Chris Smith

For years Sass offered us superpowers.

What skills or behaviours differentiate a senior dev from a junior?

I've noticed that the large language models have a distinct tone and behaviour towards their user, one of positive reinforcement or enablement.

I'm currently working on a mature web app, over 11 years old.

A few simple bits that might actually be helpful, hopefully not just loads of useless things to remember.

There have been a lot of these posts around this year.

When loading dynamic content client side, it's generally considered good practice to load the page's HTML first then the scripts, which run and update the HTML.

Why do all websites look the same?

Emoji give us a very easy way of using graphics in our content.

When using GitHub Copilot inside VS Code, as well as prompts we can set instructions at the repo level to give the AI a set of guidelines to follow.

I've been working with web components, also known as custom elements, for a while.

A lot of software boils down to data in, data out.

I've built a fun little web app so thought I'd share how I came up with it and how it's written.

It's lunchtime and you're going to a new sandwich shop.

I joined twitter in 2009.

I've always found working with dates in JavaScript to be a horrible experience but it really doesn't have to be.

We have an ageing web app, 10+ years, which uses jQuery UI datepicker throughout.

When you have a team of developers, each with their own coding styles and preferences, how do you keep everyone aligned and your code consistent?

As often happens in tech, our company was acquired by a bigger company.

I'm using an AI assistant to help me with some laborious code changes.

I've made a number of help components over the years, typically an icon button triggering a div to appear.

I've been working as a web developer since late 1999.

If a select list has options with long text, we can see the text when the options are all shown but not after the selection has been made.

A lot of UI frameworks or design systems include a component library.

When developing a site or app there's often a temptation to give the user a choice, to make something configurable to their preferences.

One of the most common tasks in front end development is requesting data from an endpoint with JavaScript and then using that data to create items in the HTML.

Yeah, please stop doing that.

In a nutshell, taking care of web accessibility makes our apps... available to everybody easier to use easier to test easier to sell safe from negative publicity and lawsuits Available to everybody There is a proportion of the population who have disabili…

I've started learning TypeScript properly.

I've been through a number of website or apps rebranding exercises, ranging from just a logo update to full blown name, domain and colour scheme and typographical changes.

I've been through a number of website or apps rebranding exercises, ranging from just a logo update to full blown name, domain and colour scheme and typographical changes.

I've been through a number of website or apps rebranding exercises, ranging from just a logo update to full blown name, domain and colour scheme and typographical changes.

I've been through a number of website or apps rebranding exercises, ranging from just a logo update to full blown name, domain and colour scheme and typographical changes.

We all know that validating user input is a good idea but how do you decide on what rules to apply?

Yesterday I was on a call and mentioned that I'd done some pattern matching using regex and as I said it I suddenly felt very self-conscious about how I'd pronounced it.

Have you ever tried to read a blog post or article and found it really hard work because of all the ads?

If you're a developer, like me, or someone who works on a computer all day, here are some ways you can reduce your carbon footprint.

Having made the decision to migrate my site from WordPress to Eleventy, actually getting into it was quite daunting.

For years my personal website used WordPress.

I'm going to try to explain what a front end developer does, or, at least, should be doing, for those that don't know.

CodePen is not only great for making demos or experimenting but can also be used for prototyping.

A quick guide to how a web page renders and how we can ensure it stays fast.

The 6 areas to consider spell out CARPET, hopefully making it easier to remember.

When I started out with doing web stuff in 1999, things were very different, much simpler in some ways but much harder in others.

What is Emmet?

I've been working on a questionnaire with a requirement to show progress through the questions.

Performance tools like Lighthouse now suggest using newer formats for images in place of the traditional JPG, PNG and GIF.

This is the title of a video from the December 2020 Chrome Dev Summit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

When you go through school you're always taught to do your best, to try to make the thing you're working on the best it can possibly be.

One thing I'd definitely recommend to any new developers is to have your own blog.