HTML All The Things - Web Development, AI, and Developer Careers

In this interview episode, Matt and Mike sat down with Bob Ziroll the head of education for Scrimba to discuss all things React, escaping your comfort zone, teaching courses, and much more! Bob Ziroll is known for his React courses on both Scrimba and freeCodeCamp, he also anticipates starting a YouTube channel sometime soon.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/teaching-you-how-to-react-w-bob-ziroll

CSS animations are somewhat of an advanced CSS topic that many people skip out on when they're developing their site's MVP, or first few versions. Further into its life though, CSS animations (and transitions for that matter) add a level of polish to a website that can subtly bring about a premium feel for its UI/UX. It's quite easy, however, to go overboard with animations and transitions to the point where they feel out of place, sometimes looking like they're just being done for the sake of another animation instead of complimenting the content on the page. This week, Matt and Mike discussed CSS animations and CSS transitions, discussing the good, bad, and the ugly when it comes to using them on your next project.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-animations-can-make-or-break-a-site

The advanced technical nature of web development coupled with what seems like a completely new dictionary to memorize can easily overwhelm junior developers before they've completed their learning journey. There is a lot of technical jargon and technical terms that must be understood to read documentation and hold a conversation with developer colleagues. These terms include things like data structures, algorithms, syntax, and much more. This week, Matt and Mike try and help simplify these terms into easy-to-understand definitions, so you don't get bogged down in memorization.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/junior-developers-guide-to-confusing-terms

CSS is a crucial skill for frontend developers to learn and eventually master, but it's flanked by other tools that many employers demand skills in.  Bootstrap, TailwindCSS, and SASS are all tools that assist in the development of user interfaces, by augmenting and expanding what vanilla CSS already offers. With this in mind, it's easy for a junior developer to start questioning when to move their learning journey on from vanilla CSS to something that an employer may have interest in. Many times this question can result in analysis paralysis and over a long period of time, may result in CSS tutorial hell. This week, Matt and Mike discuss this transition from learning vanilla CSS to learning the next step that applies to your goals. 

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/youve-learned-enough-css-heres-whats-next

Do you know enough JavaScript to move onto something else like React, or Svelte? How do you know if you'll be ready? This week, Matt and Mike discuss the vanilla JavaScript fundamentals you need to know before learning new tooling like React, or Svelte. We hope that this episode helps clear the air for any junior developers wondering if they should start the next step of their JavaScript learning journey, or if they still have more vanilla JS to learn.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/javascript-fundamentals-you-need-to-know-before-learning-react

The popularity of WordPress partly comes from its ability to transform into virtually any website creation tool you need. From a membership site managing tool, to an inventory control system with ecommerce, the WordPress plugin offerings seem to be able to make anything happen - with low, to no-code. This is, however, as long as everything keeps working the way it should. With critical errors like the WordPress white screen of death threatening websites at almost every turn, we discuss why knowing how to code (or at least manage hosting files) is a critical skill that many WordPress users don't realize they need...until it's too late.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/if-you-cant-code-dont-use-wordpress

Tech layoffs are in full swing right now, with companies shrinking their teams for a variety of reasons. This is a stark contrast to the hiring spree that we experienced and grew used to during the chaos that was the COVID-19 pandemic. Does this mean that junior developers should pack up and find work elsewhere? Should people that are still learning web development leave the field entirely?

The most popular social media & video sharing websites out there now support (or are centered around) vertical video in the form of short-form content that commonly comes in under a minute in length. As the popularity of these short-form videos has taken off in recent years, we've seen this form factor escape smartphones, arriving on desktop computers and TVs. Unfortunately, this presents designers with a perplexing problem as vertical video (portrait aspect ratio) is not ideal for screens that are almost always landscape (widescreen). In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the rise of vertical video (short-form content), discussing & debating on how it is shaping our user interfaces, and how it could even start shaping the hardware we use in the home.