So many to choose from

Wow, my first list? I’m not sure I approve of what I am about to write just because I usually don’t care about what they say. A list like this though, is one I usually read. Same with the year’s trends in web design or development because I want to see what others have been doing. This list though is unique, because it pertains to what I learned or what I personally thought were the top innovations of 2010. By 2010 I either mean they came out this year, or I actually learned them this year. If you haven’t used, learned or heard of these…you should. Otherwise you are dumb. Na, I don’t mean that. Ok, yes I do. Anyway, to the winch, wench!

Read the rest of this entry »

Making web development faster

We are all into making our job easier right? We love writing less but doing more. jQuery is an abstraction of Javascript, it takes less of it to do the same stuff. What if though, you could use something else to write the jQuery, only it took even less to write that. Is there a point where the abstraction level is just plain ridiculous? There are a ton of different languages and code out there to make what we write everyday take less and less time, but today I started wondering if there was a line of stupidity that we can cross by using all of these. My answer is at the end of the article, but let’s go through some of the ones I know of that, in theory, are supposed to make our normal process of building a website faster by abstracting the code you write. If you are asking me though (in your head of course) what abstraction in this case means, it is basically like writing the code in a very short hand method to the point that while it bears a resemblance to the original, it is not.

Read the rest of this entry »

A needed break

I took the week off during the Thanksgiving holiday. I didn’t realize I needed it until I was already two days in. The first day I was just waiting for a call from work to say something was jacked up and needed to be fixed. Thankfully the call never came. The second day of my vacation I wanted to sit in front of the computer and do some work of my own, but forced myself away. I was on a break after all, I should enjoy it right? After that, it was heaven.

Sometimes you need a break to make you realize you were dangerously close to getting burned out without even knowing it. I love what I do, as most of do, but as I have found the past week…you just have to get away from it for a while. I hadn’t had any time off this year until then, so it was very weird not doing ANYTHING related to web development. I thought about it a lot, but I didn’t touch the computer. And you know what? I feel soooo much better. Sorry I didn’t post, or tweet, or whatever, but trust me when I say I needed to go away for a week.

Read the rest of this entry »