#169 - Thinking like a front-end developer

Hey everyone,

Welcome to issue #169, your weekly roundup of what’s happening in design, code and typography.

Thought provoking #

Why it’s good for users that HTML, CSS and JS are separate languages. A response to an idea to merge HTML, CSS and JavaScript into one language from Hidde de Vries.

“Using more and more energy does not lead to more happiness. After a certain point there are diminishing returns. In fact, too much energy leads to obesity in the body and overload in the mind.” Gerry McGovern in Reducing energy waste in digital.

Design and Code #

Thinking Like a Front-end Developer. Ahmad Shadeed shares how to focus on the high-level details first before sweating the details.

“Yes or No?” — One Checkbox vs Two Radio Buttons. Sara Soueidan asks the UI/UX community on Twitter for their input on this matter. The answers were overwhelmingly insightful and show just how nuanced this question can be depending on your specific use case.

Playfulness In Code: Supercharge Your Learning By Having Fun from Jhey Tompkins. “In the product-focused world of development, it can be easy to forget the joy of making for the sake of making. By dropping the ‘Why’ and ‘How’, and focusing instead on the ‘What’ of weird, wonderful ideas, you can nurture a totally different side to your skill sets.”

Typography #

Leveraging System Fonts on the Web. A deep dive from Jim Nielsen into system font stacks and how to make sense of them.

Dev fonts. A list of the best fonts for coding with live preview

“Ultimately, typefaces are a kind of ‘critical infrastructure’ for each culture, a medium to store and transmit emotional tone.” Susanna Zaraysky in Preserving endangered languages with Noto fonts.

Announcing the 2020 Type Champions! Monotype introduces the recipients of the second annual Type Champions Award, a program that recognizes brands for their creative, innovative, and memorable use of typography in developing and maintaining their brand identities.

Something to watch #

Learn JavaScript DOM Traversal In 15 Minutes. Traversing the DOM in JavaScript is crucial to building projects on your own. In this video Kyle breaks down all the ways you can traverse the DOM in JavaScript so that you can more easily build projects on your own.


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