everything that may come after that. When a customer asks you for your help with something it's important that their experience is as comfortable as possible, ensuring that everything you'll be doing is clear and concise, the customer is kept up-to-date (within reason), and that the customer is only contacted when absolutely necessary. With so many other development agencies out there, you need to stand out - your customer experience may be that one key factor that brings more customers to you and not your competitors. Then in the weekly Web News we discuss working too hard. Often times new developers (junior developers) are required, or encourages, to work a lot of overtime - sometimes 60-80 hours per week - with little to no extra compensation on top of their salaries. Is this fair? Should anyone (even newbies) be working this hard, or this much? What about work-life balance? You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

This week Matt and Mike discuss the delicate art of managing multiple projects. We all know that websites, web apps, and other web-related goodies take a long time to make, and often times we have to wait for customers to provide information, or for artists to finish up graphics. Naturally these delays can open up some time in your schedule to work on something else, but rarely do these time frames line up so nicely. As a result, many web agencies and full stack devs alike find themselves juggling multiple projects, on totally different technologies, using completely different languages. After many years of contending with this, Matt and Mike have come up with a list of their own list of advice that should help you navigate this busy and often stress-filled situation. Then in the weekly Web News, we discuss open concept offices. Are they as nice as they appear to be? Or are they just a useless fad with no function?  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss something that plagues any work environment - procrastination. We all procrastinate from time to time, but for some of us it's a real damper on our productivity. Luckily there are a bunch of methods you can try to help reduce, or nearly eliminate your procrastination. On top of all that, the guy's cover time management - another productivity tool that can make your hours spent working way more productive than they'd usually be. Then in the Web News we discuss mobile device innovations (like the upcoming Microsoft Duo) and how developers deal with different device form factors that might not have a large market share.  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss best practices to follow when implementing responsive design including the differences between "true responsivity" and websites that separate into completely different mobile and desktop sites, as well as different input methods like using a mouse versus using touch interfaces. Then in the Web News we discuss the current status of the Hackintosh and whether Mike should try making one on his main computer.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the difficulties of web development from things like responsivity on virtually limitless screen sizes, browser compatibility, and different stacks. Then in our weekly Web News, what ever happened to the PWA (Progressive Web App)?  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord  

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss both passive income, and multiple revenue streams for small businesses. Since Digital Dynasty Design (Matt & Mike's web agency) is currently undergoing a bit of an overhaul to it's business model we thought it was the perfect time to present these important business topics covering things like passive income vs active income, diversification of revenue sources, choosing what to expand into, and more. Coming in hot off a new decade, it's the perfect time to take a look at your revenue streams to see if you can make your business more profitable moving forward. Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5e1f776f6a070d0011eb6599 You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In the first episode of 2020, Matt and Mike discuss the differences between templates and custom websites. Digging into whether you should be using templates to quickly spin up websites for customers, or engineering custom websites from scratch. This all of course depends on your skill level, how busy your schedule is, and what your customer's needs are. After all that we jump into our Web News, which focuses on types of CMS and how to determine which one to use. There are basically two types (at a high level) of CMS - one with a full page builder where users can customize a lot of what's on their website - the other with a more guided experience that has users filling in forms that will automatically generate web pages as needed. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this holiday special episode Matt and Mike discuss 2019 in review. We cover a lot of what's happened in 2019 including our social media, Discord server, podcast download numbers, Patreon, and more. Then it's off to the New Year with our 2020 goals, plans, and ideas for the podcast, website, and more. Following all this we have our Web News which discusses Matt and Mike's personal goals looking to 2020. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the most in demand web developer skills as of 2019. With so many frameworks, libraries, tools, plugins, and more (that was exhausting) out there, it can be very easy to get overwhelmed. Inspired by a recent Reddit thread this episode goes over a variety of topics from JavaScript, Angular, React, Docker, and more. This includes a discussion on job postings, and which skills are most in demand in the current job market. Then in the Web News, we discuss old projects, how they affect our new ones, and whether or not you should be retrofitting or replacing old ideas. Reddit Thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/eb7xt2/most_in_demand_web_developer_skills_in_2019_2020/ You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss Google's new cross platform approach to apps called Flutter. While we touched on it in a past episode and deemed it an unknown in terms of whether it'd be sticking around or not. Flutter has grown up significantly since that time, and serves it's purpose as a more affordable cross platform development tool than having multiple app development teams making native apps for Android, iOS, and PC. Then in the weekly Web News, they discuss reliability and how it's been affected since everything is reliant on so many interconnected systems these days. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Mike makes his return to the show to discuss jQuery and it's popularity. Whenever a new technology emerges the buzz around it seems to take over the reality that the older technologies don't just disappear overnight. The discussion seems to become "who uses X technology anymore?" when in reality, a lot of people use it, a lot of people are just learning it, and a lot of people are going to continue to use it. We discuss this sort of situation focusing on jQuery and the new capabilities of vanilla JavaScript. Then in the weekly Web News we discuss the new 16" Macbook - is Apple listening to the consumer?   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt discusses when you should put down the books and just start coding away on your creation. It can be difficult to tell when you should dive into a project and get your hands dirty when there is so much to learn, however, it's important to remember that no matter how much you read, there will always be something that you've never seen before on every project. After getting a basic knowledge of what you're working on, you're generally better off just starting the code and researching/reading as needed throughout the project. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and special guest Sean from Rabbitwerks JavaScript discuss a whole lot about UX. They go through whether technology is making us lazier as a species due to things like smart homes and home automation. Then they change gears and discuss utilitarian UX and how it related to wearables as a whole and their sales. Then finally in the Web News they discuss the very difficult balance of networking, social media, and attending events versus putting your nose to the grindstone for some long-term focused work session - diving into the business owner's UX juggling both these conflicting needs. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt clears the air between HTML All The Things and WordPress. Having not been given the warmest of welcomes in episodes past, Matt goes over the pros and cons of WordPress specifically touching on the areas that many developers question such as too many plugins, plugin conflicts, bloated websites, and security. Then he explores the advantages that WordPress has over the competition, listing a variety of strengths and use cases that you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the difference between various types of websites including static states, server side rendering, and single page apps. With so many different ways to code up and deliver websites to users, the choice isn't always simple. Performance, infrastructure/hosting type, and of course the learning curve all play a factor in what type of website you'll create for your users. This episode goes over some of the technologies at play with each type. Then later in the weekly Web News segment, we discuss the HTML All The Things website and how the project has evolved over time before coding has even begun. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss what JSON is in comparison to similar technologies like XML. They also cover common JSON uses like using APIs to get information and how to store it efficiently. Finally in the Web News they discuss business growing pains, when adopting new software, accommodating emerging needs, and figuring out when it's time for an upgrade. Episode Sponsor One Membership by Template Monster Follow this link (https://tinyurl.com/htmlallthethings) and use our promo code (htmlallthethings10) for 10% off. We receive a monetary kickback for sales using our link and promo code. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss another collection of UX considerations including Unseen UX and Forgotten UX. Unseen UX includes experiences such as ABS in a car, where the user has very little control over it, has very little feedback from it, and expects it to produce a result automatically. Forgotten UX typically has standard feedback on a screen, or audio of some kind, but it can be ignored completely and will eventually be forgotten over time - this type of UX can be seen with many face unlock technologies on smartphones and on-screen fingerprint readers. Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5db0b63e6a070d0011eb6583 You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss one of the most difficult things that any web development professional faces - the price. Prices range from a few thousand to just a few hundred on the exact same project depending on which company you go with, with fluctuation like that it can take years before you're confident in your pricing even a little bit. This episode features two fully featured example scenarios, strategies, and some other tips that should help you up your pricing game for years to come. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Eric Normand to discuss his new book Grokking Simplicity. Throughout the episode they discuss early access book releases, blogging & writing tips, and cover a tonne of ground on functional programming including how to get started and how to apply the paradigm to a problem. Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5d9e35fe6a070d0011eb657f You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the differences and similarities between web development and native app development. More specifically discussing technologies like Apache Cordova, Flutter, React Native, and many others. On top of these technologies, they also discussed the different procedures that web developers vs native app developers have to take to get their product off the ground, including testing on various devices and the performance of cross-platform vs native development. Then they switch gears to discuss the UX of smartphones on different types of apps in the weekly Web News. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss learning UI development from scratch covering topics such as DOM flow (normal flow), different learning methods (YouTube, written guides, traditional courses), and practicing your knowledge through repetitive examples. Then they switch gears to discuss all the newfangled gadgets and gizmos that can be found in modern cars via the weekly Web News segment. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss making web development easier through the use of various methodologies, libraries, frameworks, new technologies, and more. By ensuring that you're using the right tools and having your development environment tweaked just so, you can save a bunch of time, and in some cases actually do a better job. Then for the weekly Web News, they discuss "Hustle Overload" speaking specifically about side hustles, full time hustles, and whether or not you should be doing multiple of them, or whether you should be managing your work/life balance. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the user experience, otherwise known as UX. Specifically, their top 3 UX considerations for UX designers/experts. These considerations include things like the newcomer effect, familiarity, and evolution & respect. They're aimed to be sort of an analysis of the unspoken rules of UX that can easily go overlooked, complete with examples from popular companies like Facebook and YouTube. Then they switch gears to this week's Web News asking how responsible a company is to its product in terms of warranty, defects, and engineering. Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5d794c736a070d0011eb6579 You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss developer burnout including how to identify the signs of burnout, what the result of burnout is, and how to avoid it the best you can. Then they switch gears to discuss the innovations of the tech world zeroing in on whether or not the mainstream devices are stifling innovation due to their popularity. Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5d7004be6a070d0011eb6577 You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss the creation process that drives most of their website work. Since Digital Dynasty Design is a small team they can easily tailor the customer experience individually so that customers save money and get their products faster. This tailored experience often times includes manipulating the initial creation process that is used to determine the customer's needs, wants, and goals through the production and review of wireframes, mockups, and prototypes as needed. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Developer Pants, Matt and Mike discuss the equipment and lifestyle of a developer that likes to travel. We cover things like what to pack, managing workload on the road, as well as doing meetings in different time zones. After all that we discuss WearOS focusing on where it sits in the smartwatch market, alongside what improvements it needs to stay relevant. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss 10 tips that every beginner web developer needs to hear. These tips cover a variety of topics including UI/UX concepts, learning new skills, website planning/brainstorming, wireframing software, IDE software, version control (git), and much more. Then we switch gears and discuss whether or not you should be purchasing the latest and greatest flagship device (ie Samsung Galaxy Note 10+), or if you should purchase a more budget-conscious device. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss something that plagues a lot of web developers, being a jack of all trades. As a web developer you're expected to know a lot of information on not only making up the user interface, but also the databases, hosting platforms, and even design principles that makeup the websites you build. Some of this can be alleviated if you work in a large team where responsibilities are spread across multiple specialists, but for freelancing and small business you need to wear all the hats to become successful. Being a jack of all trades without a mastering a single one can also make you experience some impostor syndrome due to all the hours you've spent getting this far in your career. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike sit down with Knut Melvær, the Head of Developer Relations at Sanity.io to discuss all things headless CMS. The headless CMS is a unique way to add content to your website utilizing your choice of front-end technologies and an API to populate the site with your content. We touch on the comparisons between Sanity.io and other popular CMS out there, alongside thing its advantages, weaknesses, and unique feature set in the market. If you've ever been interested in checking out a headless CMS, but are wondering how it compares to the CMS you're using now (probably WordPress), then you're not going to want to miss this episode. Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5d41e97d6a070d0011eb656d You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss how they manage varying amounts of workload across different projects and customers. Time management, project management, and priority setting are all extremely important when it comes to managing your workload. Not only do you have to reach the deadline in time, but you also have to ensure you make a quality product and maintain face with good customer service. Everyone has their own unique spin on how they manage their workload and with Matt and Mike it's no different. If you've ever felt swamped - and we all have - then this episode is packed with tips and tricks to help manage your time effectively. Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/hub/Podcast/5d38b3216a070d0011eb656b   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this week's Tidbit/Web News we discuss a viral tweet that recently stirred up controversy among the programming community. This tweet named a particular type of individual called a "10x Engineer"  You can find the original Tweet here: https://twitter.com/skirani/status/1149302828420067328   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode of the podcast, Matt and Mike discuss tackling the new HTML All The Things website with Sanity.io, Nuxt.js, and Netlify. Rather than the standard cPanel hosting, or the existing setup with Digital Ocean, this deployment is going to be completely within the free tiers of these offerings with the ability to scale as the website gains traction. In addition to the discussion around these technologies, this episode does a deep dive into the UI/UX planning of the website, going over the recently completed wireframes that house a variety of design choices that should help the user navigate the site easier while updating the site to a more modern layout. This episode is a great resource for anyone that is curious about the planning procedure that goes into making a website in a small team. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

Making websites require a lot of different skills from the folks in the office acquiring the job, to the developers and designers that make the website work, then to the marketing officials that make the website popular. Often times freelancers, or small businesses are unable to cover all the bases when it comes to all these skill sets, leaving rather large holes in their company's tool set. Luckily there are a variety of ways to avoid these issues, each one offering a unique set of pros and cons depending on the situation at hand. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord  

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss something that's currently stumped the development of the HTML All The Things website - the CMS. Originally planned as a Vue.js UI alongside a custom admin panel, the new plan for the website has raised some questions that all web developers have faced at some point in their career. Should you reinvent the wheel with a fully custom solution? Or should you get up and running quickly and find a pre-built solution?   Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5d1d0e4b6a070d0011eb6565 You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss JavaScript in all its glory. They go over things like how beneficial vanilla JavaScript is to learn, especially when you're first starting out, and also explore why you shouldn't dive straight into learning a framework without knowing the basics. Then for our Web News segment, we have Sean from Rabbitwerks JavaScript call in for a discussion on the changes that VueJS 3 bring to the table and the controversy surrounding those changes. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the often stressful task of migrating an infrastructure to a new home. With the very real fear of downtime, issues, or data loss on the line, it's important to take the appropriate steps to give you the best chance of success. Furthermore, having a few backup plans is also a good idea should the migration hit a snag, or fail in some way. To finish off the episode, Mike takes us through the current status of laptops and desktops, discussing the hardware that's available today and what kind of computer you should be buying based on your needs. Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5d0a82b46a070d0011eb6561 You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss freelancing, contracting, and remote work some of the most important and quickly growing segments in the web development industry. Web developers often find themselves trying to decide between a traditional job and freelancing their skills out on their own. While freelancing sound lucrative and exciting, traditional jobs offer more stability and benefits that are generally not found elsewhere. We discuss these pros and cons of each of these pathways, and then change gears to discuss influencers and their affect on the social media platforms that we all use.  Show Notes: https://htmlallthethings.com/hub/Podcast/5d0156cd6a070d0011eb655f You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

This week we sit down with Chris Dayley a digital marketing entrepreneur that helps businesses succeed online. We discuss a bunch of very interesting topics including things like SEO, conversions, A/B testing, and PPC. This episode is a great resource for any web developer, or online entrepreneur, that needs to brush up on their marketing skills.  Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5cf825c86a070d0011eb655d You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit | Discord

In this week's episode, Matt and Mike discuss why procedures and standard practices are important. Every entrepreneur at some point in their career has tried to turn themselves against the bureaucracy and slow systems that drive large corporate machines only to find themselves needing similar systems to keep themselves afloat. We'll be discussing this sort of realization and how a business can slowly, yet naturally, create unique procedures that compliment their work style. Then we change things up with a length discussion on digital wellbeing again, but this time we talk about the plethora of digital wallets and their associated apps and loyalty cards.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss something we've all felt at one time or another - Imposter Syndrome. Whether it's due to lack of experience, or tackling a brand new topic, imposter syndrome can zap your motivation and make you want to quit. While it's hard to overcome, it's important to note that everyone has experienced it at some point in their career and will almost definitely experience it again. We offer our stories alongside some tips to overcome the dread and emerge a better developer and entrepreneur.  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode of the podcast Matt and Mike discuss the future of web development focusing on emerging trends and new technologies that are ready to take the world wide web by storm. Things like Motion UI, Progressive Web Apps (PWA), blockchain, voice search integration, and much more! With so much functionality being put into web developers' hands the future looks bright, but performance is a big concern with sites getting heavier and heavier as the years go by. Full show notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/Podcast/5cdc53536a070d0011eb6557   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode of the podcast, Matt and Mike discuss CSS frameworks, with a particular focus on Bootstrap, Materialize, and Tailwind CSS. Each of these frameworks comes with their own pros and cons that make them a great fit for particular projects offering UI developers a bunch of options when choosing the tools they need for a given project. Full show notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/hub/Podcast/5cd34bab2c5a92001836b76b   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit  

In this episode Mike and Matt discuss selecting, purchasing, and shopping for the equipment you need to get the job done. Whether you're on a budget, or ready to spend a bunch of money on something fancy, this episode covers how to make sure you get the most bang for your buck. We start off discussing the balance between pricing, your use-case, and future proofing, then we lay out ways to ensure you get all the features you need, followed by a discussion on some specific peripherals and equipment that you'll most likely encounter in the web development field. To top it off, we end with our recurring Web News segment, this week covering the various app install methods (PWA, app store, web app, browser) that are available on different devices, and which one is the most "legitimate" or more specifically, which one do you use depending on what the app does. Full show notes can be found here: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/hub/Podcast/5cc9e4282c5a92001836b769   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

This week our episode was cut short and released late due to a bit of a fiasco with our only in-house MacBook. We're also using this opportunity to announce some changes that we're going to be applying to future episodes based on some feedback that we've received. If you're a fan of our Web News segment, this week the episode was dominated by a discussion around exactly what happened to our MacBook and the various attempts we made to fix the issue. A standard full episode is planned for next week. 

In this episode we sit down once again with David Lindahl to discuss his full time job and many side hustles.  Segment 1 - What’s New? Tell us a little bit about yourself and what’s happened since we last spoke. Segment 2 - UI Developer How long did it take you to fully settle into your role? Before you got a full time position you were working on a variety of side hustles, many of which are still online today. How was the transition from being your own boss to working under a company? Is there any sort of issue with you running side hustles and working at your day job? Conflict of interest? Do they own a piece of that income as apart of an agreement? How fast were you expected to “spin-up” when you were hired? For example, were you just thrown a bunch of work and expected to know how to do it on the first day/week? How are the hours? Are you doing a lot of overtime? If so, is it mandatory? Which do you prefer? Working a day job, or being your own boss? How involved are you in the work environment? (ie company sports teams and events) Do you recommend being active within a company in this way? Segment 3 - Side Hustles What side hustles do you have going on? Are you planning on generating a passive income from these projects, or do you have different goals in mind? Rainier Watch is a big side hustle that seems to be getting bigger all the time, what’s your secret? Any tips and tricks for people that are trying to build a side hustle on Instagram? How’s your work/life balance work out with your day job and side hustles together? Are you planning for your side hustles to eventually take over your day job and becoming your full time occupation? Web News - Organic vs Algorithm on Social Media   Whenever you look up growing on social media, most of the advice is specifically for exploiting the algorithm in some way With that being said you need to have a good amount of content ready to go so that you actually have something to post, understanding how the algorithm works is great, but if you don’t have anything to post then you can’t get any exposure at all. In terms of content, higher quality is obviously preferred, but if it doesn’t generate good numbers then it seems like putting in the extra time for quality isn’t worth it How much time should you spend on your content? Should you just keep posting quality content and expect results over time - with consistent posting? Should you be prioritizing algorithm “hacks” to get your content more exposure? Is there a balance between using the algorithm and organically making quality content? Should you work on getting a following on multiple networks (ie Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) or should you focus on one?  David's Links "Made With Spark: https://madewithspark.com (The MVP site David mentioned in the show) - New website coming really soon" RainierWatch - https://www.rainierwatch.com Basecamp - https://basecamp.com You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit  

In this episode Matt and Mike discuss when to start your business, a project, or whatever it is you're putting off. It's easy to get bogged down, luckily there are some tips and tricks to prevent it. Segment 1 - When to Start One of the things you’ll hear as an entrepreneur, and we’ve mentioned on the show several times is to “just start” This means that instead of being bogged down by “what ifs” that you should just jump in and get started on whatever it is you’re working on A prime example:  a would-be entrepreneur gets stuck reading into the basics of how to start a business, what pitfalls could happen, what issues may occur, etc. While it’s good to be prepared, you could read for years upon years and still have things to flip through. It’s generally better to understand the basics, do your best to cover all the bases that you need to and then just start - avoiding the paranoia of reading all the laws and issues that others have fallen into in the past. Definitely read and understand these things, but there is a point where you’ve read enough and it’s time to take action, there’s no way you can cover every base all the time or else you’ll never get started Keep in mind that being cautious isn’t a bad thing either, if you think you need to check a law or regulation out before doing something, then it’s best to check to ensure you’re operating legally. Just don’t get bogged down for years without acting, or your competition will fly by you. If you need to, get a lawyer to explain things to you in everyday terms so you can move forward with peace of mind Now that, that’s out of the way and you’re ready to get programming your new app, website, or whatever other program you’re working on, you’re bound to hit another wall - the learning curve Unless you’re experienced in everything your project needs, you’ll end up hitting a lot of walls, maybe you don’t even know where to start and this is another major point of contention that people get stuck in. Let’s say you want to make a PWA and you’re not experienced at all with service workers - a situation we recently found ourselves in - you could read example after example, look at tons of different solutions, try different plugins and even try different programming languages but at the end of the day you’re just reading up on what you want to be doing, you’re not doing what you want to be doing. Obviously guides, tutorials, and research do go a long way and are very valuable, but it’s easy to get stuck reading through the plethora of different ways that you can implement a solution for your given app and if it’s a passion project you want to make sure you’re using the best solution so you keep looking through different options and never actually start making that service worker (in our example) This is another major area where you need to “just start” The time differs from person to person, and from project to project, but at the end of the day you need/want to make that deliverable and we’re all human so it’s not going to be perfect (especially if you’re a beginner), so read up enough so you can navigate Google searches on that thing you’re working on and then just start making it If you end up pivoting a few times, who cares, as long as you keep moving towards the goal - you’ll end up learning way more working on the solution rather than just reading about it As a I said above the “just start” point is different for each person, and furthermore per project - in the next two segments we’ll be discussing our differing approaches to this problem Segment 2 - Matt’s Process When we first started our business, we had a hard time trying to figure out exactly what we needed to do We weren’t sure whether you needed a lawyer, or if you had to declare your business somewhere - there was nothing of the sort covered in our schooling other than the different types of businesses like partnerships, corporations, etc. We ended up calling a few places that didn’t get back to us, so we ended up having a meeting with a lawyer which gave us some information on opening, what at the time, was an IT business From that though, we decided that we wanted to go into web development due to an opportunity that popped up and from that pivot we ended up finding a business advisor that took us through the procedure, which ended up being very easy to get started We’ve mentioned this origin story in a past episode, but it’s an example of how we got bogged down in the beginning, but kept pushing through and then eventually just got started - later than we wanted - but we still finally got the job done In terms of a web development project, one of the more recent examples that we’ve mentioned on that show was learning about service workers, which resulted in getting bogged down in the research - my procedure for this was: Google “service workers” and read up on the very basics, learn how they work and how to implement them at a very high level so I know what tools I’ll need to have at my disposal Unfortunately, since service workers are complex and I was completely new to them, I had to read up on some related topics like promises and JS workers which gave me a bit of useful background information - and then I had to figure out how to get service workers to work with VueJS (this entire story is in this episode:) Dealing with advanced/complex topics are particularly easy to get bogged down in because there are a lot of variables that you, as a beginner, will not be aware of and will be tempted to read up on, leading to the loop of constant research In order to get out of the particular situation, I started narrowing the research from the initial very general searches, down to my particular situation of using service workers with vuejs That type of more specific research led me to a few examples that I was able to implement into my testing, which eventually led us to the solution that we’re working on now One of the telltale signs that I’ve read too much is that I have bookmarks/resources that have a lot of overlapping information. If I find myself bookmarking a variety of resources that essentially “read in circles” or are covering the exact same topics but in slightly different ways, I’ll generally stop researching and start implementing on the spot Segment 3 - Mike’s Process Feasibility assessment Can the chosen technology; plugin, library, framework, etc. Accomplish the set current and future goals of the application PWA example, simple buying app for a company that needs to work on all platforms Learning curve With my current knowledge, how long will it take me to Get started with this Accomplish my desired functionality Optimize for performance and extensibility PWA is standard html css js with a small jump in complexity in reference to service workers Get started Dive right into starting to use it, even if it’s just setting it up and running it’s most basic function I.e making a hello world application Create a PWA of the current products site More research Now that you have a basic understanding you can dive deeper into learning Watch videos, read tutorials, what ever learning style works for you Always do these with a goal, for instance trying to implement a feature on your roadmap, so that you are More motivated Not wasting any time Try to implement what you’re learning in parallel to learning about it In terms of PWA add offline functionality to app with service workers Web News - Apple Our main OS is Windows Had to buy a macbook to compile iOS apps using cordova and debug safari on an iPad Initially bought a 2011 13 inch macbook pro Did the job but was pretty slow even with a upgraded HDD to SSD Not enough screen real estate to use as a main machine if I’m traveling Also it does not officially support MacOS Mojave and the new xcode. Which means I wasn’t able to test my iOS apps on my updated iPad air 2 Bought a late 2013 15” macbook pro Retina which solved all those problems, but as I found out, Macbooks don’t have the greatest quality control and always have some weird issues Issue I had was a system process called kernel_task was taking up over 500% of the CPU processing threads and making my macbook pretty much unusable. This would usually happen when my Mac was at 100% battery and connected to power. A battery recalibration seemed to fix it but the Macbook still seems a little slow for it’s specs. Makes me think CPU is power throttling (def not temperature issues as they are fine) Had some moments where I didn’t know what to do, I don’t really want to buy a new Macbook having heard all it’s display and keyboard problems, especially considering it’s well over 3000 Canadian Really sucks when a manufacturer closes everything down and doesn’t give you any real options, not being able to do an iOS development on a windows or even linux machine locks me into only one option which hasn’t been a very good experience Considered building a hackintosh but again I need it to be potentially portable Wish I had the option of buying a windows laptop and running Macos on it, or being able to debug/compile in windows or even linux Don’t have any huge problems with MacOS as a whole, has its ups and downs like with any OS/ecosystem but the hardware has me really concerned Not being able to upgrade pretty much anything in the newer macbooks Having higher than industry standard failure rates on ‘premium’ priced machines Not having enough hardware options in the different models (especially at reasonable prices) Apple PWA and Webview support is also a disaster What should I do? Do you have hope for the future of Macbooks? You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode we'll be discussing the ins and outs of progressive web apps including what they are,  some of their functionality, and what challenges/limitations they still face. Segment 1 - What is a PWA As mentioned on the show a few times before, PWA stands for Progressive Web App, which is the evolution of the standard web app If you’re new to all of this, the breakdown is rather simple: Website - A website is a more basic presence on the web, it delivers content to a visitor (ie blog posts, news articles) Popular examples would be news websites, tech blogs, marketing websites, and small business sites. Web App - Functions similarly to a website, however, acts more like an app that you’d see on your phone that performs a function. For example, there are online image editors where you can upload your photo and edit it right in the browser. This editor is a web app because the user interacts with it and computing happens (via the photo edits), content isn’t being delivered in the same way as a written article, or marketing information to the user. Unlike apps that run on your phone however, web apps are limited by the browsers limitations meaning that natively they can’t be installed, and they generally don’t have access to certain functions that natively installed apps can take advantage of, usually due to permissions/security on a given device. Progressive Web App - PWAs are the natural evolution of the standard web app, whose arguably biggest feature is the ability to run offline through the usage of service workers. Basically, they’re a web app that runs in the browser like any other, however, they can be installed and start leveraging more of those features that natively installed Android apps can . They’re still limited by the same restraints you can see from other webview apps and they still run the same codebase as their web app counterparts, not the native Java like other Android apps. In addition, they aren’t in a centralized location like the apps found in the Google Play store, you generally have to grab them from the web app’s website. If you visit the Twitter web app from your Chrome browser on Android you’ll see an “Add to Home Screen” button, if you do that you’re  installing the Twitter PWA, but if you look up Twitter in the Google Play Store that’s a different native app PWAs are getting more and more powerful and a lot of the walled off features are being broken down. Just a few short years ago you couldn’t get push notifications from your browser, now they’re rather commonplace for chat and news sites. Accessing hardware was also an issue years ago, getting access to things like a webcam or a microphone, but now you can use a chat app like Skype right in the browser via video or voice chat - these limitations are quickly being done away with. Things like NFC access, however, is still a limitation last time I checked. In terms of accessing PWAs, as mentioned before, there isn’t a centralized location for them all. Unlike on Android where the Google Play Store houses the vast majority of the available native apps, PWAs are generally downloaded from the web app’s website. However, even this limitation is starting to change with new ways to list PWAs in both the Google Play Store and Microsoft Store starting to make their way into the developer toolbelt With these restrictions breaking down the main limitation is really with the codebase. Since a PWA isn’t written in the native language of a given platform, but rather runs more like a website/web app, Javascript does come with some limitations namely that it is a single-threaded process. However, there are workarounds for this, and Javascript itself is becoming more user friendly and more functional with every release - just like PWAs From my experience, iOS has “less adopted” PWAs as of right now, however, I can see that limitation being lifted at some point in the near future in my opinion. One example would be that No BS News for Reddit can be installed on Android phones in it’s demo form right now, but that’s not the case on an iPhone. However, the app does still function in the browser which shows off the versatility of a PWA Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of corporations will have strict policies on what they support. For example, some places may say that if a certain browser’s usage worldwide is above 2% then that browser must be supported. This creates a problem because oftentimes it’s an older version of a browser like Internet Explorer, and since PWAs are so new, there will be severe limitations on what a developer can do if he needs features to work on such old software In conclusion, a PWA is the evolution of the standard web app. It runs in the browser like any other website/web app, but has additional features like offline functionality and the ability to be installed. PWAs are quickly approaching the functionality of standard native apps, which is good news for small developer teams that have a web app and no time to develop a completely different native app for smartphones. The real question is whether PWAs will take over native apps, or will they just be another option for developers? Here are a couple links comparing and contrasting PWA functionality vs native app functionality https://www.strv.com/blog/3-limitations-of-progressive-web-apps https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-Progressive-web-apps-and-regular-web-apps https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35504194/what-features-do-progressive-web-apps-have-vs-native-apps-and-vice-versa-on-an Segment 2 - Make your Web App a PWA Quite a simple process if your application doesn’t make any external api calls Just need a manifest json file that gives browser information such as app names and icon locations Web app must be served with HTTPS and have a basic service worker What that essentially accomplishes is allowing supported browsers/operating systems to detect your app as a PWA and cache it to be served from cache instead of the network. The power of PWA’s really comes with the service worker implementation. With service workers we create cached server calls, so if you hit a external API or your own servers API the service worker can cache them and then serve the responses from the cache instead of the network API calls. You can also set up the service worker to detect changes and update the caches with those changes (this has caveats) With vuejs specifically, the vue cli can be used to create a app with PWA functionality already built in or even add PWA functionality to an existing app This creates all the files necessary for the browser to detect your website as a PWA You’ll need to edit the information in your manifest file and add any functionality to your service worker you need other than what it already has built in which is Caching all css, js, img and html files that are in the application Essentially this allows a PWA to run more like a native application in the sense that it doesn’t rely on the speed or presence of a network connection The PWA landscape is always changing and evolving so features are constantly being worked on and usually added from browser to browser Segment 3 - State of PWAs Currently PWA’s are supported on every major browser to some extent. Chrome has the deepest integration and support for PWA’s Some really cool features that chrome gives you is the ability to add a PWA to your desktop/home screen on all operating systems but iOS. So on Android and windows for instance if the application is a PWA you can go into the 3 dot menu in the top right corner and there will be an option to Install in there. This will add it to your application and for most purposes will behave just like a native application of that operating system. Great use cases for this can be internal business logic apps, like if a company needs a application for their new employees to take a safety course it can be easily made as a PWA. The large advantage of PWA’s to development teams is how quickly they can be built, deployed and tested across multiple platforms. Only needing a small development team to launch a application is a huge advantage for small startups and businesses, as it allows for much quicker and agile development The greatest benefit to users is the speed of the applications, since the application can be mostly served from cache the user won’t see as much loading going from page to page There are of course some inconsistencies with PWA’s currently. iOS being the main one On iOS most crucial features are supported, like service workers but with quite a few caveats No background syncing, no push notifications, no app theming No prompt to install from the browser and the major one is that service worker events are not supported. So we can’t get information such as new update available messaging That was a huge challenge recently because one of the applications I’m currently being contracted to work on is a PWA that has to run on iPads. Not having a consistent update experience was a major problem for testing and deploying updates. There was a work around which involved setting a workbox (framework for creating service workers) option called skipwaiting to true, which essentially now checks for new updates on every single load and loads them right away. Disadvantage to this is a larger network call is made on every load unless no network is detected PWA’s also use a slightly different renderer on iOS then safari and therefore has some minor inconsistencies that need to be QA’d and fixed Thankfully most issues can be worked around and it still provides for a much better experience then the browser version Resources: https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/ https://devchat.tv/views-on-vue/vov-055-progressive-web-apps-with-aaron-gustafson-live-at-microsoft-ignite/ Web News - Flagship Smartphone UX The trend among smartphones for 2018/2019 are: Very tall, with an aspect ratio of something like 2:1 Very high screen to body ratio - almost no bezels Have notches or cutouts in the screen to accommodate for front-facing cameras and sensors These trends create a major set of UX/UI issues that affect web developers, app developers, and device manufacturers because they need to ensure that content is not being rendered right where a piece of the screen is missing, not to mention create some sort of elegant solution to allow the UI to “avoid” the notch or cutout without annoying the user In addition, in recent years vertical video, photos, and portrait apps have been on the rise because phones are generally easier to hold in the portrait orientation, but since they’ve been getting taller and taller, it’s difficult for users to reach any UI elements at the top of the screen - especially with one hand We’ve seen manufacturers try and combat this with various iterations of one-handed modes which generally shrink the screens, or with UI redesigns that makes UI elements favour the bottom of the screen Gestures are starting to take off, allowing users to access the notification shade at the top of the screen by just swiping down anywhere on the home screen, among other innovative gesture functions From this information there are a couple of UX issue that stand out to me Notches and cutouts are all different on different devices, and they are handled differently by different manufacturers The bottom of the screen is getting very crowded with things like the android nav bar, the chrome bar (depending on if you use that UI layout), and then navbars for touch interfaces on websites Gestures and UX workarounds for one-handed use are adding to the learning curve of devices that were once rather easy to use   You can find us on... 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In this solo episode, Mike discusses the code refactoring process and then deep dives on work/life balance. Segment 1 - What is Refactoring Refactoring definitionChanging your code to improve its organization and structure without directly influencing it’s performance Explanation of terminologyCode SmellsSomething you notice as your coding that you think will later require a restructure/reorganization ExtensibilityAbility to later down the road use your current code to extend the capabilities of your program without having to rewrite large portions of code Maintainability Make it easier to fix bugs and find issues in your code down the line when you’re not as familiar with it Extraction/componentizationTaking functionality from a method and creating its own method so that it becomes reusable to other functions Segment 2 - Tips Refactor often Create a refactor listWhen you notice a code smell but need to focus on functionality, jot it down in a refactor to do list so you don’t forget to go back and correct Change obscure variable names to proper named variables (Maintainability)Also use appropriate variable types. In JS we are limited but we still have the choice between let, const, var When you notice you’re using the same of similar functionality in multiple functions, externalize that functionality into its own function (extraction/componentization)That could be a seperate function, or it can be a seperate file with a it’s own class and extensible functionalities In vuejs currently you can used Mixins which allow the use of methods across components (in the future this will be handled with hooks) Remove old code that you previously commented out Clean up unused files, folders, functions and images Change code to be extensible to your needs (Extensibility)During sprints with short deadlines sometimes you’ll write code to just get something working while realizing that certain functionality that needs to be implemented in the future won’t work with the current implementation Example: Internationalization Remove unused librariesWe all add libraries as we code to try to meet deadlines faster, but sometimes they don’t work the way we want and we move on to the next one. It’s important to remove them when we realise they don’t fit Use tools like prettier and lint to help maintain code structure on a daily basisExample making sure everything is in spaces instead of tabs Arrow functions instead of expression functions Add comments to sections of code you think need explanation (maintainability) Web News - Work/Life Balance One of the disadvantages of being a contractor/freelancer is not having that 9-5 work structure that you have to follow Depending on your situation though it might be an advantage, if your wife works from home also, you can sometimes spend the best parts of the day together. Instead of going shopping at peak times you can go earlier and just work when you get back Take advantage of off hours for traffic A structured day is great, but everyone has a different work rhythm and being able to structure your day based on that can greatly increase productivity. If you work better in the mornings and early evenings you can make the middle of the day your time off for instance If your considering freelancing you have to be able to structure your own days, which seems simple but can really be a challenge.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode we take a look at taking on complex tasks in a field where you're not very experienced, something all programmers must do at one point or another in their career. Segment 1 - The Newcomer Effect This segment is going to focus on our experience configuring a vuejs service worker - I went in with no previous hand-on experience, a complete newcomer to service workers and an amateur at vuejs. Therefore this process is no doubt clunky, but as you’ll hear that’s exactly the point I want to be clear before I dive in here that we’re using the following particular scenario because it was recent, we are not pointing the finger at any of the plugins, apps, or resources that we mention below. The issues we’re discussing are industry-wide, and not on a specific service, platform, or individual. Recently we went to work with service workers on a Vue.js app (No BS News for Reddit) As apart of the coding challenge we had already had a basic service worker setup that allowed the local assets to load when the app was offline This functionality was made using a pwa plugin for vuejs  We left this plugin mostly, if not completely, in its default configuration This default configuration registers a service worker and then generates a service worker file which caches those offline assets Mike got the project to this point during the coding challenge and then I took over This is where things all fell apart for me: I had done a couple of days on reading basic service worker configurations and functionality and then finally decided to dive into our project First thing I did was look around the file structure and I find a file named registerServiceWorker.js This file contained an import line regarding register-service-worker (which fueled my initial Google searches) as well as the registration and basic responses that you’d expect such as successfully registered, detecting offline, etc. Searching register-service-worker led me to the page that I linked above, which had some very brief documentation and a code example that looked like our registerServiceWorker.js file (so far so good) From there I ran some tests in Chrome, checking for service worker install, checking offline mode, etc to get my bearings At that point I wanted to start adding some code of my own to the service worker, from my readings I knew that the service worker was definitely a separate file and from the registerServiceWorker.js file I could see that it was referring to a file called service-worker.js Searching the directory for said file revealed that it didn’t exist I then went and checked in the browser again, taking a look at the sources tab to find out what file was running the service worker, it showed that it was definitely service-worker.js - which indicated that the file was being created dynamically as apart of the build process This led us down a rabbit hole of finding how to inject my service worker code into this autogenerated file Overall, we eventually did find a solution for the code injection, however, it was not in the original register-service-worker documentation, nor was it discussed a lot on stack overflow We did find one Stack Overflow thread that did help, which led us to a useful blog and a couple of interesting links - I also found a separate page on npmjs.com somewhere along the lines which contained the missing code we were looking for Basically we needed to add some injection configuration into the vue.config.js file and then from there make our service worker script Now I know that’s long winded, but it points out some very important problems/concerns: The newcomer effect is alive and well, I wrote an article on Medium about what I call the newcomer effect a long time ago, it basically means that any documents/signs/directions that are available for any given experience rarely take into account the needs of those that are complete beginners - increasing the entry “budget” for newbies I’m not sure how documentation writers do it - maybe it’s because they’ve been working on their projects for so long - that they completely miss major steps in their documentation. It’s got to be mentioned that we desperately need better documentation for beginners and furthermore, more linking between potentially helpful guides In this particular case, maybe it’s because many folks won’t write their own service worker, but rather just want the default to cache the local assets and that’s it, but shouldn’t it at least be mentioned that if you want to write your own service worker - please see x Toxicity and useless comments are alive and well - on various forum posts, comments, and of course Stack Overflow posts there are typically an abundance of comments that dismiss questions due to “user not being experienced enough” or similar reasons. Or questions that are marked as duplicates, when really the question was indeed unique enough to be answered I want to be reiterate here, that I’m simply mentioning some of the roadblocks that we face when we’re newbies on a given topic, I’m sure a bunch of these affect other people as well. I’m not pointing the finger at this particular PWA plugin, Stack Overflow, npmjs.com, or any other website. I’m simply using this particular recent scenario to point out common problems that could be ironed out for those of us that are inexperienced. These problems can be found across any programming language, and even outside of the programming world in some cases. In conclusion, once we got the service worker file running, we were off the races. We ended up being able to cache all our Google Fonts thanks to a helpful guide and are well on our way to getting more offline functionality added in the app. Once we had everything put together, the PWA plugin works great. But I stand by my position that finding instructions on how to setup something in Vue (or any other framework, library, or whatever you're using) shouldn't be the challenging part. The challenging part here should be that we need to get offline functionality working via our service worker itself, not figuring out how a service worker is setup in this particular configuration   Segment 2 - Strategies Complicated issues and topics arise all the time during the the development of a project They can range from concepts you haven't heard of like Binary Tree Searches or design patterns, advanced algorithms or even just complicated libraries/frameworks Sometimes when taking on a task it might seem that there's just to many unknowns for you and you’re delving into a sea of advanced topics I’m going to go through a couple ways I go about learning and implementing advanced topics. I start by breaking them down into as many smaller topics as I can For instance if the topic would be VueJs id break it down into Setup dev environment Create first hello world app Test reactivity Figure out navigation Figure out state sharing Learn about components Etc By breaking apart a complicated topic into smaller manageable topics it takes away the initial feeling of being lost and allows you to focus on one small easy to digest topic at a time If the topic is something that's hard to breakdown, or you don’t even know where to start breaking it down, it’s a good idea to take a look at the documentation and see what they start with. Usually the documentation starts with the simpler topics and moves on to the advanced ones. Of course if it has poor documentation that's a whole other problem that as Matt previously stated. Once the topic has been broken down to learn more about each section I would actually start coding almost right away. So as you’re learning about how to get a dev environment setup, actually set it up. The more I’m actually applying what I’m learning the faster I’ll pick up the concepts and find their downfalls and issues Speaking of issues advanced topics can also just be hard to debug issues. We’ve had an episode about troubleshooting so I won’t go to far into it but essentially your first key goal is to be able to easily reproduce the issue, after that using the chrome dev tools as your guide, you can put breakpoints everywhere you need to read the state of all the variables as you progress. This method usually Diagnoses my issues quickly And gives me a clearer path for a simple solution If you run into a roadblock and don’t see a solution at all, step away from that issue for some time. Even just getting up going to do a small chore might jog your brain into thinking about it from a different angle Sometimes you’ll run into issues figuring out seemingly simple features and you might have to use these strategies for them too Here's something that recently happened to me where I had to use all these strategies to get past a seemingly simple feature addition Get the best library to work in a basic way to my liking If it works figure out why it isn’t working in my particular scenario Reproduce the issue Troubleshoot the library code to figure out what is stopping it from working Fix the issue Had to add a comparison slider to a vuejs application A few libraries to choose from so thought it should be easy Tried all of them and they all had varying issues Issue arose here, had to figure a) should I use one of these libraries or build my own Broke down the problem During the process of fixing it, I had to step away a couple times and each time I found different ways Web News - Thin Client Computing With the announcement of Google’s new streaming game service Stadia it seems like a good time to have a quick look at the current state and the potential future of thin client computing When referring to thin clients I mean a small, low power computer that essentially is used to remote connect to a offsite powerful one that provides greater performance then you can get with lightweight portable computers In reference to Google’s new game streaming service a person can play AAA games using any device that is connected to the internet and runs chrome. There's obvious advantages to this Using cheap hardware to still perform complex tasks Being able to access the same environment from any device without any sort of backups or syncing required Some not so obvious advantages actually can come for developers If large thin client powerhouses like google become really popular, a developer is now coding for a single set of hardware, as the actual thin client that the user has doesn’t matter Imagine gaming developers not having to worry what video card their audience will have because everyone will just be using thin clients to connect to a large datacenter with the same hardware in each machine The limitations are also pretty big right now. Network connection being the main one. The latency of your actions appearing on screen can be very distracting. If you click your mouse and only a second later something happens it makes working with the system very unpleasant. But with the knowledge that networks are constantly improving, latency is also getting better and maybe there are ways to make it almost unnoticeable, can you see a future where thin computing explodes? Links Plugin Links https://www.npmjs.com/package/register-service-worker https://www.npmjs.com/package/@vue/cli-plugin-pwa/v/3.0.0-rc.1 Stack Overflow Thread https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51214220/vue-cli-3-how-to-use-the-official-pwa-plugin-service-worker Guide we used https://levelup.gitconnected.com/vue-pwa-example-298a8ea953c9 The Newcomer Effect: A UX consideration (Medium article) https://blog.endpointmedia.co/the-newcomer-effect-a-ux-consideration-39889b6db077   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit  

In this episode we sit down with leadership expert Scott McCarthy, to discuss leadership skills related to small business and independent entrepreneurs. Segment 1 - Introduce Yourself Segment 2 - Starting Out Do you think that leadership is more of a school-learned skill (note-taking, reading, etc.) or more of one that you learn by putting it into practice? How closely would you relate self-discipline with leadership skills? Should you work on self-discipline before trying to lead others? When entrepreneurs are first starting out, they’re generally alone, or with a small group of other company founders. This leaves them partially or completely isolated from leading other people, a skill they would need to develop should their company grow and hire employees down the road. What advice would you give to someone looking to up their leadership game, before they hire employees? A common mentality for new entrepreneurs is to just dive in and figure things out when you get there, which could lead your business into disaster. What’s your opinion on this mentality? Should people prepare more before they dive in? How tied up should leaders get in the details? Should staff worry about details and leaders focus more on the big picture? (ie setting a sales goal without having the intricate details of how to reach it) Many people that are thinking of starting a business are looking to stash some money away from their day jobs so that they can slowly lower their hours to work on their business idea. Given that their day job is a different experience from their would-be business, how would these entrepreneurs transfer any leadership skills they’re learning on the daily, to their new business? Segment 3 - Types of Leader One of the things that I struggle with a lot, is trying to determine what kind of leader I want to be. I want to maximize my team’s output, but that the same time, I don’t want to be a “force to be reckoned with” when entering the office. I often flip between being a ruthless money-only kind of leader, a laid back “tech culture” leader, or something in between. Does this kind of decision naturally work itself out as you gain more management experience, or is it more dictated by the stage of the company? (ie only the richer companies can afford to be laid back) How much, if at all, does the job dictate the type of leader needed? Should leaders have “modes” that they snap into in certain situations?  (ie Be really monetarily aggressive during an economic downturn, and lighten up when the business improves) Web News - Difficult Situations When faced with a difficult situation, having a strong leader is critical to guide the team through the storm. This is easier said than done, however, because there are so many aspects of a business that a leader has to keep in mind Things like: employees, asset management, capital, revenue, expenses, etc. In an example scenario, let’s say that there is a struggling app development business that has 1 boss and 5 employees. The business is struggling to find customers and therefore can’t afford to pay their staff’s wages for any more than a couple of months.The company does have some valuable assets in the form of useful apps that could be put up for sale to raise capital. In this situation... How critical is employee loyalty? Should layoffs be step 1? Should assets be sold off before layoffs are considered? If layoffs are inevitable, how do leaders soften the blow? Or do they just move on? What is the main goal the leader should push for? (ie keeping the people employed, maximizing profit, liquidating to gain capital for themselves, retaining assets, etc.) Scott's Links Website w/ Social Links https://movingforwardleadership.com   Facebook Group https://movingforwardleadership.com/mastermind   Free eBook Preview of "The 9 Foundations of Leadership" https://movingforwardleadership.com/download Email Scott for a free 15 minute coaching call [email protected]   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

With Vue.js' popularity steadily rising, many of you are probably thinking of migrating from jQuery. Segment 1 - State of jQuery https://jquery.com/ jQuery is a javascript library mainly targeted at HTML document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation* and ajax requests. Meant to simplify your code and reduce the amount you would have to write doing simple things such as Assigning event listeners to all elements of the same class Creating DOM elements such as DIVs Using the $.ajax shorthand to interact with API’s/server calls So main theoretical advantages areCode becomes easier to read You write less code Familiarity, lots of developers have used jQuery for years and can write it without looking at documentation. Switching from something you are extremely familiar with can be a tough and costly venture jQuery has now been around for over a decade (since 2006) and as with everything in our field, it has started to be seen as ‘ancient’ technology. I wouldn’t agree with that kind of labeling but having used jQuery for the better part of my web development career it does have some pitfalls Transitions and animation rendering isn’t well optimized and can lag Large transversal are often bulky and execution time lags in comparison to native Javascript solutions Javascript api’s have improved over the past decade to the point where it is easier to implement and has more features then a jquery solution With the emergence of large javascript frameworks like React and Vue.js jquery has lost some ground as integrating with these frameworks, although possible, is usually viewed as resource costly and redundant   Segment 2 - From jQuery to Vue As with anything new, it will take some time to adapt to a new way of developing when going from your typical jQuery workflow to a more framework based Vue.js workflow There are key differences with how jQuery handles things vs the way Vue does. Examples of those differences: Assigning a function to DOM element such as a div or a button In jQuery assigning a function is done in the script tag by using the $(‘.class or #id) selector and then extending it with a .click/.change(function(){dosomething;}) In Vue a dom/template element is tied to a method that is created in the vue instance. You can assign them to any event weather it be a click event or a change event using the @click, @change syntax on the dom element Transitions/Animations jQuery has plenty of . extenders that handle simple transitions like fading in and out (.fadeIn .fadeOut) and most other simple animations. They can be activated within your js scripts on any element using the typical $ selectors. These do not use css animations or transitions and have notably worse performance then them Vue has a tag that can then be tied to a css animation or transition. The transition can be activated on any state change, such as a simple v-if show hide Adding and removing classes conditionally/programmatically from DOM elements jQuery can do this by using the $ selector to get all elements of a particular class, or just a single element with an ID. It can then using the .addClass or .removeClass extension to do either function In Vue.js you have to bind classes to each element using the : notation. So on each element you need a conditional class, like a active class for a button, you assign the :class with a condition. Like active : isActive which binds the ‘active’ class to the isActive data property/variable. So anytime isActive is set to true, the element will gain the active class There are many other differences, like Ajax requests, which are handled by the axios library in vuejs and dynamic DOM element creation which is a major feature of Vuejs but is considerably more janky using jQuery. In the end making the transition from jQuery to Vue was quite hands on and involved a significant amount of adapting and learning new skills. Not to say it was overly difficult, as we’ve been saying many times in this podcast, having a good base knowledge of pure Javascript makes it easier to pick up new technologies and switch between libraries and frameworks. My advice for developers just starting out would be to still get a good grasp of native javascript and then jump into a framework like Vue.js or React. With native javascript getting most of the features of jQuery, it doesn’t make sense for a developer to invest their time into learning it.   Useful Resource - Meta Tags https://metatags.io/ MetaTags.io can help you investigate existing, modify, or create meta tags for your website, across multiple platforms You’re able to type in a URL, which will pull in all the detected meta tags such as a photo, the title, and the description From there you’re able to see exactly what your metadata will look like in Google as well as other popular services such as: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, and Slack If there’s something you need to add or change, you can do that right on the web page. When you’re done, simply click on the “Generate Meta Tags” button and a new snippet of code containing your changes will be generated so you can paste them into your tags Our use cases: We’ve been using this a lot with Webflow recently In Webflow you’re able to set site-wide meta tags, set static ones per page, dynamic ones based on CMS data, and even allow users to edit meta tags specifically via the Webflow CMS with some configuring Because there are so many options affecting meta tags, checking out the metadata in metatags.io really helps us inspect if the dynamic data is working out, or if the customers are filling things out correctly. It also lets us specifically test how metadata looks on all the customer’s preferred platforms all in one place (ie facebook, twitter)   Web News - Laser Focus in a Scatterbrained Industry If you work for a big company, or listen to business gurus, “laser focus” is a commonly used phrase that has essentially become a buzzword of sorts It’s generally used to describe the need for a team to focus on something important, such as a new project that’s coming up, or meeting a very important deadline Often times it is also used to describe the general direction of a business, especially if a business is new, or is evolving with the times. The administration will generally ask for the staff to remain “laser focused” on their new movement, or business strategy to ensure continued success This laser focus is also applied to beginner entrepreneurs when discussing the prospect of success. Gurus will often talk up working in their preferred industry, then bring it back down to earth saying things like “this is not a get rich quick thing, you need to stay laser focused on your goal to succeed, there’s no other way around it” At the end of the day being laser focused on a goal is sound advice, but when it comes to complex projects, that laser focused goal has to be more general and can easily still lead you down the path to distraction and eventual failure The website industry is all over the place when it comes to almost every single aspect. Prices are wildly different from agency to agency for the exact same product Building out projects take several different skill sets, or investments into services that essentially act as outsourced contractors (ie developing the site yourself and getting an SEO specialist involved to optimize for Google search) Sometimes businesses don’t have any branding ready at all, which results in the need for illustrators and other related artists to make up logos and colour schemes Don’t forget about the fact that websites are always online, so when they go down, someone needs to support them, pulling your attention away from new projects that you have on the go When you’re starting out by yourself, or in a small team, you’ll inevitably have to become a jack of all trades in order to keep everything running smoothly, especially when you don’t have the capital to hire individuals to run each aspect of the business individually Herein like the question, how do you remain laser focused when the industry you’re in is so scatterbrained? One possible solution might be to make the goal more general, but if the goal is just to make money, there’s way too many solutions to that problem that will hardly result in laser focus of any kind. We suffer from this issue constantly, we’ll say something like “let’s just focus on money the next few months” and before you know if we have 3 app concepts, some marketing plans for client-work, and nothing actually done. Even No BS News was completed for the purposes of the code challenge, but then not published further than that because another possible money making opportunity came knocking. How do you remain focused in the web development/design industry?   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

Pivoting a project can be a blessing, or a curse. It's important to know when and when not to pivot to avoid derailing your development cycle. Segment 1 - Our Pivots When first starting out it’s important to be open to all avenues to you In our case we chose to try to get into the IT and Web Design/Development business from the get go. Although we did have a few IT clients we both seemed to prefer the web development side of the business as time went on. Eventually we landed a larger Web development account and at the same time had an opportunity to take on a medium size IT contract for a medical clinic. This was when we had to decide to go fully into web development or try to keep up both sides. It seemed like if we tried to keep both sides our preferable side would suffer so we chose to Pivot fully into web development Recently we decided on another Pivot Our choices were continuing trying to expand our service industry and get more clients for a steadier income or try to build a audience and get more in touch with the developer community in an attempt to eventually generate a more ‘passive’ income source Of course if you’re listening to this podcast you know the route we chose, as HTML all the Things is our way of connecting with all of you This wasn’t an easy decision as the temptation of more stable income was high. I was engaged at the time (married now) and obviously with that was a little worried to dump a bunch of potential income for a chance at building a community When we didn’t pivot Situations will constantly arise in your life, especially if you are trying to make your own path, that will tempt you to Pivot what you are doing Sometimes you will pivot, and sometimes it’s better to stick to your guns and forge ahead An example a time a we didn’t pivot was when we were coming up with project ideas and after launching our first html5 based game (Click to Riches) we wanted to create more games and almost become a html5 based gaming studio. This sounded really fun and we had a blast making Clicks to Riches but looking at it analytically the competition was extremely high and to generate any sort of consistent profit would have potentially taken years.   Segment 2 - Pivoting a Project Generally when you’re first coming up with a project, you’ll list all the ideas, features, and systems that will be included either at release, or down the road These features should be categorized into various groups, some of the common ones are: MVP - all the vital features that are needed to make the project function/solve the problem it’s out to solve First Updates - Some features that are close-to-vital or easy to implement and will be added to the project soon after release Wishlist - Features that would be “cool” to have in the project, but aren’t vital to it’s core functionality Pivoting a project is not a decision to be taken lightly Whenever you pivot a project’s direction, it almost always adds a bunch more work to the original plan, typically some of those wishlist features are bubbled up to the MVP, or first updates category Pivoting at any stage of a project can have some terrible results: At the beginning - You might end up pivoting before or during the first days of development, which throws off the entire plan and can render any work done so far as completely useless Later on - Pivoting when a bunch of the work is completed can completely disrupt the development procedure and can ultimately derail a development cycle. For example, QA might not be able to test everything they want to because some of the features they were planning to test are now going to be radically changed. In addition, pivoting later into development often can result in added features that will be undercooked in the release, and therefore can produce a less quality product On the flip side, sometimes pivoting can have some great results: Better product that is more fitted to the marketplace More features that were initially thought to be useless, but ended up being vital in some way Matching, or beating, a competitors offering where the original MVP wasn’t capable of doing so Ultimately, pivoting is something that will come up on many projects, but you should be resistant to it Ensure that the reasons for pivoting far outweigh the reasons for keeping the project the way it is There is great value in sticking to a plan because people get familiar with it, and know what to expect. Changing said plan can result in chaos for the development team We slightly pivoted No BS News due to Google Play’s new PWA application system that allows for PWAs to more easily be put onto the Google Play store. As a result of this change, we decided it best to have some offline features and to tie up any lose ends. The benefits of pivoting No BS News in this way are: Better exposure and marketing on Google Play (discovery engine) More functionality will be added that will make it function more like a real app that relies on the internet, but caches some of the data it already has (minor offline functionality) Is going to push us to finish the project We need to learn service workers for some upcoming client work   Segment 3 - Pivotal Paralysis w/ the Jack of all Trades As we’ve mentioned in brief before, it’s often very difficult to stay focused within the tech industry given that there are so many positions and so much crossover between them When you’re running a small business, or a startup, often times you need to wear multiple hats within the company in order to keep it afloat These multiple hats result in experience and exposure to several segments of the tech industry, that provide useful skills, but also provide a bunch of distractions Whenever you have experience in a given area, it’s hard to focus on the one you’re working on. For example - if you’re working on making the UI for an app, and you have Photoshop experience, you may get distracted for an entire day on editing some icons that weren’t in the project’s original schedule. Resulting in a late and possibly rushed UI development Distractions aren’t great for a project’s development, but these distractions can easily evolve into project pivots. If you’re developing an application that focuses on calculations, but you have experience in graphic design, you might be distracted from the original goal of making a simple UI that allows the user to complete calculations. Instead, you might pivot the project such that it has a theming system and a bunch of cool UI elements that look nice, but introduce a bunch of graphical and UI work that will stall out development and isn’t vital to the project Being constantly distracted by things you have knowledge of is a constant plague of the tech industry because so many people have a experience in at least a few segments It’s important to keep to the plan whenever you can to avoid scheduling mishaps, missed deadlines Personally, I find this jack of all trades w/ pivoting issue normally crops up in the earlier parts of a project because everything is still being flushed out and designed. It’s so easy to just flip a wishlist feature into the MVP that before you know it, you have a bloated app that will arrive late and might not be tested as much as you’d like because it had to be rushed to try and meet the deadline Stick to the plan whenever possible, but keep in mind that the plan isn’t written in stone, just really close to it. Make the plan hard to change - pivoting is a blessing and curse Web News - Community Moderation With the newest ‘Adpocalypse’ happening on YouTube due to all the ‘sexually illicit’ comments appearing on videos with underage kids in them, what does this mean for the future of platforms like YouTube or even the internet From pretty much the beginning of the internet anytime a community has taken off it inevitably has pockets of illegal behavior in it. Usually even thought he community does it’s best or at least something to monitor itself it gets blamed for its members doing something like this In YouTube's case it not only effects YouTube/google but all the creators on it. Most of which have done nothing wrong Community moderation is pretty much impossible without limiting/censoring the community itself and therefore changing the product you are putting forward There are some small examples of good community moderation in my opinion, Reddit did a good job removing all of it’s child exploitation subreddits without destroying it’s community The problem is not all websites or communities are as easily controlled as Reddit’s. And at some point we need to look at the problem as a whole People will always find ways to post terrible/illegal content online. Who is it on to moderate this? Once we go down the rabbit hole of severe moderation what will the internet look like? If we are in the “wild west” of the internet days what civilized days are we approaching?   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode we talk about keeping our projects together with OneDrive and eventually upgrading to git for full version control. Segment 1 - Starting Without Git We used to use OneDrive to keep each other on the same page We had the same OneDrive directory sync to our computers so that our work would carry over However, this is not proper version control and therefore a bunch of conflicts would happen if we were working on the same projects, luckily most were minor and just required someone save their work again This solution did work for us, however, and we used it for well over a year with only a few major sync issues - which is pretty good for a program that’s not meant for version control To this day we still use OneDrive to keep some common files around, like graphical assets, however, our projects are not housed there anymore Our experience with using OneDrive rather than a proper version control did show us that it is possible to get started working as a team, even without the “industry standard” tools (in this case git) This is especially true if you work on projects yourself, or don’t touch any of the same files as another developer, so you can still have reliable file access across various computers while you learn how to use git   Segment 2 - Transition to Git Working on your own is still a good time to learn and practice your Git skills. Even though it might seem like it’s slowing you down it really is just preparing you for the eventuality of working in a team environment and is something that is definitely going to come up during interviews and jobs Learn the basics first Cloning - initial act of taking the repository from your git source to your local computer Pulling - taking the changes from the remote (git source) repository is updating your local repository Committing - This is an action that ties the current changes you’ve made in your local repository to a ‘commit’ object that you are able to label/message with references to the changes you’ve made Pushing - Taking all your local commits and transferring them (pushing them) to the git source repository Fetching - Updating your local git file with the current updates that are on the git repository (origin) Branches - A system where you can create ‘branches’ that are essentially copies of your repository. This allows you to develop code ‘risk-free’ without touching what is referred to as ‘master’ (master-copy). Usually branches are used for feature development, and best practice is to create a branch for each feature and once that feature i complete to close that branch Merges - This is a system in place to handle taking your current branch and merging it into another one (usually a master copy or a pre-defined integration branch). The trick here is to avoid working on the same portions of code in different branches as the merge will create a conflict that you will have to manually resolve These base core concepts make up most of the functionality you’ll need to know to at least have a good base and be able to integrate easily into any companies workflow Sometimes learning specific workflow habits (like we’ll cover in segment 3) can pigeon hole you as almost every company has a different workflow and if you don’t understand the basic concepts it’ll be tougher to go from one workflow to another Segment 3 - Workflow and Benefits Recently we’ve begun working in larger teams and that has pushed us to develop a Workflow This is just going to be a example of the one we developed. Other companies will use different approaches depending on project complexity, team size, technologies available, etc. Our branch structure is as follow: No one codes in master, it is the production branch and only once the application is fully tested do we promote to master The main development branch is called dev-integration Here is where everyone's feature and design branches will merge into for testing Every developer gets their own branch, usually just one at a time although there are a few exceptions if multiple large features are being worked on at once. Once a developer feels like they have a good section of their feature is done and ready for testing they will create a pull request A pull request is a system within gits infrastructure to signify the attempt to merge branches Usually it’s easier to use your git service (bit bucket, github, gitlab) as they have a UI designed for this feature It allows the team to view all the changes that will take place during the merge, and gives them a chance to provide feedback in a thread style format Once approved, the lead developer can initiate the merge A developer does not need to initiate a pull request to merge dev-integration into their local branch as there are no consequences of that, they can just a do a git pull origin [branch name] Pull requests also provide a good history on your project, as long as the team names their requests appropriately you can look back easily to when a feature when merged in Like I mentioned previously once everything is merged into dev-integration and thoroughly tested, a pull request can be opened into master. This will then be vetted by the senior developers/engineers on the project and merged, after which production deployment and dev ops can begin This is of course just a snippet of the whole process and there is plenty of nuance that occurs, the more you work with git the more appreciation you have for it usually   Useful Resource - API Marketplace https://rapidapi.com/ A lot of the time app ideas require an external source of information or some sort of off-app computing in order to provide a useful service For example, a video game collection app isn't going to contain all the video games that have and will come out, otherwise the app would be enormous in size Instead when you search for a game to add to your collection, the app will call upon an API which will generally search a massive database of video games alongside other goodies like cover art, release dates, etc. Often times when people come up with an idea for an app, they'll back down from making it because their idea requires a lot of specific information, or needs some sort of machine learning involved. Luckily there are a ton of APIs out there that can usually help out with these types of needs, allowing developers to finish up their apps without filling in massive databases, and learning very complex things like machine learning Today's resource is an API marketplace called RapidAPI I found RapidAPI, or more specifically Mashape, when I stumbled upon a Hearthstone API that linked to it MaShape was acquired by RapidAPI a few years ago, so that's the correlation between them in case you're familiar with the MaShape brand over the RapidAPI one RapidAPI contains tons of APIs in their marketplace that range from movie databases, to facial recognition Each API has their own page that contains a bunch of useful information such as: popularity, average latency over the past 30 days, average success rate over the past 30 days. Plus more technical things such as how to access the API in a variety of methods like NodeJS, PHP, and more It also tells you whether the app is free, freemium, paid, etc. You can even test our the API right on the page   Web News - Multi-Device Workflow Working across different devices is getting easier and easier whether you’re using the Chrome Extension that was just mentioned, using one of the Microsoft Office apps with the Microsoft Launcher (quickly open from “recent activities” in the mobile versions of the Office apps), messaging people in something like WhatsApp across the phone and desktop, etc. Does this workflow open up new opportunities for progressive web apps that are responsive You could be working in a PWA on your PC and have your phone automatically sync with whatever you were working on, and open up right where you left off with just a tap This sort of workflow also points towards a more unified OS future, whether that be with more integrations between OSs (ie Word on Mac), or actually consolidating different versions of operating systems (ChromeOS/Android) Microsoft added a Chrome extension that allows Chrome to access the Windows timeline With the use of the Microsoft launcher being able to pick up exactly where you left off on your comp is a major convenience   You can find us on... 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In this episode we discuss website builders in general, then do a deep dive into Webflow. Segment 1 - Site Builders There are many reasons out there to use a site builder, they can range anywhere from convenience aspects, to pricing. I think it’s fairly important for a web developer to be at least familiar with these reasons and also the downfalls of site builders so that when it comes time for them to explain to their customer why they need a custom website, they will be coming at if from a place of knowledge and truth First thing to get out of the way, some customers will actually benefit from a site builder over a custom website. People that can find a good template on a popular site builder that fits all* their needs right off the bat People that like to tinker but don’t have the time to learn a whole new skill like web development Someone just starting off with a bootstrap budget and a ton of time on their hands for their business If you ever run into these people and they ask for advice on what they should do in terms of hiring a web design firm or doing it themselves, and they meet any of the specific categories above, you should definitely not hesitate to offer advice on using a site builder. Being honest with potential customers is key to earning trust, and maybe now they won’t be paying for your service but they will remember your advice and honesty when it comes time to update their site in the future Now with that out of the way, with a lot of clients a site builder just won’t cut it. If a client brings up a site builder and shows you a template they found and like but then immediately says they want to change x, y, and z. That is a red flag that a site builder just won’t work for them. Changing anything on a site builder can be a huge hassle (sometimes possible) but a lot of the time will require some knowledge in web development anyway. If security is a huge concern some site builders should be avoided. We’ve had many issues with multiple clients getting hit at the same time with WordPress hacks. The disadvantage of using a large platform like some site builders is that if a hacker finds a way into one site, they find a way into all sites. Shopify seems to be a fairly safe alternative for ecommerce as they treat security as a extremely high priority. If the client doesn’t have the time to completely manage their entire website If they need something very specific like integration into their customer database or their item database. If your customer thinks their business will grow quickly. Site builders are usually not designed to take on a huge influx of visitors and can have serious performance issues when that happens. This leads us to something that can be seen a happy medium between a traditional site builder that usually a client would manage, and a custom website/cms that a developer manages. Webflow is kind of a site builder for the web developer. It does require knowledge in css and layouts but is also very visual. If you have a client that you think would like to sit down with you while doing some design changes, or A B testing, webflow allows for easy live manipulation of design and can be a good tool for something like that.   Segment 2 - Webflow Overview Webflow Designer The Webflow designer is the tool that is used to create the website itself. It has the more advanced tools that allow a developer to “code visually” meaning that the majority of the controls they’re using are actual CSS properties that they would be typing in manually For example, if you want to use flexbox on a particular section of your website, and have those flex items centered horizontally. You would add a div for the flex container, add divs for your flex items then with the UI actually set the display property to “flex” and then set your alignment. Instead of typing in CSS properties you’d be toggling the identical options in the Webflow UI You have a lot of other standard CSS controls as well including things like: Classes & “Combo Classes” Width, max-width, min-width, height, max-height, min-height Padding Float and clear Overflow Position Typography & Fonts: family, font-weight, color, size, text decorations Borders Transitions etc. Because this is an editor there are a bunch of non-standard CSS elements that you can add to your pages as well such as Containers that keep your content within a centered not full-width container, or social media widgets that have you entering in your username, or profile URL to setup a “like” or “follow” button Symbols are a piece of a website that you use over and over on a website. Things like a navbar, footer, sidebar, or widget of some kind all make for great symbols Symbols allow you to just add them to a page with a couple clicks without having to copy+paste, or remake them in any way Although I’m only now just starting to use this feature, a lot of the Webflow community seem to really enjoy what Webflow calls Interactions, which allows you to chain together events to create some pretty cool affects For example, detect the user scrolling to make a certain element move around the page Some triggers include: mouse events (click, move, & hover), scrolling (in various states like when an element is scrolled into view), page load, etc. Webflow can also be used to just make the UI and then moved to a different platform, or web server via the export code feature. In addition, Webflow now has an eCommerce beta for those of you looking to make an online store, however, I have yet to use this feature as it’s still in development and quite new to the general population of Webflow This means you could make your UI with the visual tools, export the code, then use the CMS and hosting solution of your choice   Hosting Webflow offers a range of hosting plans that range from simple sites that don’t need a CMS, through eCommerce, and full teams that run development agencies - check out which plan is right for you before you begin putting together projects to ensure you get all the features you need In general I find that the Webflow pricing for hosting and CMS are quite expensive, however, it’s more of a “luxury” hosting in my opinion Since the spring/summer of 2018 we’ve only seen 1 outage that affected anything for our customers and it was immediately reported by Webflow staff and quickly fixed It’s important to note that Webflow isn’t like a standard host with cpanel, it only deals with the website. It does not take over your nameserver, it doesn’t have webmail and other features that you’ll find on other services.   CMS The Webflow CMS is broken down into Collections which host content of a single type Within each Collection are the Collection Items A basic breakdown would be: Blog (Collection) contains posts (Collection Items) each post has a group of editable fields such as title, post body, cover image, etc. These editable fields are selected by the Designer. There are a bunch of different types of fields that you can add to a Webflow collection including things like: plain text, rich text, image, video link, link, email, phone, numbers, date/time, toggle switch, color, option dropdown, file upload, reference, multi-reference Specifically the reference CMS fields are used to reference other Collections For example: You could have a Blog Post with all the standard fields like title, post body etc, and then have a reference field that points to an “Authors” Collection that contains all the authors names and social media links. When editing a blog post you would select the author in a drop-down menu, that drop-down menu would be automatically populated via the other referenced Collection. Keep in mind that the Webflow CMS does have limitations on how many reference and multi-reference fields you can add to a collection In general it limits how many fields you can add to a Collection depending on which plan you choose so make sure you look through all the options   Editor The Webflow editor is for the people that are editing the website, but don’t want access to the designer - Webflow refers to these accounts as “Collaborators” The Editor offers a trimmed down editing interface that allows those with access to use the CMS to add items to collections via a standard editor that you’d see on something like WordPress The Editor also allows users to edit some elements on the page, such as text and images, by hovering over elements and pressing an edit button - a more simple approach than that of the more advanced Designer   Limitations As there are with all website builders, there are some limitations that get in the way when working with Webflow Pagination wasn’t possible until recently, so large blogs would be limited in showing off all their posts, or there a workaround would have to be enacted. Note: Pagination is available now to all users. Sliders are not fully editable. Users within the Editor can edit the individual photos that appear within a slider, but are unable to add or remove slides - that functionality is limited to the Designer - I found a workaround but it is limited We were going to use Webflow for the HATT website, however, limitations in how Collections work limited our ability to do so. Specifically we were unable to have different post types (podcast, blog, etc.) and still be able to show them all in a mixed list on the front page. We’d be limited to displaying them in individual sections, per collection (blog, guide, podcast) We had a customer that wanted to put ads in an Ad Collection, each item would contain a banner that would be displayed on the site in a random order on every refresh. However, we are unable to do that with Webflow’s system, their version of random order which is “Keep in mind that because we cache your site pages on a CDN (which is why they load so fast!), your random sorts on published sites will refresh once every 12 hours. The upside is that everyone viewing the site will see the same (random) order.”   Pros: These limitations are either very specific to the customer, or they’ve been fixed with updates (with the exception of the slider editor). Webflow does update rather often so there’s a good chance more functionality will be added in the months to come - eCommerce is a new major feature that has been added since we started using Webflow which is a big step forward. You can also add your own scripts which can extend the functionality of your website if you understand Javascript     Conclusion The Designer offers a unique “visual coding” experience that anyone familiar to CSS can take full advantage of The CMS and Hosting are pricey, but sites load fast and are fixed quickly when there’s an issue (from our experience). The Editor offers a limited easy-to-use interface for staff members that may not be tech-savvy, but still need edit the site’s content The documentation and active community make it quick and easy to get help Exporting code allows you to take your design to another compatible platform easily - avoiding the hosting and CMS plan charges Web News - The Cookie Law New May 2018 Reform of the EU GDPR law If a company operates at all in the EU they must abide by these rules which make them state all information they are collection and allow the user to opt out This is why now when visiting almost any website you get a popup somewhere that asks you “yes or no” to collecting cookies as well as a blurb about what they collect. On the one hand it’s great to have this transparency but on the other it seems that almost every time I visit a website this happens, even if it’s the same site and I was there a day before. This leads to a annoying user experience I think a “Accept All Cookies” button for all cookie websites would be a great idea for the informed user. Having it so someone has to find it and click it would be enough consent in my opinion. How do you feel about required transparency? Do you think the EU can be overbearing at times with these anti Corporate pro consumer type laws? I.e. Hitting google with a 5 billion dollar fine over the fact that their android platform being too dominant Sometimes these hits to large companies can be passed back onto the customer You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode Mike and Matt discuss what it's like to take on your first website contract as a complete beginner web developer, focusing on a small business website refresh. Segment 1 - Gathering Requirements We’ve talked about requirements a few times but this whole conversation will be very specific to a typical first site that a developer will have to do for their first project. So in this scenario a small business call Happy Coffee has approached you with a request for their old site to be updated. The site is from the early 2000 and is very old, not responsive and has outdated information about their business. They would like you to update their online presence with the new web standards and make their site look more modern. Your job here is to figure out what the clients preferences are and if they align with your vision for the new site Ask them to send you some sites of the their competitors they like and to highlight the specific sections that appeal to them Ask them about specific features that you know are common to these kinds of ‘business card/online presence’ type sites. Contact forms Large cover images Services offered Map of the location Hours of operation Small “Our Story” section Photo Gallery It’s also important to gauge if they have content for you or if you will need to generate content yourself, whether that is images or text. This will give you a great starting point for either creating a static site from scratch or choosing a template to fill in and adjust Now usually during the more general portion of this process you’ll also be discussing pricing but I’m going to intentionally leave that part out as it’s a whole other can of worms and can be discussed in a separate episode. But usually for a first project, my advice is to be reasonable with your pricing, don’t do it for free but know that this is a stepping stone and the client is taking as much of a risk on you as you are sacrificing price wise for the client.   Segment 2 - Design and Iteration Generally when someone wants a basic website, especially when it’s a small business, they’ll want to keep the budget low, cutting down on hours is probably one of the easiest ways to lower the price for a customer, having a basic design allows you to cut down some hours while maintaining quality Often times on larger websites clients will want a wireframe, as well as a prototype, or a fully done-up visual design before they’ll approve the look and you can start coding When it comes to smaller projects we’ll generally skip a lot of the designing procedure and rely solely on wireframes for a visual aid As a brief aside, even some of our larger customers accept wireframes as the basis of their design in order to keep costs down and get the project up and running as quickly as possible Typically we’ll make 3-4 different wireframe layouts based on what the customer has requested, often times we’ll get a few reference sites (as Mike mentioned) from them during the gathering requirements stage of our interaction to speed up our wireframe creation After showing off the various wireframe designs, we’ll get the client to choose their favourite one, get general feedback if they’re not happy with any of them, or get them to mix-and-match pieces of the wireframes together (slider from design 1, footer from design 3, etc.) This part of the procedure can take anywhere from a few hours, to over a week depending on how involved your client would like to be in the design - sometimes the design will flip-flop between a few options before finally landing on the one that will be put into production, so this step requires patience One thing of note, all clients are different, but from our experience if you’re struggling with the basics of choosing one of the designs that you made (ie the client doesn’t like any of them) sometimes you need to have a discussion with them to reiterate what their goals are to ensure that you’re on the same page (ie you might be focusing on showing off their photos, while they just want people to see the phone number and call the office) Luckily with simple designs the selection procedure is often the least painful and you’ll be off to the development stage in no time   Segment 3 - Development Since this is a simple static site development is fairly straight forward There are a few choices you will be faced with Go with a template Create a static site from scratch If time allows I would recommend creating a site from scratch as you will learn the basics a lot better, and give yourself a better understanding of CSS, HTML and JS The workflow I do when creating a site is I first create a skeleton file structure with the typical css and js and img folders. Depending on how you were taught you can either do this manually or with webpack and babel. I’ll focus more on just a simple file structure now but don’t be afraid to use the tools you were taught if you are comfortable with them. When creating the folder structure create all the necessary files you’ll need to start the site Index.html Main.css Main.js mailer.php For the html I like to create the structure of the entire site (assuming it’s a one page site like this one) I try to keep it as basic as possible with the fewest container divs as I can Hopefully you have all the content you need for the site already but if you don’t make sure to use lorem ipsum or placeholder images so you can just quickly replace the when you have them For css my recommendation is to start with a flexbox layout, as it’s supported on most browser version and will not require you to create backwards compatibility/fall back css Remember to make the site responsive, combining flexbox features and media queries makes this relatively simple for a small site such a this For js all you’ll really have to handle is the contact form ajax call. So organize a ajax object based on your input fields and create a ajax request to your php contact form to start the mailer process Mailer.php will then handle creating the email and sending it. Make sure to do some testing on any device you can get your hands on. Especially smaller phones and tablets as those can be weird resolutions you might have missed. If you have a few friends that can test out the site for you that's always suggested as getting a fresh look on something can be hugely beneficial. They will be able to pick out any glaring errors if they exist right away. It is also a good idea to set yourself up for future revisions, so if the client states that they will be updating the logo every season or year create a simple file structure and file naming scheme without your application that will make it easy for you to update these files in the future   Segment 4 - Deployment Often times when a customer is just refreshing their design, they’ll want to keep the same setup that they have - same host, domain name, etc. which makes your setup rather easy Assuming they want their setup the same, you can typically ask for FTP access and then upload your new site design, this is of course assuming you want to go live right away One important thing of note, is that if you’re replacing an existing website, it’s a good idea to take a backup of it. All setups are different, but in general, creating a new folder called “OLD” and putting the old site files in there is a good way to ensure you don’t delete something vital, or have the site go down for long in the event that something goes wrong with your new design If something does go wrong with the new design, you can always revert your changes to the old design by copying those “OLD” files back to where they were to lessen the amount of downtime a user might see In addition, a site owner may want to keep the old site around for people to use for a few weeks before migrating over to the new one, or they may want to get customer feedback on the new design before fully committing and taking the OLD site offline Every situation is different when it comes to deployment - always remember to never delete something that you can’t get back easily - back it up, even if the changes you’re inputting seem trivial   Web News - Android Desktop & Chrome OS Software ecosystems are meant to bridge the gap between different pieces of hardware - computer (desktop/laptop), tablet, phone, smartwatch These ecosystems bring the notifications and other features that we all enjoy, cross-platform so that we can continue to enjoy them at our desk or on the go In general, a lot of these ecosystems are bridging a literal OS gap where people use multiple operating systems in a single device setup such as Windows, Android, Wear OS Recently the Pixel Slate was released bringing a “laptop-like” tablet that can run Android apps on top of Chrome OS, this type of device is basically a hardware bridge of sorts that is trying to bring you the portability of a tablet, the versatility of using familiar Android apps from your phone, while still having the ability to be used as a traditional laptop - assuming you buy a type-cover for it This begs the question, where does Chrome OS fit into the equation, when it leverages the use of Android apps? Should we just have an Android version that is “computer friendly” or goes into a “computer mode” of sorts (ie Samsung Dex)? Is this rather strange hardware/software bridge pointing towards a future of one OS on multiple devices?   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram   RSS | Spotify | Reddit Medium | YouTube | GitHub Patreon

In this episode we discuss the difficult conversations we all face when dealing with customers including pricing, misunderstandings, and more. Segment 1 - Saying No Sometimes customers relations aren’t just selling them on your latest theme, service, or skill - there comes a time where you have to deal with intricacies that have a negative connotation attached to them Specifically these are often: pricing, value (of work and of the product to the customer), bad content (low quality images, bad copy, etc.) - essentially you’re saving them from themselves, their web presence should start out on the right foot when you’re done with it   Pricing Pricing is almost always a major point of contention between you and your customer People always want a lower price, and they’ll try anything to get it The issue with you constantly lowering your price is that even if you don’t intentionally do this, you will have a lesser quality product because your motivation to complete it will drop. Scope creep (customers adding features onto the original scope of the project) is especially bad when you’re doing a project and being underpaid - and the outcome will be of lesser quality You should go into a pricing meeting with a price range in your head, or one solid price if you aren’t willing to negotiate, and stick to the plan. If the customer is unwilling to pay a price that you’re okay with, then you just have to back out politely (this isn’t gonna work, thanks for your time) When it comes to older businesses, or specifically ones that don’t run off the internet, they have issues paying for online services like web development because their business doesn’t generally value the web too much   Value Value and pricing go hand-in-hand, everyone wants what they paid for and preferably a low price on a high value Sell customers on the value of your work can be difficult depending on how much they rely on their website For example, if a company if almost completely reliant on their eCommerce site then upgrading it - even for a high price - may be something they’re willing to do to ensure the revenue keeps flowing On the flip side, if you are working with a customer that simply has an online presence, like a basic website with a phone number - they’ll generally generate their customer via other means (newspapers, word of mouth, billboards, etc.) and therefore will value their online presence less. When you have a customer that doesn’t value your services much, often times the project will be less complex, however, they won’t offer you a fair dollar for it because it doesn’t generate them enough business to pay for itself over the short term. Sometimes a customer is looking to become more active online, which is why you were contacted, but they still don’t know the value of a good online presence, what it takes to generate traffic, how to manage social media, etc. In this case it can be very difficult to get a customer on-board with a price that you’re good with, versus the amount of work he wants done to become relevant online because they don’t understand the value of the work you’ll be doing for them   Bad Content We’ve all been there, you’ve been hired to look at an old website that was designed for old SD monitors, you come up with a plan to revitalize it which results in a list of photos and other content that you require the customer send to you (ie staff photos, office photos, staff bios, etc.) and they just say to use the old ones because they look good This is one of the hardest things to convince people to change, they’re attached to the old photos and text that they wrote years ago, but those small SD photos just aren’t equipped to handle the HD screens of today and will look awful It’s your job, as unfortunate as it is, to politely push back on customers explaining to them that if they’re refreshing their site, they can’t have old assets on there or else it will look awful. You need to try and convince them to update everything to modern standards and to ensure that any copy is up-to-date In order to do this try and tell them that their customers will take notice that their site looks messy, or slapped together for cheap which will leave them with a bad first impression. You can also offer to make some of the content for them, if you’re willing and able to, for a price of course. Ultimately it's your job to ensure that their web presence gets off on the right foot when you’re done with the project, ensure that things are as high of quality as you can.   Segment 2 - Aggressive Interactions Handling a client that is angry can be a challenge There are a few strategies that we use to to handle these situations when they arise Let the client say their piece fully without interrupting them because if they are angry it’s important to figure out why before you can diffuse the situation Once they seem to be done try to show empathy and don’t deflect their problem back at them. Even if it’s fully their fault take some time to think of it from their side and try to explain to them why the situation happened and what you will do to fix it Don’t fire back at the customer, it will make them angrier, usually if you treat them with respect through this process they will realize they are overreacting. Usually the reasons for these aggressive behaviours can be: Miscommunications Pricing conflicts Design misunderstandings Encountering bugs Remember you’re the professional in this situation so you have to act like it. Prove to the customer that they should trust you with your decisions. When you make a mistake own it and give the customer your immediate solution and the steps you will take for them to not happened again Mistakes happened, most people will be very reasonable when they do as long as you’re clear with them. Aggression can occur when you try to hide something from the customer, especially if it’s a hidden cost or a detrimental experience.   Segment 3 - Waiting A lot of negative customer relations can come from having to wait for a client Waiting for them to answer an email, respond to your phone call, give you content, or any other situation where you are being held up by the clients lack of communication Situations can arise where you have a tight deadline set by your client but are being forced to wait on them for content which will cause you to miss the deadline. To mitigate these situations you have to give your clients deadlines as well. Clearly explain that if they do not meet them then you cannot finish by the deadline they need their product by. These clear and deliberate communications will set a precedent with your clients. Some good advice that I heard listening to the latest Syntax podcast [The Freelance Client Lifecycle] was to treat your clients as more of a partnership with them. Where you are trying to get something done together, rather than a them vs us mentality. As we are learning some clients don’t like to read emails in their entirety so it might be beneficial to give them a call a day or so after a lengthy email and ask if they have any questions or concerns   False Urgency A major pet peeve that comes into projects in a variety of ways Entails calling something an emergency without there actually being an emergency Often times causes things to be rushed and of lower quality than they would be normally Sometimes this can cause additional charges on clients who are unsuspecting Common false urgency dispatchers: Marking emails are urgent Saying something is an emergency within an email Calling a frequently or out of normal work hours (late at night, early in the morning) These dispatchers are exactly how people actually contact you for a real emergency, however, they’ll try and add urgency to something that isn’t actually urgent just to get it done faster Often times we’ll quickly do whatever they ask if we’re available only to have those edits go unchecked, or unused, for several weeks Constant false urgency calls only result in slower response times, and may result in actual emergencies being missed because of the “boy who called wolf” scenario Web News - The Facebook Messaging Toss-Up “Facebook is working to allow cross-messaging between Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, according to a report in The New York Times this morning. Each service will continue to operate as a standalone app, but according to the Times, Facebook is rebuilding the underlying infrastructure so that people who might use only one of Facebook’s properties could communicate with others within the company’s ecosystem. All of the apps will support end-to-end encryption as well. Facebook has yet to provide a timeline for when this will happen.” - The Verge (https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/25/18197228/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-merge-messaging-services-mark-zuckerberg)   Facebook Spokesperson Statement “We want to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private. We’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks. As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work.” - The Verge (https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/25/18197228/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-merge-messaging-services-mark-zuckerberg)   What of Instagram Direct? It’s integrated into Instagram itself, does that mean we’ll have duplicate notifications? There is a separate Instagram messaging app available in limited countries (not in Canada) called “Direct from Instagram” maybe the messages will be removed from the main Instagram app? Facebook messaging was removed from Facebook’s app and put into “Messenger” WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 General UX Questions Will there be a main app that people should use? Will you lose native features of an app that you don’t have installed (ie WhatsApp profile pic) Is there going to be a totally new combined app for phones? Will this work on PC? (if I boot up Messenger either within facebook.com or on the separate web app, will I be able to message WhatsApp folks?) Do I need to sign-up for all of them? Assuming you just need one app, which one are you going to use? You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode we share some of our tips and tricks that we've picked up along our many web development and design adventures. Segment 1 - Matt’s Tips & Tricks Server/Hosting Management Common things like this include: WordPress updates (plugin updates), migrating to a different server/host, testing a new major feature, adding something a client has requested - but you think won’t work out which will result in a rollback Always backup files and databases that you won’t be able to get back in their existing state Be wary of new commands if you have command line access, especially if they’re aimed at deleting files, or folders Have a recovery plan before you begin so that you can quickly and easily rollback your changes if something goes terribly wrong - planning this out properly may require you to take full backups, prepare a re-upload solution, research re-installation information on some of the software you’re using Have a testing environment setup that mimics your production environment preferably CSS Don’t be afraid of simply setting up a skeleton before moving onto a different part of the site - having a skeleton of the top bar while branding is being figured out is a good way to get started on the site, and frees you up to spend more time on other elements that are more definitive (ie slider, contact form, etc.) Make your class names easily identifiable, whether you use a naming convention or not, at the very least use something that you’ll be able to identify later and that other developers would be able to pickup on if they interact with your project in the future (example classnames: navbar, nav-item, footer, topbar) Comments (and this goes for other languages to) should be done to clarify things for yourself in the future, or for other developers down the road, however, sometimes you understand something using references in your own head - do not hesitate to make comments specific to you if you’re actively working on the project, using references that only you understand - making the comments more generic for others when production hits Test responsivity with true window widths, not just responsive tools, sometimes these tools don’t reflect exactly how different browser window widths will actually react which can result in some overflow left-to-right or some broken elements altogether   Segment 2 - Mikes Tips and Tricks (JS Tips) Use a scope variable If you’re using just straight javascript for a single page or multipage website create a scope global variable. Make sure that this is your only global variable for the whole project but if you need to pass state or variables between files or pages then use only scope to keep some form of structure and minimize conflicts Use libraries when necessary Make sure it has been updated in the past year at least Make sure the documentation is fairly easy to understand Check the Open issues tab in github and make sure that there are plenty of closed issues and check those closed issues to make sure you are fine with the answers given as if you have an issue you will have a similar experience When working on a large project there will be times when you’ve gotta complete features under a time limit. This is where libraries can really save you a huge amount of time and headache. I recently had to create a searchable list for an application with the ability to auto filter the visible list as you type. Even though this is definitely something I could have created from scratch I didn’t want to waste my clients time if that is unnecessary. Doing a quick google search yielded plenty of well maintained, small and feature rich libraries. One called list.js really exceeded my expectations. Here are some tips for checking if a library is worth using: Do your best to write self documenting code with comments being used only when necessary I am very deliberate in my function and variable names to make it easy to go back to my code and understand what is going on If a function is calculating the taxes on the order then call that function calculateTax() Try to avoid using ternary operators (condition ? true expression : false expression)  in code that will need to be maintained by multiple people over long periods of time. As ‘professional’ as they make you look they are not easier to understand then a simple if statement. Nor do they impact performance in any way Refactor and clean up code often With larger projects code can get out of hand really fast. If you’re programming at speed and do a lot of testing where you comment out sections and write new ones to see differences those commented out sections can add up and can contribute to confusion and maintainability in the future Sometimes you can preemptively create variables and functions and then never use them going forward. These are just taking up space in memory and adding even more complexity to your code for no reason. These are prime candidates for removal in a refactor Chrome Dev tools are your friend These are a huge help to me on a daily basis. Being able to put  a breakpoint in my code and view what all my variables read at that time makes testing and writing code so much easier Web News - Software as a service With most software companies move to a monthly or yearly subscription model has the standalone application now become a unicorn in our industry? paying only 5-20 dollars a month for a premium application seems like a easier sell to people then asking them for 100+ upfront. But these 5-20 dollars a month add up and could very well be a much bigger hit on your wallet in the future Knowing you never own the actual product is also a weird feeling For the company having consistent recurring income is a huge bonus and allows them to plan much further ahead with features and support. Also very few yearly version upgrades happen, instead choosing to maintain and add features to the same version. This makes for less need to upgrade or migrate to different versions In my experience a company that gets a monthly subscription is less likely to abandon their product I.e android app Weather Timeline was a paid application but with it being only a one time fee it wasn’t able to maintain it’s costs and had to take the application down from the store and later on sell it to a different publisher What do you prefer, a one time bulk fee (approx $100) or a $5-$20 subscription? You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram   RSS | Spotify | Reddit Medium | YouTube | GitHub Patreon

In this episode we discuss our recently completed coding challenge, making "No BS News for Reddit" Note: We had some audio issues with the first upload of this episode, if you hear nothing, simply delete your version and re-download to get the updated file. Apologies for the inconvenience. Segment 1 - Pre-Planning & Design As apart of this challenge we were allowed to plan, design, and research before the challenge began To prepare we did some research on PWAs and their functionality We also researched other news apps, and what subreddits would be the most useful From a UX perspective, we took a look at which features a Reddit user would need and expect from a Reddit app - minus the social features of course From this we came up with some wireframes to guide our design throughout the process, which we modified on the spot to accomodate for a “open Reddit post” button alongside alternative share options for PC users We also had a discussion regarding the addition of custom news sets, where users could select a bunch of subreddits to pull into a single custom feed - this ended up using up a decent amount of time and we didn’t put it into the app in its current state One other design challenge that we had was making the design pop Since this sort of app is so text-heavy we were concerned that its monotone nature would end up making it boring, or otherwise, look unfinished and rushed. However, after spending more time on Reddit we realized that this type of app is more utilitarian than it is flashy, so we decided to place it in a dark theme and let the links “do the talking”   Segment 2 - App Development Development went smoothly for the most part We were able to complete almost all the features that we originally set out to make, including a few extra ones We had a few bugs popup that were dealt with quickly, namely some responsivity issues with overlapping and some time stamps that were coming in as negative numbers Vuejs seemed to almost accelerate development due too it’s built in development server and its short code nature for functions and listeners Vuejs also created the template for the PWA functionality through the Vue CLI App functionality implementation went as planned and didn’t pose much difficulty other then a couple of hiccups and glitches that had to be fixed Showing how much time has elapsed since each post was posted showed to be kind of annoying because of how reddit handles UTC time. I have to multiple the time by 1000 to match with the the current UTC time Working with the reddit api is awesome and a great way to learn API’s and working with json The app is pretty much feature complete as in line with our MVP (minimum viable product) Couple of features we are looking to add would be : a way to create a custom news group Light theme to go along with the current dark one The motto for adding features to this is “Is that bullshit?” if we think it is, then we don’t add it   Segment 3 - App Deployment So we’ve already had a few episodes where we talk about deployment in a little more detail but it’s valuable to mention how we went about doing this for the 24 hour challenge aspect This was by far the most frustrating part of the entire day as this would be only my second time deploying with Docker and to digital ocean It is simpler than the html all the things deployment because there is no server side containers but due to the time constraint and the fact we started deployment only at around 12am it turned into a problem The initial deployment as a web app went ok until we hit the SSL certification We used the same method as with HTML all the things, where we are trying to certify a docker container running nginx using certbot on our ubuntu digitalocean droplet Unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of experience and combined with already being mentally exhausted I went into a try everything approach instead of using logic Logically looking at it with a fresh head after getting some sleep got a solution in a matter of minutes Although this was frustrating this is all part of these short time challenges and must be overcome if anyone wants to be able to work in crunch periods Sometimes it’s important to step away, as I did that at least 2 or 3 times during the challenge to solve random issues For next time I think we might do a initial pre deployment before the challenge to at least get the ssl and nginx container worked out, so we have more time to focus on actually developing   Web News - Personal Opinions on PWA Disclaimer: We have minimal experience with PWAs in both the development and consumer side of things, so these are simply our opinions having minimal exposure Progressive Web Apps fall into a strange segment of the market, because they’re not quite native apps, and not quite websites (at least under the hood) We’ve entered into a time where the internet is relied upon to power a lot of things and therefore an internet browser of some kind is almost always open on people’s computers, or phones On the PC, it’s rare that people use traditional “apps” like Facebook, for example, but rather use the website facebook.com which serves virtually the same purpose PWAs seem to be the bridge between the two, adding accessible offline features to web developers that are creating websites, or web apps, that will eventually need a mobile app of some sort With that being said, there seems to be a bit of a stigma against non-native software, things like WebViews and other app types are readily available, but the big apps seemt to almost always go the native route - even if that means making two entirely separate apps (iOS and Android), or dealing with porting between the two in some capacity So where do we feel PWAs fit in? Will they take off? Will they displace native apps? Are they here to stay? You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this tidbit episode we discuss our code challenge, announcing official dates, and other considerations that we've thought up over the past few weeks.  We'll be calling our PWA (Progressive Web App) "No BS News for Reddit" and will be using: flexbox, Vue.js, and service workers to accomplish our task. The challenge will comprise of us trying to complete this app within a 24-hour period. As a PWA, we will be running it on Digital Ocean for hosting, which will also be our finish line. More specifically our goal will be to develop the app to completion, and have a functioning product live on our hosting package. We plan on releasing this app on an app store, or two, however, this will not be apart of the challenge. In addition, any time-based approvals (ie if Adsense needs to approve to run ads on the site) will not be apart of the challenge. We will work around them the best we can to provide an app that people can use before the 24-hour window closes. Before the challenge begins we're allowing ourselves research and design, but no development on the app itself - that will be all saved for the code challenge window.   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

Happy New Year! 2019 has just kicked off, and so has another year of podcasts. In this episode we discuss maintaining your skills after long periods away from your desk. This is the perfect compliment to the recently completed holiday season as many of us are just now getting back to work. Segment 1 - Keeping Things in Practice Keep using the technology you deem valuable The main way I stay on top of my skills is seemingly an obvious answer. By using them This can be a little difficult though with so many technologies out there and as we’ve mentioned many times it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the choice What I try to do is choose projects that will incorporate the technology I value Sometimes this requires convincing your employer and contractor to adopt something they are not familiar with. So it’s important to be knowledgeable of the positives and be very clear with the downsides right from the get go. Recently I’ve been proposing using Vue.js for some contract projects Keep up to date with updates As technology evolves it usually get a wider feature set and perspective of when to use it can change I try to stay on top of technologies such as node, Vue.js, react and read their change logs. If a new feature gets announced I try to figure out where I can use it and how to implement it (usually using the documentation). Even if I don’t implement it just by going through the exercise of figuring out how it works I retain a little bit of that knowledge and will more likely know to come back to it when a new project pops up. Segment 2 - Combating the Loss of Knowledge When you’re away from your desk for a long time, you’ll become rusty at your everyday tasks and may completely forget new things that you learned just before leaving Furthermore, there are often times that certain snippets of code are used a single time per project and therefore don’t stay fresh in our minds because we rarely see them It’s easy to stress over losing knowledge like this because we invested time in learning new skills and in a few short weeks they could be completely gone from our memory There are a variety of ways to combat this, but it’s not something to stress over as it’s just a natural procedure that our brains do that is out of our control   Recording Snippets   Programmers of all kinds, whether it be web developers, game devs, or even hobbyists all have some sort of snippets manager Often times these take the form of a snippets managing software, but it can be as simple as keeping old projects and files laying around in a folder somewhere One key component to generating snippets is that your code is modularized rather than proprietary for each application, meaning you want to code up functions that can be used over and over again - If you have an application that uses AJAX for example, there should be an AJAX function that you can pass arguments into, rather than AJAX being done somewhere inside of another multipurpose function Snippet managers are great when you code up something that you know you will use repeatedly, but rarely need to interact with directly Example 1: You make functions that access and interact with an API once, then you focus on making the application using the data that comes from that API Example 2: You make a collection of CSS buttons that you use on a variety of projects Personally, I use a bunch of old projects and files inside of a folder because I always think of the project I did something in, in the past, rather than the name of a generic function. However, I’d like to build up a snippet library in a formal piece of software There are a bunch of snippet managing software out there, I haven’t used any personally, but some of the ones that came up in a quick search include: Boostnote (https://boostnote.io/), Cacher (https://www.cacher.io/), and Bracket Snippets for Brackets (https://github.com/jrowny/brackets-snippets)   Letting Selective Knowledge Go   One of our programming teachers in college said that he would selectively let knowledge leave his brain once he had learned and implemented it Specifically he was referring to a driver that he had written for a microcontroller that we were using in his lab class. He said that he only needed to learn the information for certain parts of the driver once, implement the driver they way he wanted based on his new knowledge, then he forgot about that specific piece of information he learned because he had already gotten from it what he needed This might be a hard pill to swallow, especially since things take forever to learn when we’re new to them, but it’s a valid statement If you think about it, if you were working at a company as a Ruby on Rails developer and suddenly got changed to a different team that exclusively uses jQuery for their projects, you’re going to forget Ruby on Rails pretty quickly if you don’t keep your practice up on your own time I like to think of it as, I learned something to gain value in some way, expended that value to its fullest for my given situation, then moved on.   Web News - 2018 in Review, Road Ahead to 2019 2018 Podcast Download Numbers July - 72 downloads August - 378 downloads September - 973 downloads October - 1234 downloads November - 1683 downloads December - 1569 downloads 2018 total: 5909 downloads 2018 Spotify Stream Numbers July - 0 streams August - 84 streams September - 333 streams October - 618 streams November - 718 streams December - 686 streams 2018 total: 2439 streams As of January 7, 2019 Instagram Followers - 448 Twitter Followers - 60 Facebook Page Likes - 57 2018 in Review Higher numbers than expected across the board Podcast was supposed to be a side thing in comparison to templates, snippets, etc, but has become a staple of HATT Learned a bunch of social media tips and tricks, with a focus on Instagram, secondary focus on Twitter Goals for 2019 Over 2k Instagram followers Monetization of HATT through multiple means Create a developer community through HATT where people can meet other developers going through similar paths to them, finding people to work with Mikes Goals Go all in on vue.js Get a youtube tutorial series up Become comfortable with webpack and code splitting Matt’s Goals Master CSS Grid Start something on YouTube (Webflow guide? Something else?) Further my knowledge of social media Amass to: Get a steady passive income stream setup and running You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode Mike and Matt discuss motivation in it's many forms, and how it affects working on variety of projects. Segment 1 - Types of Motivation Different types of motivation range from the tinkerer all the way to the passionate Being in any of these camps generally dictates how much effort, and time, that you’ll put into a field that you’re checking out In terms of web development & design, having a different level of motivation will no doubt determine where you fall within the field - maybe you’ll make a single website for fun, or maybe pursue a career One thing of note, these classifications of motivation are from our own experiences and ideas, they aren’t some sort of “official” classification of any kind   Passionate When you’re passionate about something you’ll typically take it more seriously and do in-depth research to learn new things This type of motivation may steer your career decisions, or help you set up a side hustle of some kind For the web field, this generally means you won’t be using your “local” website builder like Squarespace, but rather diving in head first to the code, determining what tools you’d like to use and how to use them efficiently   “Forced” Sometimes you’re figuratively “forced” into a doing something due to outside pressures, such as financial situation, or availability of work When this happens you may take your work seriously, however, you’ll be taking it more seriously and efficiently than someone who wants to be there, because generally you’ll want to get in there and just get the work done Often times people get trapped into these types of situations due to the outside pressures never alleviating, or more that suddenly pile on, leaving you trying to find methods to get out of the field Bringing this into the web industry, sometimes people will be “forced” to do professional web work, either full time, or by being in an associated tech field that suddenly requires web work. Generally this type of work will be rushed in some way, having tasks done in the quickest way possible - often leaving a lesser quality product   Hobbyist Hobbyists are people that like to do a variety of things, and get into them all the way, stopping just before getting professional. There are of course varying degrees of hobbyists, but generally, they could technically operate in the professional realm given a small amount of training Bringing this again to the web industry, hobbyists will generally not focus on one tool, language, or segment of the industry, but rather fan out and use a bunch of different tools ranging from site builders like Squarespace, then dabble in some code - getting a full range of experience to build some sites that they’re interested in, sometimes these lead to a side hustle if they’re successful   Tinkerer Tinkerers are one step below hobbyists, and are generally just interested in a field in some remote way They’ll do a variety of “light duties” within their interest, things such as reading some material, or maybe dabbling slightly within the field itself, stopping well short of investing any sort of money, or serious time, into learning a given field When it comes to the web industry, these people often need a single website for something they’re working on, they’ll read up on different site builders online and then just use a template so they can get to work - this of this as more of a blogger that doesn’t want to deal with their website, but instead their work is their writing itself, so they familiarize themselves with the path of least resistance to get a website up and running and that’s it   Segment 2 - What Motivates Us Pure Enjoyment for coding Creating something from scratch Looking at examples of other people's work and striving to achieve something similar Looking through sites and trying to find motivation for your work Having someone or a group request something that you could make Small amount of adrenalin from fixing difficult issues Being part of the coding community Having people reach out to you for help or opinion Keeping up/learning new technology   Segment 3 - Motivation Blockers To many projects on the go making it difficult to focus on one Prioritize and use task management applications like Asana Running into a problem that takes several days to solve Take a step back from the problem and maybe try to complete a smaller easier task Difficult clients This is a tough one but try to understand where your client is coming from and if you can relate to their issues Programmers envy There will always be people that are better than you but also people that are still trying to catch up to your level. It is important to learn how to focus just on yourself Procrastination Just start something, start with smaller more accomplishable tasks and build up to the harder and longer ones. Links Dan Mace's Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMTJRYmQkbc Joe Rogan's show with Derren Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_tpWrv76Q8   Web News - Scams Scams are becoming more frequent and more complex There isn’t a day that goes by that some sort of scam hits our email inboxes, often times being screened out by the spam filter, however, with complexity growing these scams often get through that level of defense, leaving the user to further filter out their inbox In addition to email scams, there’s phone scams, and even in-person ones that people have to avoid One thing that we’ve found is that email scams are getting harder and harder to notice - the one tell-all used to be an incorrect “from” address but even that is now being spoofed to look legitimate The other day I received a properly branded Cyber Monday email from what looked like the real amazon email, but it only lead to a website that was trying to get me to sign up The worst most recent one is someone impersonating us in an email - basically one of our clients will receive an email that says it’s from us when it’s not, and asks to download an attachment - meanwhile we’ll receive the same thing, an email that looks like it’s from our client also trying to get us to download an attachment We’ve even had a brand new business credit card compromised whilst it was still in a safe at home What are you thoughts on scams? Have you fallen for any? What can be done about this?   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram   RSS | Spotify | Reddit Medium | YouTube | GitHub Patreon

This week we discuss breaking out of our comfort zone to finally develop an app via a coding challenge. Segment 1 - The Idea Parameters Our idea needed to be something that was accessible, yet popular enough to get in front of people and actually get downloaded In order to get downloads we knew the reach had to be decent, it had to be something that people would find useful, but it had to be simple enough in order to be developed quickly We decided to analyze our previous experiences in launching apps, specifically our Chrome App and Chrome Extension collection What we found was that, with very little promotion on our end, making a product that compliments an existing popular product gives you exposure through “osmosis” Specifically speaking, our most popular app is Multiple Accounts for Outlook.com, which allows people to quickly switch between multiple outlook.com accounts and their associated web apps, like OneDrive From there we took a look at our recent personal app experiences, as well as the Google Play store - our targeted app store All of this ultimately boiled down to the next subsection “The Decision”   The Decision We’ve decided to do a minimalist reddit news app that strips away any distraction from actually reading the news We’ll get more into what I mean by “minimalist” in the next segment, but generally we’ll take away a bunch of the default reddit features that people can get distracted by We also have experience pulling information from reddit, via Mike’s joke generator that he used on his Introduction to Vue.js Guide (https://medium.com/html-all-the-things/introduction-to-my-vue-js-guide-ee9f4baad61) This app is far from reinventing the wheel, but it gets us going on finally releasing an app on Google Play, which we’ve been talking about for years, but never done The app will be monetized by ads, however, we plan on making the ads non-fullscreen and non-intrusive so that users aren’t bogged down by ads that have issues loading - this will be our first encounter with ads in an app as well so we’ll see how this strategy moves forward, maybe it’ll change, maybe it won’t work at all This app is rather simple in design and scope, but it’s actually accomplishing a great deal of smaller points that we’ve been aiming to get done specifically...   Accomplishments & Goals Trying out a community event: One of our goals with HTML All The Things was to get the people involved to some extent if they wanted to try out new things for us. This coding challenge is the first of its kind for us, and we’ll be the guinea pigs to see if it works out - maybe if it goes well we’ll do a public version of some kind Social media coverage - Right now we post about our podcast episode releases, share people’s work, etc. However, we’ve been wanting to try and “live post” to an extent. Share work as it’s being completed, so we’re aiming to share a bunch of content during this coding challenge’s time window. Things like posts of our progress as they happen, maybe get some videos in there - we’ll have to see how it pans out. Releasing an App: We’ve been talking about releasing an app on Google Play for a long time and we’ve always brushed it off, this challenge should give us a push to actually get it done - even if we fail the challenge and don’t release the app on time, we’ll have dived into the app development so much that we’ll essentially have no choice but to release the app for fear of wasting all that time - forcing ourselves to take on the risk Furthering Our Knowledge: We’re planning on using pwa for this project, however, we’ll be needing some plugins and functionality that we’ve never used with it, so we’ll be learning on the fly   Segment 2 - Design, Develop, Deploy If we assume that our “decision” in Segment 1 is final, and we are actually doing an Reddit News App, let’s dive into how we would take this project on One of the most important things we need for this challenge is to identify what our MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Research, Design, Development, Deploy Research is complete already, app decision has been made Mission Statement: Simple Reddit new aggregate for people that want to quickly view the news in their area without any distractions. Parameters of the challenge? What can we do before/after? What we need to accomplish during the challenge? What’s the endgame? Design Use a css framework? Light/Dark theme? Simplistic no bs design to to make the news a quick scroll away Naming Features Pull posts from multiple subreddits and display as one multi subreddit Remove all unnecessary attributes like karma count, comments, etc to display a minimalistic news block Allow user to select their regions news Ability to share articles through android/iOS share menu Ability to view articles in webview without leaving the app Ability to switch between light/dark theme Ability to switch between Top, new, controversial, hot Develop Vue.js Vuex for state management No accounts, but local storage and Vuex for data persistence and resource sharing CSS Grid for layout Deploy Deploy on Nginx through docker on Digitalocean   Web News - Edge going Chromium? Microsoft announced it will be moving away form EdgeHTML to Chromium for a future version of the Edge Browser A Project Manager moderately confirmed that most chrome extensions will work New Edge will be on Xbox One, MacOS as well as Android and iOS Mozilla is not happy that Microsoft is giving Google a monopoly and has reaffirmed their efforts to provide users a choice Developers will now not have to support EdgeHTML Electron played a key role in the decision to switch to Chromium instead of Firefox You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram   RSS | Spotify | Reddit Medium | YouTube | GitHub Patreon

In this episode Mike & Matt discuss the entrepreneurial hustle, focusing in on the online freelance game for web developers and designers. Segment 1 - Freelancing Online There are a lot of developers, writers, virtual assistants, and more that work freelance online As a small business, we have experience getting work from freelancing websites and other site resources, however, please note that we work almost exclusively in the web development/design segment of the business so your mileage may vary if you’re freelancing in a different field There are a lot of different websites and services that are set up for freelancers and their customers, most of them are basically job boards with full service solutions that contain various features such as: Portfolio Page: Set up a portfolio containing things like pricing per service, project showcase, history on the site (ie took successful jobs, their rating as a service providers, etc.), list of skills, and more Job Board: A list of jobs typically posted by potential customers, this job board generally has a bunch of topics ranging from app development to content writing. Customers can also post things like their budget, how much they’ve spent on the site with other freelancers - to judge how serious they are, and customers can also have a profile that proves how “legitimate” they are, or show off what other projects they’ve had done so developers have an idea of their expectations Payment Systems: A lot of these sites have some sort of payment system in-place that helps customers pay freelancers, and in turn, help freelancers get paid on time. Premium Services: Often times these sites are free to use, but have premium features that are for sale for customers and/or freelancers. Some of these premium features include: bidding for jobs (limited bids for free, freelancers can pay for more), premium job listing (appear at the top of search results) Services we’ve used include: Guru.com, Freelancer.com, Craigslist, and Kijiji Segment 2 - Our Experience w/ Freelancer Online Services Guru.com We’ve applied to a few jobs on Guru without much success, however, we have had success via our portfolio on the site Once we listed our skills and experience on there, we generated a few leads from people contacting us right from our portfolio page Freelancer.com This was the first freelancing site that we tried, it seemed really popular and active so we went in head first We tried starting with smaller jobs, $100 or less, and ended up scoring a low-cost small adjustment job which ended up being an entire mess of a situation - mostly because the customer had an issue with his account and because we didn’t take a look at how Freelancer charges for their services Kijiji & Craigslist In the very beginning we tried to get some free advertising going in the “classifieds” space We took a look at what other people were posting on there in the web development space, most were quick $500 or less websites that were all-in Following in their footsteps we released a few different ads at different pricepoints, listing similar packages on our website This resulted in one long-term customer relationship from a person that called us from the ad, but wanted general development services - not the package that we had advertised We also got a call or two from people that wanted extravagant websites for extremely cheap, being offered $100CAD for an entire restaurant website at one point Craigslist did not result in any leads, only Kijiji in our experience Segment 3 - Creating Projects This was a very important step for us as it gave us skills and portfolio work that we could then show potential clients We created Chrome Apps, Chrome Extensions giving us a niche area of focus Web templates and snippets have us experience with basic html and css Not only can projects potentially generate revenue if monetized but they refine and showcase many soft and hard skills such as project management and coding style A big thing for us is looking at projects as a potential revenue generators but with a worst case outcome of being a portfolio item that presents and refines our skills For us we always needed to keep the the timelines on these projects very tight otherwise we would get sidetracked and lose focus For Clicks to Riches we finished it within a week of intensive work For Html All The Things it was also only a couple weeks A project like Content Collector which has not been finished and is fully on the backburner suffered from loose timelines The chrome app projects that we did directly affected getting our biggest client Another flaw that we have when it comes to this is being hesitant to create a project: Based on how many similar solutions to something are out there Not knowing the audience well enough Web News - Updates vs Stability What do users prefer when it comes to their applications or operating systems receiving updates. Having the same version for long periods of time with no features added or optimizations made but great stability Having new features and optimizations every month or so but have the chance to lose stability An example of fairly stable consistent operating systems with minimal updates would be iOS and partially android. They usually receive one large update a year with only minor security updates in between almost like a hybrid system Windows on the other hand will receive updates almost weekly that seem to be fairly untested and large updates also come multiple times a year and have the potential to introduce massive issues like with the last large scale fall update deleting a users documents folder Updates to platforms can also cause problems such as Webflow or Wordpress releasing updates which makes features and plugins behave differently. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

Matt's freshly back from vacation to discuss developing for multiple platforms using various tools such as Apache Cordova, React Native, and Ionic. Allowing developers to use what they're familiar with, and still make apps for a variety of platforms.   Segment 1 - When to Use/Not Use Cross-Platform Development Cross Platform Web Development allows you to build apps in Javascript that you can then use as native apps on iOS, Android and even Windows This allows developers that are already familiar with JavaScript to great native experiences without having to learn new languages In some cases, like with Apache Cordova a team can use one single code base with some hooks for different platforms to build their application for the web, android and ios This allows for more agile development and smaller development teams as you don’t have resources tied up in native app development This issues arise when needing to perform complex multimedia tasks like constantly playing audio and video As we’ve experienced heavy media tasks can cause crashes in webviews where native code might perform just fine Just beware when decided to go with cross platform development because you can never simulate the performance of a native application, so if buttery smooth animations and lightening quick load actions are important to you, the native way is prefered For a small business though, like a bakery or restaurant, if they want an application that resembles their website then using a cross platform framework is ideal because it can save them money and give them the functionality they desire Segment 2 - Cross-Platform Technologies Apache Cordova https://cordova.apache.org/ Its free and open source A plugin that allows you to create native applications out of standard website code (HTML, JS, CSS) Provides developers the opportunity to create only one main code base for all platform Also the main advantages of cross platform technologies are they give you the ability to create a offline mode and access native api’s such as push notifications, file systems, etc It is necessary to create hooks that change how the application loads depending on if it’s on the web or if it's packaged as a native application React Native and Nativescript with Vue.js https://facebook.github.io/react-native/ https://www.nativescript.org/vue Both of these frameworks allow for development on both Android and iOS They use a very similar structure to their corresponding technologies with some minor differences when it comes to views, as xml is used to construct layouts Both use JS as their scripting language These frameworks allow developers that a familiar with React or Vue to build Native applications that perform very close to their Obj C or Java counterparts Ionic https://ionicframework.com/ Allows you to make web apps into desktop applications for both MacOS and Windows Segment 3 - Progressive Web Apps These are websites or web applications that with minor adjustments give the user native functionality straight for the browser This doesn’t require you to have to build the application and package it for a specific platform (i.e Android, iOS), the newest browsers, safari and chrome both can auto detect if you have a progressive web app in the browser and the prompt the user of the functionality To create a PWA there are only a few steps required: Site has to be HTTPS secured Page need to be responsive for mobile devices Page needs to use Service Workers to load URLS offline A service work is a background script that can be created and tied to your webpage but which does not have access to your DOM elements Through the service worker you can access the native API’s of you desired system like push notifications They can also be used to process parallel tasks as service workers run on their own threads (cores) A Web App Manifest file which allows you to put information and image data for adding your application right to the users home screen on their device (like a real application) The site must be able to load ‘fast’ on a 3G connection https://www.pwabuilder.com/ Really interesting utility that allows you put in your websites URL and gives you a list of steps plus helps you create the necessary changes to make it a PWA PWA’s I’ve used Twitter has a really good PWA, allowing you to not have to worry about installing another application Telegram message application has a good PWA that work on both PC and Mobile Web News - Strict Learning Disclaimer: We are not education experts in any way, we discussed this and wrote the notes below based on our personal experiences. Schools seem to want you to do it right the first time, or risk losing marks, time, or electronic components in the case of our college labs Meanwhile actual learning is supposed to be filled with mistakes and experimenting so that you can figure out what works and what doesn’t Example: In college, we would receive a new set of components for our labs that would be conducted throughout the semester, however, we would receive a limited set of components - sometimes with spares, sometimes we’d only have one of each You could purchase more if they were in stock, but that’s expensive for a student These components are generally cheap electronic components - yet we were expected not to break them, or have a bunch of DOA components This discouraged messing around with circuits and caused a lot of checking over and over to ensure your circuit was correct before hooking it up to power When we learn new web technologies we typically end up setting it up incorrectly a few times, and have plethora of errors throughout the process as we figure out how things should be working. This type of learning I find personally the best for understanding what you’re doing and what you can/can’t do with a piece of technology, however, this could get you docked valuable marks in school The counter argument is that you should make all your mistakes before the test, however, in college especially, those “in-between” marks can add up to 10% or more of your overall grade depending on the class. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode we dive into the the Front-End Developer Roadmap by Kamran Ahmed, going through all the technologies you need to learn from the basics, through the mastery phase of your career. Segment 1 - Roadmap Discussion We discuss the 18-20 main points of the developer roadmap Source: https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap Segment 2 - Update on HTML All The Things Authentication for admins was added to edit the site Pagination with infinite scroll was added Major code refactoring Created components out of reusable code Got rid of redundant variable setting Deployed database and server authentication on our Digital Ocean docker setup Messed around with nginx configuration files Web News - Microsoft Office vs Google Docs Microsoft Office has a premium paid-for desktop experience in the form of the Office Suite (main programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint) they also have a free Office Online counterpart that work at a basic level for editing, and allow people to view documents online This plugs into OneDrive (desktop app, web app, and mobile app) Both versions talk and work with each other Google Docs has a similar offering, however, it is free. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the main programs within this suite. Integrate well with Google Drive and have collaboration features They have desktop “apps” if you’re using Chrome, as well as Chromebook apps and smartphone apps. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram   RSS | Spotify | Reddit Medium | YouTube | GitHub Patreon

We've been hard at work, learning a new development stack on which the HTML All The Things website is built. Note: Matt is on vacation for 1.5 weeks, this episode has been pre-recorded before his departure, some things that were discussed may have a different status (hopefully complete) upon the release of the episode. Segment 1 - VueJS Frontend Development Due to the nature of VueJS, we spun up an entirely new development environment Switching from Notepad++ to Visual Studio Code w/ the Vetur plugin Some of the most valuable/used parts of VueJS that we used include: Components - are like small pieces that makeup the website, placed in separate files and used over and over again, can be imported into each other (component inside a component) Scoped Stylesheets - limit the styles you're applying to the file you're writing them in, we limited many styles to specific components, allows you to use the same classnames and ids with completely different properties Dynamic data was the most challenging part of using VueJS, not from a technical perspective, but more so from a procedural standpoint - not used to having them as apart of my workflow Vuex, Vue Router, Axios Vuex is a state management solution in vue that allows all components to share data between each other We use it for storing our loggedIn status for our editing content Vue router is used for handling any routes so that we can navigate around our site Segment 2 - Nodejs and MongoDB Backend Development Nodejs Used as our server to serve webpage content from the Mongo Database and store content in the mongo database The server has be handle many calls to it that request things like: Get all content Get content of a specific type Add content of a specific type Delete content Authentication These are standard server requests but still took some time to setup as we’ve never hooked in vue.js into Node, usually use the built in templating engines MongoDB A alternative to sql that stores objects in json blocks Has great hookins into Nodejs using the Mongoose package Used to store our content block data and  admin user account for editing the site Had to implement mongo admin and database users so that even if our site is hacked they can’t delete or modify the entire mongo database Segment 3 - Digital Ocean and Docker Deployment Digital Ocean provides a vps with an already installed Docker instance. Docker is a way to create small virualizable containers for each technology in your stack In our case we used docker to create 3 containers: Nginx - serve static files and proxy routes to Nodejs server Nodejs - run our server infrastructure MongoDB - runs our mondodb server that communicates with Nodejs Had to learn how to create a docker compose file which is a configuration file for building your containers together and letting them know how to communicate Everything is launched and built through a SSH into your digital ocean server. You have to be familiar with using a Command Line Interface (CLI) Web News - Wrapping it Up In this Web News we had a discussion regarding our current status (at the time of recording) in the development of the HTML All The Things website, as well as what to complete for deployment.

Getting details from your customers can be a challenging experience, but it is vital so that you can deliver a complete produce on time. Segment 1 - The Contact There are a lot of way that customers can contact you Some clients want to be hands-on, some want to hand over everything to you - the professional, and others get right to the point Despite how many details these customers give you, every project has a unique spin on it, even if it seems run of the mill, this makes it vital that your communication is on point Sometimes you need to resist customers requests/demands in order to deliver a complete and quality product (ie refusing to move forward on a project that hasn't had enough details communicated to begin accurately) Segment 2 - Gather Project Requirements Before sending the first quote we need to know what the client needs us to do Ensure that you ask the right questions to get all the information you need, clients generally don't know how many details you need When we work on a small business site some of the sample questions we might ask include: How do your current clients find you? If you have a site currently, what are some things you like about it, what are the things you really don't like What is the intention with the new site, generate leads? Just a digital business card/a way to for people to find your phone number? Who are your biggest competitors? And which of their sites do you like the most? Do you have a database of products you want displayed on the site? Do you want to be able to edit the main components of the site yourself? How important is the google rank to you? Do you see your website expanding in some way? Becoming a web app? Or growing a lot? Having a team of editors? Generally you should gather details over a personal meeting or screen share After gathering the details you can start creating the basis of the project including details on time to completion and what will be required This is a major component in your quote for a client Segment 3 - Changing Project Requirements Changes can suddenly happen, even in the middle of a project They can be brought on by customer preferences, market conditions, or company-wide strategy changes of some sort When a project requirement changes, especially when it drastically changes from the original vision, it often falls to you as the creator to make the appropriate changes It’s important to have a layout of what you’re willing to do with a client before you begin any work and to have a similar layout for what you're willing to do about changes that arise Web News - What do yo want from a phone/Android launcher?   We all have different needs and wants from our mobile devices, they’re an extension of us and the main way the people communicate with one another these days With that being said, they’re still mobile computers and can be used for a wide variety of tasks from working on the go, taking photos, chatting with friends, and much more. With different use cases comes a variety of user preferences in terms of hardware and software Are you a fan of Android fragmentation, or is there too much variation?   Apply to become our SubReddit Manager/Mod - [email protected] You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

Responsive design has revolutionized how websites are developed, but static layouts still have their place. We explore these two different layout methods in this episode of the podcast. Reference from Treehouse: https://blog.teamtreehouse.com/which-page-layout Segment 1 - What is Responsive Design? Responsive design responds to its environment, in the case of web design it’s specifically referring to how a website’s user interface responds to different window sizes and technologies available. This gives us the ability to have a single design that changes and adapts to various devices from ultrawide PC displays, down to older smartphones. It also allows users to make the most  of the screen real estate they have Responsive design makes the use of a variety of tactics that are generally found in CSS including: media queries, relative positioning, relative length units, whitespace Having two browsers snapped to each side of a 1080p display for more information, rather than always having a webpage open at full resolution Responsive design makes the use of a variety of tactics that are generally found in CSS including: media queries, relative positioning, relative length units, whitespace Segment 2 - How to Implement Responsive Design CSS Responsive Tactics: Media Queries Offer breakpoints to a design, allowing developers to apply design changes at a specific breakpoint, such as a certain max-width (probably most popular breakpoint) Relative Positioning Position: relative; Positioning absolute elements within a relative container and then controlling that relative container to automatically move the elements within the container Relative Length Units Units that allow your elements to be responsive. These units are dynamic and change based on their environment Unlike exact, or absolute length units which are (cm, mm, px, etc.) 3 examples: rem - relative to the font-size of the root element % - relative to the parent element Vw - relative to 1% of the width of the viewport Reference link: https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_units.asp Whitespace The space between elements (ie the space between columns) It’s basically blank space on the web page Responsive design uses this as a buffer zone to move elements around various elements Filling a site up too much (minimal whitespace) requires space for elements to be displaced and the site will become too crowded on smaller screens (infinite scrolling, or a lot of pagination) Main high-level CSS responsive tactics include: Flexbox, CSS Grid Mobile or Large screen first design? It seems currently it’s more popular to design for mobile first and then create media queries for larger displays This is useful if you are also designing for older browsers and want to use newer technologies like Grid of even Flexbox Older browsers will see a mobile design (one column) while any larger screen or new browser can utilize the newer technology for a more advanced/easier to set up layout Traditionally we design for larger screen and adapted for mobile/smaller This is still viable depending again on your audience, an older audience for example still prefers larger screens Segment 3 - When to use Static instead of Responsive Design Static layouts/static design is when the page is laid out in a fixed way The elements on the page do not adjust to the screen resolution, or window changing size, generally, overflow is used in order to scroll all around the page Older sites, especially those that appear left aligned and not fullscreen are done in a static layout, as they’re typically 640px or 800px wide and remain left aligned, if the screen shrinks below this point, as with a phone screen, the user must scroll around the design Elements are generally not optimized for all platforms, which results in very small buttons, and text on high definition and mobile phone screens Modern Static Design or Static Layouts We’ve experiences situations in which a single device, or a single type of monitor will be used, adding responsivity in any way would add additional development and testing time and obviously cost more money With a single screen in mind you can use the space at your disposal more effectively, have content blocks that perfects fill any available whitespace (within reason) and take advantage of any unique characteristics (ie notch) Industrial equipment is often like this, when they use a technology called PLCs to control them, generally an HMI (Human Machine Interface) is required to control it via a touch screen, with the web steadily expanding it’s not outrageous to assume that one day a browser version of an HMI may be used on these touch screens, which are all one specific size and don’t update like consumer products (remain the same for years, even decades) When we first got into business we set out with the idea that we’d never make a static layout, all our websites were going to be mobile-friendly and responsive Even a few years ago when we opened, there was a lot of production websites that had either a static layout, or had a separate mobile site Today responsivity is the way to go and is generally cheaper and less clunky than an entire mobile website We wouldn’t recommend making something with a static layout unless it has a very specific fixed set of parameters that need to be met, or if it will exclusively be used on a specific display for years to come Web News - Early Access Software/Games Potential Issues: Developers don’t want the pressure of saying that it is version 1.0 because of the assumed amount of polish The developer getting paid and receiving free bug testing while in early access/beta doesn’t seem fair to the user/customer that is buying it The potential that you could pay for something but it never gets fully released Even if something is free but in beta like flutter.io a cross platform framework for android and iOS. It could be abandoned, and your efforts can be for nothing in learning it and helping with its feature development/bug fixing Potential Benefits:  The user can feel part of the development and evolving process of the software and when/if it is released will be more attached to the product Strapped for cash but talented developers have a chance to maybe release a MVP and work on it while receiving feedback and funding from the people using it A longer update cycle for applications/games because of constant funding User feedback can lead to new features and improvements as the system is not yet complete and it is easier to add/change something in this state You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

We sit down with Azhar Zuberi to discuss his unique professional journey from developer to CTO of a startup. Segment 1 - Introduce Yourself Segment 2 - A little backstory What would you say was the most important topic or lesson you learned in your schooling when it comes to being a developer? How important was your first job as a developer in defining your coding style/knowledge base? When first starting out what were the ‘popular’ technologies that you learned (i.e. angular, bootstrap, wordpress etc) Segment 3 - Our connection What was the reason you decided to choose us (Digital Dynasty Design) when we first started working together? What is your workflow/process for working with and hiring off site/outsourced developers? What are the benefits of having a small development team versus increasing funding and hiring a full staff? What are some of the biggest challenges when have a off site/outsourced development team? Our current development process has us using a very base Jquery, Bootstrap, JS, HTML and CSS stack. What were some of the reasons behind this vs using a more robust framework i.e. angular or react? Segment 4 - Running a company What are some additional responsibilities that you were not expecting when transitioning to being a CTO What do you miss most about being just a contract developer As CTO how important was it to have all those technical skills and years of work in a company and as a contractor How did you learn the business side of your role as CTO and what is the most challenging part for you? Web News - Incomplete Ecosystems What is an ecosystem? A collection of software - typically from the same manufacturer - that all compliment each other A primary example would be iCloud storing all your contacts and other data from your iPhone for use on your Mac, or on a new iPhone if you need to sync them up Ecosystems have been a key part of people’s workflow for the past few years They’re often a key feature that people look for when they purchasing a device Apple’s ecosystem stands out in this particular example There are a lot of ecosystems out there including: productivity, smarthome, etc. Examples of incomplete ecosystems (rough notes/points of reference): Samsung has software primarily on the phone, such as Notes, Bixby, Email, etc. but has no clients for PC use, other than things that mirror or use the phone (ie SideSync) Microsoft’s is more focused on productivity (email, contacts, calendar, Cortana), but has no focus on smart home functionality (ie hardware). Windows Phone hardware is basically dead and therefore there is no mobile experience for Windows, with the exception of Android apps (which is a decent solution - but not as integrated as first party) Android has no full desktop experience (A Pixelbook doesn’t have all the pro software that Windows has, Google Assistant is on Google hardware, but not on Windows 10) You can find Azhar via... Contentlinq Website - www.contentlinq.com Contact Email - [email protected] LinkedIn - Profile Page You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

Communicating with your customers is a difficult, yet necessary part of doing business. In this episode we discuss best practices when dealing with various types of customers. Segment 1 - Establishing Channels Establishing which channels you're willing to talk on is critical Steer new customers to the proper channels that you check regularly (ie email, Twitter DM, phone call, etc.) so that you don't miss out on potential business Make sure that you check your unused channels on occasion (maybe weekly) in order to ensure nobody has reached out to you on those channels mistakenly and steer them towards the channels that you do use Steering customers to the correct channels is as easy as stating which communication method you prefer in meetings, in your social media bio/profile, or starting the conversation on your method of choice (if you're starting the conversation) Segment 2 - Different Types of Communicators As you work with clients you will start to understand how they work, but more importantly how they communicate and what they generally expect Some clients are entirely hands-off, while others want to be updated whenever something small is done There’s no clear cut way to determine which type of communicator your client is, other than working with them and slowly learning their expectations, just as you would with a friend, we all contact different friends in different ways depending on how we’ve communicated with them in the past Some people are more face-to-face oriented and want in-person meeting more than emails or messaging, while others just want quick messages, emails It’s important that you don’t necessarily go way out of the way for people (ie doing in-person meetings for something that a single email would deal with) Segment 3 - Dos and Don'ts Dos Establish a timeframe for a customer to contact you. Can be different between customers. Also take into account time zones and try to use them to your benefit to split up your day between customers. Use that timeframe to do callbacks as well if you miss a call Being prompt and consistent in your communications Be professional and don’t use needless slang, but keep in mind that as your relationship with the customer builds you can be more friendly and approachable Take responsibility for missed communication If you forget to answer an email and your customer reminds you make sure to apologize and try not to make excuses Don’ts Don’t neglect answering just because you feel the customer won’t like what you have to say. Be upfront and honest Don’t answer customers emails right when they come in everytime, pick a time or a few set times a day when you answer emails. Obviously use discretion as some situations can be urgent Don’t put yourself in situations where you will be overwhelmed with communications and all your accounts will suffer  Web News - Social Overload Social media is the vehicle that drives traffic to most online projects, with so many social media networks out there it can easily become a project just to keep up with posting new material, let alone making said material Phones manufacturers and other apps are now tracking usage on various apps, letting people know when they’re using their phone a lot - watching too much YouTube for example Social media, and especially our mobile devices have in a way made us “addicts” to social media and other apps since we can now access them everywhere Work on the parts of social media that you want to work out, make sure you put work into your craft, but you can’t excel at everything IGTV content idea Making content out of a single piece of content (ie get an article, photo for instagram, and an opinion tweet out of a single design idea) You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

We dive into the world of UX in this episode, analyzing some basic tactics you can use to ensure that your users have a great experience on your site or app! UX Rules Source: https://theblog.adobe.com/15-rules-every-ux-designer-know/ UX is not (only) UI User Interface is a part of User Experience Are glitches part of UX? Know your audience User research is a natural first step in the design process Designing a site for a specific industry will very much influence your decisions. You are not the user Testing with real users is an essential part of the design process Many examples where we thought something was simple but a small test group immediately got confused Adapt design for short attention spans Don’t overwhelm users with too much information Short blocks of text because people don’t read Keep interactions quick, don’t make people fill out massive forms The UX process isn’t set in stone Adapt your design process for the product you design Designing a small one page site for a small business is drastically different than a ecommerce website Prototype before you build a real product The design phase for digital products should include a prototyping stage We always make at least a wireframe to show the interactions and pages to clients so they know at a high level what the experience will be For larger clients a full clickthrough mockup can be made before any development begins to iron out all misunderstandings and conflicts Use real content when designing Avoid Lorem Ipsum and dummy placeholders Our customers have been confused before asking what is this “gibberish” in reference to lorem ipsum Also confused as to why the pictures are different then what he had in mind when we use generic stock photos Keep things simple and consistent The hallmark of a great user interface is simplicity and consistency For example I find it confusing when a one page scroll website has a navigation that then opens up a different page. Don’t combine the two. Recognition over recall Showing users elements they can recognize improves usability versus needing to recall items from scratch People know what buttons look like and usually know to click them, same with links and form inputs. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel Make design usable and accessible Design for a diverse set of users that will interact with your products Keep in mind that some users are color blind or even blind so make sure to follow the accessibility guidelines Don’t try to solve a problem yourself Design is team sport — don’t work in isolation Don’t try to solve everything at once Design is an iterative process Preventing errors is better than fixing them Whenever possible, design products to keep potential errors to a minimum Offer informative feedback An app or website should always keep users informed about what is going on Transitions are a great way to show what is happening without holding the users hand Avoid dramatic redesigns Remember Weber’s Law of Just Noticeable Differences Example digg redesign killed the site Web News - Microsoft Latest windows update has a chance to delete your user files without a chance at recovery Randomly corrupted hard drives Unskippable updates Windows store Troubleshooting steps are ridiculous  You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  New! - Reddit

In this episode we sit down with David Lindahl, a friend and colleague that recently pivoted his career from a the financial sector to web development. Segment 1 - Introduce Yourself Introductions and pathway to today Segment 2 - Bootcamp You mentioned that Code Fellows, which is where you took your classes, prefers to call it more of a coding school, or coding academy. What differences are there between traditional boot camps and a course at Code Fellows? In general how was the experience? Would you recommend the coding academy route for developers starting in the industry in 2018? Would you say the connections you made during your time at Code Fellows has helped you finding work or been beneficial in any way so far? What are some of the frameworks you learned? What were some of the example projects you made? Segment 3 - First month on the job How many interviews did you end up getting, and how many positions did you apply for? How did the interview process play out? What did you end up doing in your first week? Are you applying the skills you learned in your schooling to your daily work, if yes then how? How challenging has it been adapting to your new job, this being your first web development one? Segment 4 - Comparisons of Class Training vs Self-Taught We worked together on the very first steps of The Appex, where you were fresh out of the code academy, whereas I more or less self-taught frontend development to myself. What do you think about class training vs the self-taught mentality?Pros and Cons? How much have you had to self-teach yourself after working on projects outside of your schooling?I think you mentioned learning flexbox as an example?   You can find David via... Twitter & Instagram Rainier Watch Made with Spark The Appex Lindahl Studios   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  New! - Reddit

We dive into the different CSS layout methods that have evolved over recent years including box model, flexbox, and grid. Segment 1 - Layout Models StackChief reference article Box Model Elements comprise of: content, padding, border, margin Dimensions like height and width Floats and clearfix CSS Box Model - W3Schools article Flexbox Evolution of the box model Comprises of a container element called the flex container, which "control" their child elements called flex items Flexbox is fantastic for responsive layouts 1 dimensional layouts CSS Grid New CSS layout method that is supported in the latest version of major browsers (IE doesn't have support) 2 dimensional layouts Can customize every property of the grid  # of rows and columns size of row in various metrics (px, %, vh, vw, auto) spacing between rows and columns Very clean code - no need for row and column containers Segment 2 - Box vs Flexbox vs Grid Responsivity Box, flexbox, and grid can all be used to make responsive layouts Many of our production websites are still in box layout, they still work without issue on modern browsers and devices Layouts Basic sites can use any of the layout models Site components (ie navbar) can be made easily with flexbox due to their one dimensional layout Full site structures are easier to make with CSS grid due to two dimensional column and row functionality Easy of Use Matt believes the box model is easiest to learn - especially when learning how web pages flow Box model is more human readable, whilst flexbox allows for more complex layouts with less code and micromanaging Links Box Model - https://caniuse.com/#feat=inline-block Flexbox - https://caniuse.com/#search=flex Web News - 'Unobtrusive Ads' Ad strategies - which are you ok with? Sponsored posts Banner ads (Google Ads, etc.) Full page timed ads Sidebar ads Chumbox (From around the web, recommended for you) What are some ad strategies that annoy you? Do you think ads on a web page or app are a fair way to monetize? (freemium ad supported) Do you care what companies' ads are served to you? (ie you don't like Coke but like Pepsi) Support Us TP Link Deco Whole Home Mesh WiFi System (Amazon Affiliates Link) Become a Patreon Supporter You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram |  RSS | Spotify | Reddit Medium | YouTube | GitHub

In this episode we focus on CSS transitions and animations, what they are, why they both exist, and when you should use one or the other.  Segment 1 - Transitions vs Animations AdobePress Article - reference link Transitions Only have two states (triggered and not triggered) Always run forward when triggered, and backwards when the trigger is removed Common triggers are: hover, link, active, visited, focus, checked, disabled Common use case: hover over a button and have the box shadow get darker as long as the cursor is hovering over it Animations More control than transitions Can start, stop, pause, run forwards, run backwards Complex animations are possible by manipulating various properties within keyframes May be more difficult to manipulate with Javascript Use animations if you need the complexity Use transitions if you have a simple affect that only needs two states (triggered, not triggered) Segment 2 - How Transitions and Animations Improve UX Build your site with animations in mind so they don't look tacked on after the fact Don't be too flashy - your animations need to have purpose, shouldn't get in the way of the user experience Don't overwhelm the user with animations - may cause performance issues, can distract the user Keep animations consistent with the associated action - swipes with sliding animation, taps w/ pebble drop in water animation Segment 3 - Performance Too many transitions or complex animations can cause serious performance issues The browser runs animations better over time (device starts to dedicate resources to the tab, cache builds up) so tests need to be done on a fresh incognito (or equivalent) window to ensure performance is good for first time users Test on older devices that may have slow hardware, or may have older browsers due to lack of support for newer updates Performance "hacks" - translate3d, translatez More modern method "will-change" Check out José Rosário’s page on Medium article: https://medium.com/outsystems-experts/how-to-achieve-60-fps-animations-with-css3-db7b98610108 for an in-depth breakdown Segment 4 - Animation Frameworks Three.js Dependant on WebGL Full 3D render capable Is complex to start with has been around now for 8+ years so a little bit bloated yet still supported Anime.js Fastest/best performance large scale animation library Extremely lightweight Could replace Three.js due to simplicity and modern architecture ScrollReveal.js Specific library for animation while scrolling Using specific libraries for certain tasks maskes code more lightweight Usually easier to implement then a larger more customizable library Web News - Inconsistencies and Separation Mobile versions (app or mobile site) vs Desktop versions (apps or site) Separation of apps (multiple apps - same service/function) Inconsistent development features in an ecosystem   Patreon Supporters Grigory Rechkin   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  New! - Reddit

In this episode we discuss the tools that help us get the job done, with a specific focus on the hardware. Things like the PCs we use, the headphones we listen to, and some stories behind our hardware decisions. Segment 1 - Desktop Setups Matt's Desktop Setup Custom PC FX-8350 (8 core AMD processor) 16GB RAM DDR3 2x XFX 7970 (GPUs) Windows 10 CM Storm Sentinel Advance 3 Mouse Logitech G15 Keyboard Blue Snowball SteelSeries Flux Bose Companion 2 Series II Multimedia Speaker System Mike's Desktop Setup Custom PC Ryzen 1800x 16GB RAM DDR4 Samsung 860 512GB SSD Vega 64 8GB GPU Windows 10 Corsair Strafe RGB Keyboard Logitech G502 Proteus Spectrum Mouse Sennheiser HD 598 SR Open-Back Headphones Blue Snowball Server Old used PC running Windows 7 Ultimate NAS D-Link DNS-323 with 2x 3tb drives running raid 1 Segment 2 - Mobile Setups Matt's Mobile Setup Lenovo Y500 laptop Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro S w/ pen Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Mouse Jaybird X3 Sony MDR-ZX220BT SteelSeries Vault-Tec Mouse Samsung Galaxy S8+ BlackBerry KEY2 (silver, 64GB) ASUS Zenwatch 2 Mike's Mobile Setup ASUS Zenphone 5Z ASUS Zenbook 330ua Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Mouse Bluedio F2 Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones Bagsmart Convertible Laptop Backpack Jakery 10000mAh quick charge battery Cable clip organizers Xiaomi 5000mAh Segment 3 - Other Setups Matt's Test Devices iPhone 5 iPad Mini (original) Mike's Test Devices Lenovo Tab 10 iPad Air 2 Nexus 6P Nexus 7 (2013) Tablet mount holder (attached to desk) Smart Home Google Home Mini Echo Dot (2nd Generation) TP Link Smart Switch Web News - Desktop PC vs Laptop w/ Dock Desktop Computers Pros: Always more powerful Easier to upgrade Customizable features Cons:  Might be too much time investment for building Can be finicky and tough to troubleshoot Laptop with Dock Pros: Versatile  Simple buy and use process Easy warranty handling if you go with a good company Is upgradeable now through thunderbolt 3 interface Cons: Usually more expensive for similar performance (in comparison to desktop) Some stuff is not upgradable (soldered to board) Once warranty runs out repairs can be expensive or impossible Become a Patreon! Our Patreon Page - click here Buy Some Gear! Note: These are Amazon affiliate links, we get a kickback from you using them, they are for amazon.com. Some items may be variants of those mentioned in the episode, ensure you check the product page before purchasing. Thank you for using the links below! Mice: CM Storm Sentinel Advance 3 Logitech G502 Proteus Spectrum Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Mouse SteelSeries Vault-Tec Mouse Audio (headphones, speakers, microphones): SteelSeries Flux Bose Companion 2 Series II Multimedia Speaker System Sennheiser HD 598 Open-Back Headphones Blue Snowball Jaybird X3 Sony MDR-ZX220BT Bluedio F2 Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones Computer Components Ryzen 1800x Samsung 860 512GB SSD Vega 64 8GB Graphics Keyboards Corsair Strafe RGB Tablets Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro S Lenovo Tab 10 iPad Air 2 Smartphones Samsung Galaxy S8+ BlackBerry KEY2 (silver, 64GB) ASUS Zenphone 5Z Smartwatch Fossil Gen 3 Explorist Miscellaneous Bagsmart Convertible Laptop Backpack Cable Clip Organizers Tablet Mount Holder (attachable to desk) Echo Dot (2nd Generation) TP Link Smart Plug You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | RSS Medium | YouTube | GitHub | Spotify

In this first mini podcast episode, we record one of the first meetings for planning out the HTML All The Things website. The meeting was unscripted, microphones on and that's it (intro and outro are exceptions). This should give you a good idea what a typical meeting is like for us, specifically how we collaborate on projects with our different talents. You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | RSS Medium | YouTube | GitHub | Spotify

Learning new technologies can be a difficult thing to start, let alone master. In this episode we discuss how we started with new technologies and how to expand those introductions into mastery with a given framework, plugin, or other product. Segment 1 - Getting Started Identify Objectives Ensure that your selected technology cover as many of your objectives as possible Sometimes your objective is just to learn a given technology - with no specific project objective(s) Do the "My First App" example Most documentation have users go through a first introductory app to get them started quickly Use this first app as a way to get your foot in the door - use it as a foundation for your project, or as a learning platform Documentation Open Don't shy away from documentation - I always have it open! As you look up each and every piece of a given technology you're slowly learning its ins and outs Eventually you won't need the documentation to complete a given task Easiest Start  There are typically a lot of different ways to get started with a given technology (ie install via npm, use via CDN, etc.) Use the easiest starting point - probably the one that compliments your existing development environment - so that you don't get caught in a rut trying to learn how install something Find the fastest route to learning Segment 2 - When to Learn New Technologies Personal vs Client Work Projects You must find the balance between learning something new, or using something familiar because you're working on your client's time Let the client know what you're doing or planning, they may want you to work on learning a new technology - maybe they want a new feature Do extensive research into a given technology to prevent issues down the line, costing you time and your client needless money Performance Sometimes performance becomes important when applications get large, make sure you use the technology that best compliments your objective and gives the best performance For example: NodeJS is good at concurrent connections Popularity Popular apps typically have a job market Learning React or Angular, as of writing this, would put you in a good position for finding a job You can also participate in an up and coming technology to get into a growing community Need Sometimes you have no choice but to learn a new library, framework, language, etc. Segment 3 - Get Up and Running Quickly Researching Google your issues Check documentation At this stage ensure that the tech can cover all your needs Watching/Reaching Tutorials Before commiting, watch some YouTube tutorials to see if you like any of them If you continue working with the technology you now have a reference/video series to learn more Documentation Great documentation can make learning a lot easier Bad documentation does the exact opposite, makes it harder Community Take a look at the community and try to avoid toxicity Check various communities (ie Reddit, Discord, Stack Overflow, etc.) Your own "My First App" Choose a simple function that might be a single piece of a project Gives you a good view on learning and implementing Web News - Cell Phone Longevity & Endurance Battery life on cell phones is typically not great, after several product generations of fighting for better battery life (specifically more capacity), it seems that consumers have given up to a degree Android seems have issues managing background tasks Apps dont' close completely sometimes Sometimes they close too early from the "recent apps"  Manufacturers try and combat this by having various battery management software added to their Android versions More efficient processors like those in the Snapdragon 600 series offer more efficient battery usage, but don't offer flagship speed like those in the 800 series Flagship phones have the best features and specs, but typically lack in battery life Android phones seem to drop in battery performance when you're on the go - GPS turns on a lot even when not navigating You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | RSS Medium | YouTube | GitHub | Spotify

In this episode we dive into the world of troubleshooting and debugging exploring different methodologies and tools that should help you take out any pesky bugs you might come across. Segment 1 - Troubleshooting Methodologies Process of Elimination Slowly eliminate parts of your code that might be the culprit Narrow down the culprit then perform the process of elimination on the section that is causing the issue Don't be afraid to Google/research Researching is nothing to be ashamed of, it does not mean you don't know what you're doing As you look things up you'll be enhancing your researching skills, which is helpful when treading into new technologies Learn the Source Don't just bandaid the issue Find out the who, what, where, when, why, and how Apply an actual fix to the issue wherever possible and take measure to prevent it from happening again Segment 2 - Debugging in the Browser UI/UX Debugging Using console window on Google Chrome Inspecting elements to determine proper positioning and check if something is overlapping Primarily use: Elements View, Styles View, and Console Using console.log to check how a program is running Advanced Console Debugging JS Breakpoints to check on parts of programs Better than console logs in some more advanced cases Can check all local variables at a select breakpoint Postman for DB Debugging Segment 3 - Application/Storytime Troubleshooting Cordova Apps on Android Longevity testing Wireless adb debugging Passing console logs through from webview to Android through an interface Crashing issues Media playback issues VPN Gateway Failure (some details changed for security procedure IT support issue Establishing a tunnel worked but routing internally didn't work Ended up being an NDP issue Most advanced troubleshooting Matt has possibly done (most involved - over 2 weeks of work) Web News - Experience Doesn't Trump Research Don't shy away from research  We typically have the documentation of a given framework or library that we are using, pulled up on a tab at all times Impossible to commit everything to memory Getting muscle memory, intuition, and research skills down pat makes you a proper "technician" for software engineering and IT work You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Medium | YouTube | GitHub | Spotify  

In this episode we dive deep on how to tackle projects, whether they be something for the company, or something for a client. We take a look at the tools we use to organize it all, and how we stay on top of working in a small team. Segment 1 - Idea Filtering Brainstorming and how to track it all Jot down informal notes, even if ideas are obviously bad Sleep on your ideas - don't develop them too much too quickly or you'll get ahead of yourself Sometimes you get a "packed idea" that needs attention immediately Bouncing ideas off of technical and non-technical people Live prototyping of easy to try ideas Having meetings to filter the good from the bad Grilling each others ideas - will the product make it in the market? Segment 2 - Planning With and Using Tools Using a variety of tools for communication and organization Examples: Slack, Twist, Monday.com, Asana, Git (gitlab, github, bitbucket), email/contacts/calendar, trello, etc. Our procedure on handling projects that we do for ourselves (for Digital Dynasty Design) Day to day tools including things like: Google Hangouts, Git, OneDrive, Trello, Asana Segment 3 - Client Work vs Personal Projects Matt works on small business client work as well as any projects that Digital Dyansty Design has running Mike focuses on client works and assists with Digital Dynasty Design projects whenver he can We treat client projecs differently than our own projects Get client objectives written down crystal clear Cost analysis Deadlines Design suggestions and comparative materials Daily Meetings Dealing with client and personal schedule needs Segment 4 - Completion and Accountability Accountability is difficult when you're your own boss Need dicipline and hard deadlines that you need to keep Sometimes deadlines need to be changed due to project changes or other issues, but don't make a habit of it Fill out a log book to keep track of the work you do on a daily basis Web News - Stress When Deploying to Production  Even senior developers get stress when they are pushing to production Make backups, make an easy recovery path if possible Test everything you can to prepare You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Medium | YouTube | GitHub | Spotify

In this episode we discuss our journey from static and CMS driven sites to reactive frameworks, specifically Vue.js. Segment 1 - Static to Reactive Started by creating simple static sites - no need for reactive elements When dynamic/reactive content was needed we would use document.createElement Segment 2 - CMS to Reactive We would use Wordpress, CouchCMS, or Webflow for any content management that our users would need Eventually elements became too varied and a dynamic solution was needed - reactive frameworks The "Hub" presented a unique issue of not having a standard layout while still being "posts" (the episode clarifies this point) Segment 3 - How We Plan to Use Vue.js Quick start guide for people to get up and running HexDash a collaborative project that people can contribute to Vue.js components - great for reusability Vue.js will be used in the making of the HTML All The Things website Segment 4 - Matt's Experience Getting Quickly Started with Vue.js Moving over from a typical experience using vanilla HTML/CSS/JS, SASS, Bootstrap, Webflow, or CouchCMS Prior experience with CLI and NPM First time using Visual Studio Code Web News - Trendy & Loud vs Silence NodeJS vs PHP Big frameworks vs old ones WordPress power 31% of the internet (Source: https://wordpress.com) WordPress vs Webflow Workflow conflicts Are freelancers using bleeding edge technology, while the rest of the industry (specifically big enterprise) still using "old" tech?

In this episode we explore our failures and shortcomings on a variety of our projects ranging from a stock photo resource to a fully-fledged Chrome App game. Show Layout Segment 1 - Starting Up Originally going to be an IT company Opportunity caused us to pivot before the opportunity fell through Decided to continue working in the web development and design field Segment 2 - Lists by Design Product Page: Link First Chrome extension  Was mean't to be a bookmarks replacer Added a lot of functionality that bookmarks don't have Segment 3 - Clicks to Riches Product Page: Link Clicker/Idle game in the form of a Chrome App Was supposed to be a smaller version of a larger project Designed to generate revenue whilst working on the larger project Segment 4 - Free Photos Hamilton Website: Link Free stock photo resouce Designed to offer free photos, focussing on the local area of Hamilton, Ontario Segment 5 - Dealing and Mitigating Failure How to deal with failure and get ready for it before it even happens Always learn new things even if a project has failed totally Web News - Windows vs MacOS The age old argument, who will win? Social Links Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Medium

In this episode we discuss our different workflows individually and collaboratively as a company.  Segment 1 - Infrastructure Started out using OneDrive Later started using BitBucket and GitHub Version control was needed more as projects grew in productivity Segment 2 - Mike's Workflow Primary IDE is VS Code Xcode and Android Studio whenever a project calls for it Asana and Todoist Xampp Daily routine Segment 3 - Matt's Workflow Notepad++ CMD Chrome Testing browsers Balsamiq Cloud Workflow for small business basic site Workflow for projects Segment 4 - Working Together/Collaborative Workflow Working together on OneDrive Dividing up parts of projects Code reviews/peer reviews Project management software Whiteboard project management Web News - App Overload Discussion on how to manage app overload There are so many solutions to every problem and many of them have apps, this can cause app overload if you work on several projects.

In this episode we explore how to get started in web development and web design. We discuss some of the methods we used to get up and running and share some stories on our initial experiences in the field. Topics covered in this episode include:  Segment 1 - Mike's Beginnings Original exposure to code & first projects Segment 2 - Matt's Beginnings Original exposure to code & first projects Segment 3 - Libraries & Frameworks SASS - Official Site Bootstrap - Official Site Tailwind CSS - Official Site jQuery - Official Site Lightbox - Official Site NodeJS - Official Site Vue - Official Site Flutter - Official Site Segment 4 - When to Choose a Premade Solution Website builders Service providers Snippets & Plugins Examples include: Webflow - Official Site Podbean - Official Site Carrd - Official Site CouchCMS - Official Site Segment 5 - Web News Flutter You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit

In this episode Matt Lawrence and Mike Karan discuss their professional experiences that led them to today. These experiences form a foundation for future podcasts and act as a reference moving forward. Topics covered in this episode include: Personal Introductions Segment 1 - Synopsis of Today Digital Dynasty Design Web design and development business Passive income projects Segment 2 - Education College and University educations and experiences Mohawk College McMaster University Segment 3 - Work Experience IT and administration Electrical drafting Co-ops Segment 4 - HATT What is HTML All The Things?   You can find us on... Facebook | Twitter | Instagram RSS | Patreon | Spotify Medium | YouTube | GitHub  Reddit