How To Stay Up To Date on Web Stuff

Updated version of https://speakerdeck.com/chriscoyier/how-to-stay-up-to-date-on-web-technology

Transcript

1. HOW TO STAY UP TO DATE on web stuff
2. v CHRIS COYIER DIGBY &
4. #HOTDRAMA
6. How do you stay up to date on the latest web technology?
7. UMMMMMMM #SHUFFLEFEET #VAGUEANSWER #MAKEFORTHEDOOR
8. I should think about that and come up with a decent answer.
9. AlwaysReadTheManual.com Three beautiful, illustrated hardbound books a year, each holding six articles and six personal lessons that use the maturing of the discipline of web design as a starting point for deeper explorations of our work and who we are as designers.
10. Tounge-Tied T R E N T W A L T O N
11. “And what is it that you do?” “I’m a web designer.” “Oh. That’s nice.”
12. DAMN IT. That didn’t go the way I wanted it to. Again.
13. Once more, I’ve proven to be a poor representative of the industry I’m so proud to belong to.
14. How do you stay up to date on the latest web technology?
15. ONE QUESTION MANY SUBTEXTS
16. “Gimme Something Easy” S U B T E X T N U M B E R O N E
17. OH HERE
18. .com
19. It’s not that easy.
20. ER WAIT
21. There are these newsletters...
22. Web Design Weekly web-design-weekly.com
23. CSS Weekly css-weekly.com
24. Sidebar sidebar.io
25. JavaScript Weekly javascriptweekly.com
26. Web Tools Weekly webtoolsweekly.com
27. RWD Weekly responsivedesignweekly.com
28. Web Platform Daily webplatformdaily.com
29. MAYBE IT IS THAT EASY.
30. “I’m worried about making bad decisions” S U B T E X T N U M B E R T W O
31. I’m about to start a new project. I want to make smart decisions on what tech to use.
32. Workflow Preprocessors Libraries Languages Frameworks Tools / Software
34. HAHA BUSINESS
36. Is the tech right for the project? Is it just short-term cool or long-term right? What is the fail cost?
37. Will the team be into it? Can I hire people that know it? How big is the community around it?
38. Watch/talk to the “big” players Look at enormous GitHub repos Be aware of tech you hear about over and over Look at community sizes Research investment costs (mostly: time) Employ good decision making
39. “I’m getting old.” S U B T E X T N U M B E R T H R E E
46. It might not be that you’re getting old. It might be that you’re getting bored.
47. Find a way to get excited again. Or get out. #noshame
48. Decisions, decisions.
49. HOW TO MAKE A DECISION And now for a subtalk...
50. with CHRIS COYIER
51. Get a good night’s sleep. 1 Or ten. The bigger the decision the most rested you should be.
52. 2 Gather and clearly lay out all the options. Often boolean: yes/no, use/don’t use, do/don’t do
53. 3 Consider outcome of each of those choices. As scientifically as you can, but use your intuition.
54. 4 Pick the best one and do it. Don’t be a wimp.
55. 5 See how it goes. drink(5); goto(1);
56. THE MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS TRANSCEND TECH
57. Who do you choose to work with? What is my attitude? What culture am I trying to cultivate?
58. Am I letting UX drive choices? Am I building something people love? Am I writing things people want to read?
59. DECISION MAKING IN ACTION
60. How should I go about hosting private video?
62. uchgyk. go to bed, self.
63. Get a good night’s sleep. 1
64. 2 Gather and clearly lay out all the options.
65. 3 Consider outcome of each of those choices.
66. 4 Pick the best one and do it.
67. 5 See how it goes.
69. Should I start using icon fonts? Is single-color OK? Is performance better or worse? Will it speed up or slow down development? Can we deal with all accessibility concerns? Can I find ones that work for me? I can build my own? Do I have time for that? Do they look better to my audience?
70. Should I use HTML5 form features? <input type=date> What is the browser support? Quirks to watch out for? What features do I need? What control do I have? What kind of fallback is acceptable?
72. Should we use Sass? What is the cost to switch? Can we get the whole team on board? What is the learning curve? What are other people saying/doing? What other benefits/effects does it have?
73. What browsers should I support? Look at YOUR data. What are trending indicating? What is the cost of support? What do you gain from that support? Do the math.
74. FILING AWAY NEW THINGS
76. IcedCoffeeScript? WTF is IcedCoffeScript?
78. IcedCoffeeScript is a superset of CoffeeScript... it will interpret almost all existing CoffeeScript programs. IcedCoffeeScript (ICS) adds two new keywords: await and defer. parallelSearch = (keywords, cb) -> out = [] await for k,i in keywords search k, defer out[i] cb out
79. How do you stay up to date on the latest web technology?
80. What if you just stopped? Would it make that big of a difference?
81. Stay as up to date as you need to.
82. Not out of compulsion.
84. I BET If you stopped reading any dev tech news for a year, you could catch up in a week. Binge on some blogs. Go to a conference or two.
85. THE BOSS SLIDES
86. A VERY SMALL SMATTERING OF VERY SMART AND INTERESTING BLOGS, PODCASTS, & PEOPLE YOU SHOULD FOLLOW.
87. Smashing Magazine smashingmagazine.com Cognition cognition.happycog.com NetTuts+ net.tutsplus.com 24 Ways 24ways.org Codrops tympanus.com/codrops HTML5 Doctor html5doctor.com HTML5 Rocks html5rocks.com A List Apart alistapart.com
88. ShopTalk shoptalkshow.com The Web Ahead 5by5.tv/webahead Non Breaking Space nonbreakingspace.tv The Big Web Show muleradio.net/thebigwebshow/ Build Podcast build-podcast.com Rails Casts railscasts.com JavaScript Jabber javascriptjabber.com This Developer’s Life thisdeveloperslife.com The East Wing theeastwing.net BizCraft unmatchedstyle.com/bizcraft
89. Paul Irish @paul_irish / paulirish.com Estelle Weyl @estellevw / estelle.github.com Martin Wolf @_martinwolf / theamazingweb.net Ryan Seddon @ryanseddon / thecssninja.com Zoe Gillenwater @zomigi / zomigi.com Jeremy Keith @adactio / adactio.com Nicole Sullivan @stubbornella / stubbornella.org Rebecca Murphey @rmurphey / rmurphey.com/ Tab Atkins @tabatkins / xanthir.com Christian Heilman @codepo8 / christianheilmann.com Divya Manian @divya / nimbupani.com Val Head @vlh / valhead.com
90. Elijah Manor @elijahmanor / elijahmanor.com Mike Taylor @miketaylr / miketaylr.com Ethan Marcotte @rwd / @beep / ethanmarcotte.com/ Jeff Starr @perishable / perishablepress.com Lea Verou @leaverou / lea.verou.me Scott Jehl @scottjehl / scottjehl Hakim El Hattab @hakimel / hakim.se Rachel Nabors @rachelnabors / rachelnabors.com Rachel Andrew @rachelandrew / rachelandrew.co.uk Raquel Velez @rockbot / raquelvelez.com Jina Bolton @jina / jina.me Pamela Fox @pamelafox / pamelafox.org
91. Peter-Paul Koch @ppk / quirksmode.org John Resig @jeresig / ejohn.org Jonathan Snook @snook / snook.ca Jake Archibald @jaffathecake / jakearchibald.com Ana Tudor @thebabydino / about.me/thebabydino Stephanie Rewis @stefsull / w3conversions.org Jennifer Robbins @jenville / jenville.com Sara Soueidan @sarasoueidan / sarasoueidan.com Laura Kalbag @laurakalbag / laurakalbag.com Veerle Pieters @vpieters / veerle.duoh.com Harry Roberts @csswizardry / csswizardry.com Dave Rupert @davatron5000 / daverupert.com
92. James Padolsey @padolsey / james.padolsey.com Tim Holman @twholman / tholman.com Mathias Bynens @mathias / mathiasbynens.be Ben Alman @cowboy / benalman.com David Walsh @davidwalshblog / davidwalsh.name Mat Marquis @wilto / matmarquis.com Simon @simurai / simurai.com Nicolas Zakas @slicknet / nczonline.net Pam Selle @pamasaur / thewebivore.com Jenn Lukas @jennlukas / jennlukas.com Kimberly Blessing @obiwankimberly / kimberlyblessing.com Lara Swanson @laraswanson / laraswanson.com
93. WHAT ABOUT THAT QUESTION
94. How do you stay up to date on the latest web technology?
95. “And what is it that you do?” “I work at a small web design shop and we’re building a website that sells car parts for old cars. ”
96. If you’re looking for a few quick wins, there are some great newsletters you can subscribe to.
97. But why do you ask?
98. THANK YOU @chriscoyier chriscoyier.net