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Posts tagged "articles"

  5. 2024: The year in lists

    It’s Boxing Day and I’m a small pile on the sofa. We successfully Did Christmas at ours this year, and I never want to see another mince pie (until next year).

    So, what better time than now to look back on the year?

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  8. You should go to conferences

    Conferences are a fantastic way to not only broaden your horizons when it comes to your job and your skills, but also meet excellent people who might lead you to a new role, or new experiences.

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  10. liveness probe

    After an initial burst of blogging energy January followed by a series of automated posts featuring good things I’d read recently, it fell off a cliff towards the end of March. I didn't get bored, I promise!

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  24. Engineering progression for humans

    Tackling some common questions, including: what does an engineering career in a larger organisation look like? What actually is a staff engineer? How long should you stay at the same company? Do I even need to progress?

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  32. Everything should have an API: adventures in trying to automate stuff

    Inspired by Robb Knight I want to build my own /now page. As a teen I used to use PHPCurrently on my personal website to list what I was listening to, thinking, feeling, even what my MSN display picture was. Here's an objectively terrible screenshot from peak Evanescence phase, circa 2004.

    A screenshot from an old website. It's a list of statistics about what I'm doing. It says 'Currently: MSN display picture: Amy in a pink dress, with lyrics from Missing. date: 11th June. thinking: no more exams!!!! wearing: bathrobe. makeup: none. jewellery: none. hair: loose. MSN screenname: Grammar Nazi. time: 11:30. feeling: amused. eating: raisin wheats. drinking: nothing. surfing: this thread on AGF. you may need this (link) for some of it. IMing: no-one. hating: spelling, grammar and punctuation ignorance. Powered by PHPCurrently.
    I have grown up a bit since then, thankfully.

    And just as Robb did, I want to automate as much of it as I possibly could. No matter how many apps I try for tracking books, games, TV etc., I always forget to actually update them. Everything I do requires a sign-in these days, and it's all internet based, so why shouldn't I be able to automatically generate a page based on the data these companies have on me?

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  34. 2022: The year in lists

    I don't usually do these end-of-year reflection posts, but at a time where I feel like I'm finally starting to hit flat land again after a year of climbing hills, it seems like a nice thing to do, and a way for me to reflect on my own achievements.

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  35. Preparing for conferences

    I've been speaking at conferences and meetups on and off for nearly five years now, and a few people have asked me what the process is for preparing a talk. So I thought I'd share how I approach it.

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  40. Start at the beginning: the importance of learning the basics

    If you're an early-career developer, Twitter is overflowing with people tweeting great tips – and some absolute rubbish – about how to improve your skills and become better at your job. I've spoken to more than a few people who've asked me, "how should I start?". And I tell everyone the same thing: learn the basics.

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  43. Give yourself a break: lessons from burnout

    I started writing this post a few days ago, and was so exhausted I couldn't actually be bothered to finish it, which tells you a lot really. Here are some lessons from the trash fire of 2020 that we can take over into the slightly-smaller-but-still-burning trash fire of 2021.

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  44. 7 myths designers and developers believe about web accessibility

    In an ideal world, being "good at accessibility" wouldn't make you stand out from the crowd. Companies wouldn't be hiring accessibility experts to help them unpick and untangle the inaccessible products they've been building for years. Speaking about web accessibility at a conference would be as unnecessary as getting up on stage and giving a talk on how to write HTML.

    But we don't live in that world, and the web is full of inaccessible websites.

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  46. ffconf 2019: future friends beside the seaside

    Now in its 11th year, ffconf is one of the biggest events in the conference calendar for web developers across the UK. Yet somehow I’ve managed to miss every one since I got into tech, because of some reason or another - last year I was at the week-long blockchain sales pitch that is Web Summit - so I was understandably very excited to finally be going.

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  48. Questions to ask at an engineering interview

    Tech job interviews are often different flavours of the same thing, regardless of where you apply. Interviewers are likely to ask you questions about your experiences, perhaps a hypothetical question about what you might do in a certain situation, or delve into some of the how-it-works stuff under the hood of whatever programming language you'll be using. However, there's one question that you can guarantee will come up: 'Do you have any questions for us?'

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