Ross's Micro Blog

Trusting code…

You kinda have a relationship with code from your projects. You probably have feelings about it.

As I've been thinking about code style, I've also been thinking about how it's important to build up trust in a code base.

https://rosswintle.uk/2024/03/trusting-code/

Ah poop. My only decent local bike shop just closed. Sad times. Need a service and maybe a new freewheel too. Where do I go now‽

Dear Parents

**PARKING SAFETY**

I’d like to draw your attention to the increasing problem of dangerous parking on the school grounds.

There have been recent incidents involving a large carriage and a submersible boat.

There are clear markings and rules around parking. And contravention of these rules poses a danger to students, staff, and the local community.

Mr Snape will be patrolling the grounds to make sure any illegally parked vehicles are moved on.

Best wishes

Prof Dumbledore

Dear Mrs Weasley

We are writing to inform you that Ginny had an accident at school today. It’s nothing to be concerned about. She has been to the medical wing to have the wound cleaned and a plaster has been applied.

It seems she got into an altercation with another boy in the playground who was wielding an enormous and very dangerous snake-like creature.

The boy has been reprimanded and we shall take steps to ensure this does not happen again.

Regards,

Prof McGonagal

Has someone done parody Hogwarts School Comms yet? Like:

Dear Mr Granger

We have accumulated a large number brooms in the broom shed that seem to have been abandoned.

Can you please ensure that your child’s broom is removed at the end of term. Any brooms left
in the broom shed will be disposed of during the holidays.

Mr Dumbledore
Headteacher

Let’s go over the basics of applying for jobs again shall we?:

1. Read the posting. Don’t apply if you can’t demonstrate the core skills.
2. Do what the posting says.
3. Spell names right. Double check that you spelled names right. (I’ve had a “Dear Rose” and a “P Engine” this week)
4. Express excitement for the actual job that you are applying for. Boilerplate excitement will be detected and ignored!
5. Give some evidence that you can do the job.

This is the bare minimum to get past step 1.

Holy shit. This is amazing!! Insta-purchase! https://mastodon.social/@marcmagnin/112141300273384408

Popped back onto Twitter for some time this week. The spam replies problem there is frickin' huge and awful. How do people cope?

As well as a developer position in my team at WP Engine, there’s also a Web UX Designer role going.

Needs:
– 5 years of experience
– WordPress admin experience
– Excellent web/UX knowledge and capability

Let me know if interested. I can get you the job spec and refer you in. Thanks!

There’s an opening in my team at WP Engine for a WordPress+React dev, mostly working with our headless site which runs on Next.js using WP Engine’s “Atlas” headless platform.

It’s a great team working on some challenging stuff. We exist within marketing but are a team of highly skilled web developers.

Remote first but needs overlap with US working hours.

Happy to chat with interested people. Drop me a line!

A while ago, something I heard made me think: What if we were in some alternate universe, considering moving FROM battery EV's to petrol/diesel-powered transport? What would our objections be in that scenario?

(Note: I'm not an EV zealot. EV's are not yet for everyone. This is just a thought experiment.)

https://rosswintle.uk/2024/03/what-if-we-were-transitioning-to-electric-vehicles/

First world problems: my Apple Watch just suddenly completely died. Blank screen. Won’t turn on. Shows no sign of charging. Won’t reset.

Anyone else had this?

Two important things:

1. If you disagree with someone online you don’t HAVE to tell them. If you must disagree then at least do so with respect and curiosity for the other’s opinion, and give a reason.

2. I’m sick of seeing the abuse that minorities in tech get. Just stop it. I’m in a dev team with 2 women of colour. They are two of the best engineers I’ve ever worked with in a long web dev career. Anyone can be an excellent software developer. And kindness should be default to everyone.

Great to hear @michelle on @shoptalkshow today! Great job sharing about web sustainability. 🙌

UK Royal Photo Shernanigans

---

The photo is clearly fake. Her kids are NEVER that old yet.

Are they? 🤯

Web devs: This is worth knowing about. A proposal for a standard, well-known password-reset URL.

https://github.com/w3c/webappsec-change-password-url

Poor code readability slows us down. So I'm going to post some of my code-readability tips! This is an introduction with the ideas behind it and all the caveats, and an initial example.

https://rosswintle.uk/2024/03/readable-code-tips-intro/

This is using JavaScript canvas manipulation to remove the background and CSS filters for shadows. Trying to get attention to detail while minimising dependencies! Totally amazing what the web platform can do. The only library here is Alpine.js.