Blog, but filtered for Notes

Welcome to my writing place. You will find articles, notes and annotated links here and can subscribe to their feed once or individually.

  1. as note

    On seniority and understanding the Web vs. knowing how to use Frameworks

    Today I read a LinkedIn post by Dan Neciu about XSS still being a real-world problem. That’s one perfect case to show why you either need to: check what AI generates for you and know how to review code properly yourself (you’re at least senior-level then) have real senior developers in your company who actually know about such problems and detect or directly avoid them have automated checks for …
  2. as note

    4 Reasons to stop using CSS Preprocessors

    Within CSS you now can do so many things that were the subject for using a pre- and postprocessor like Sass, Less or PostCSS. The latter is still useful in many cases today but the former are less and less important for these reasons: People use some sort of CSS-in-JavaScript anyways and what they write (not produce!) is not CSS anymore 😏 Nesting is natively available in CSS ✅ BEM and similar …
  3. as note

    Have your experts as a backup in the new AI world

    ✈️ I rarely find good analogies but this one I think is spot on: The Autopilot Paradox Most of the time, commercial planes fly themselves. Autopilot can handle take-off, cruising, and even landing. But would you board a plane if told there were no pilots in the cockpit? Probably not. Because a pilot’s job isn’t just to move a joystick or push buttons. Their mission is to take responsibility when …
  4. as note

    Code Reviews to uncover team improvements

    I do like code reviews. If my customer and teams let me spend time on it, I’m able to see issues in automation workflows, code quality and knowledge gaps in the teams or workflow issues in general. You can quickly see in code reviews if automated checks catched typos, code style or linting issues. You can find out the code quality level in the team and if your team members have equal knowledge or …
  5. as note

    What makes a great person at work (and in life)

    Developers are not paid to write code. People get hired to make wise, solid and effective decisions. It sets a long-lasting relationship with the company, the product, team members, or even customers. We are part of what we build: Effective solutions or just some product. For effective solutions, we need to discuss in the team, bring up problems and ideas, verify them and find creative ways to …
  6. as note

    What makes a great team

    A good team is formed of trust, willingness to improve and agility to adapt plans and try out new things: For a long time I believed that a strong team is made of stars — extraordinary world-class individuals who can generate and execute ideas at a level no one else can. These days, I feel that a strong team is the one that feels more like a close family than a constellation of stars. A family …
  7. as note

    I have two jobs, and all the social algorithms fail

    The fun part of being someone with two jobs in completely different areas. Nearly all of the algorithms of these fancy platforms backed with billions of money don’t work. LinkedIn for example is smart enough to realize both of my work categories (web development, agriculture/gardening) but fails to provide a proper feed, a mixture of network recommendations, etc. The world cannot be put in one …
  8. as note

    [TIL] CSS :empty isn’t applicable on form fields

    Today I learned that the CSS :empty selector is implemented to look for child content (think of innerText/innerHTML). This means it reports empty for filled form elements which are self-closing elements. Findings :empty reports empty for all form input elements because they have their values as attributes, not as inner content :empty works for <textarea> elements depending on how they’re …
  9. as note

    [TIL] CSS :readonly is not for select fields

    Today I learned that the CSS readonly attribute for form fields does only work with input modes that allow variable user input that’s not “type-safe”: The attribute is not supported or relevant to <select> or <input> types that are already not mutable, such as checkbox and radio or cannot, by definition, start with a value, such as the file input type. range and color, as both have default …
  10. as note

    Cyber is still there

    When I started web development I was 12 years old. It was back in 2001, and we used HTML4 and basic CSS. The term cyber was a thing, but I never found it to be the proper term for what we are talking about: The internet, a virtual network platform for human beings. After all these years the term »cyber« is still a thing. It still sounds wrong to me personally. Whenever I read this word it …
  11. as note

    Notes on self-hosting newsletters

    Since my subscriber list grew over two thousand people for WDRL I’m self-hosting my newsletter service instead of using a SaaS solution. But that also means a lot of work, too. Things you need to take care of when self-hosting: Choose the best newsletter software for the project Choose a service provider for actually sending the emails (e.g. AWS SES or SendGrid) Keep it up to date Choose a good …
  12. as note

    Thanks for CSS-Tricks

    Today I read that CSS-Tricks is now part of Digital Ocean. So far, this great website was managed and built up by Chris Coyier, a nice fellow who just started this blog as a private project years ago and spent probably thousands of hours into community building and education. It’s probably the most complete learning resource for web developers out there, built up originally by just one nice …
  13. as note

    Mercy

    I may not understand, but I am with you. And while the original article I found this sentence may be a bit too religious for some, I think the content itself is very powerful for anyone of us. A heart of Mercy describes how we can transform other people’s lives and our own by being open-minded and trying to understand other people even if we disagree, by showing and telling mercy and empathy.
  14. as note

    Free slots for a project during Winter

    I have some free slots left over Winter season to work on a small / mid-size website project. If you need advice or a whole website to be built, write me a mail and we’ll discuss it.
  15. as note

    If it’s good for you and for other others—it stays.

    Nature can tell us a lot. It knows more than we ever can learn, it has more experience than we can have and it has strategies that we’ve lost in our imagination: Diversify as much as possible to ensure it works out long-term. Everyone gets their performance, everyone gets their chance. No one is asking what they did an hour or even a year ago. It doesn’t matter what they might do tomorrow or the …
  16. as note

    Your »do better« website project

    Chances are high we don’t know each other yet if you’re reading this and it fits your needs. But that’s exactly what networking is thought for. I’m looking for small website projects to take on over the next few months. No long-term, no fulltime. I’d love to work with you if you have a project that tries to do make the world a little better. Your project might be about improving social lives …
  17. as note

    On Work-Work Balance

    The last WDRL edition is already two months old now, and while I do have content in place for another edition the reason why I don’t send out another one currently is that I don’t have the time to fix my partially upgraded WDRL project. In January when PHP8 came out I decided to upgrade the WDRL project from Kirby 2 to Kirby 3. I knew it won’t be straight forward since I used a lot of custom code …
  18. as note

    Another try for no Whatsapp

    So Whatsapp is updating its terms and privacy policy again. Interestingly enough, so far you can’t read that announcement outside of the app, e.g. in their official blog. And as they already tried a year ago or earlier, they now will share the data of Whatsapp with their mothership company Facebook Inc. So here I go in a try to delete Whatsapp. So far I have done it once successfully until I …
  19. as note

    What about no Facebook?

    In my note on the try to delete Whatsapp you may wonder why not delete Facebook or Instagram? Simple, it’s necessary for my business. So yes, I have a Facebook account in order to create a Facebook page. I have an Instagram account (three in reality) to post and do marketing for my businesses. I grow and sell vegetables via my CSA and share photos of the story via Instagram. Yes, you can view …
  20. as note

    Don’t bend your own rules

    There’s a lot of discussion around Apple’s AppStore practices and rules right now. Not only is there a running European Union antitrust probe but also a discussion around the HEY Email app that was rejected recently due to the fact they didn’t integrate payment via Apple but only via their website. As per AppStore rules, this is forbidden. Apple states that apps need to fully work inside their …