Fresh Reads

I really love animation, but not everybody does. In fact, it can make some people literally sick! In this tutorial, we'll see how to ensure that we respect user preferences, and create animations that can be disabled. Keep reading.

In our community, it's so common for developer projects to be open-source. I'm breaking with this trend for my blog, but I have good reasons! In this article, I'll share my reasoning, as well as a workaround in case you _really_ want to see the source. If you're considering…

Dark Mode has become common enough that it's a user expectation. And yet, creating the perfect dark mode with a statically-built site/app is deceptively tricky. In this in-depth tutorial, we'll see how to build the perfect, flicker-free, customizable theming solution for…

CSS variables are *really* cool, and they're incredibly powerful when it comes to React! This tutorial shows how we can use them with React to create dynamic themes. We'll see how to get the most out of CSS-in-JS tools like styled-components, and how our mental frame around…

Styling an ordered list can be surprisingly tricky; there's no way to get at that bullet! In this tutorial, we'll see a handy trick using CSS counters that lets us style ordered lists without breaking proper semantics. Keep reading.

By and large, using the web is a visual experience. This is in terrible contrast to mobile apps, which interact with three of our human senses (sight, sound, and touch, through haptic feedback). I just released a library to make it easy to add sound to your React app, and I make…

A look at how hundreds of developers got their start in the industry despite not having a Computer Science or Software Engineering degree. We'll sort responses into 6 categories, and detail strategies that you can use to ensure you capture the attention of potential employers!…

A surprisingly-common misconception can lead to big rendering issues that are difficult to debug. This deep-dive tutorial examines how React and Gatsby can be used to pre-render content, and how we can work around the constraints to build dynamic, personalized web apps. Keep…

A common thing in React development is that we want to store a bit of React state in localStorage, and re-initialize from that value on the next page-load. This quick tutorial shows you how we can build a custom hook that does exactly this! Keep reading.

How we work with design can have a tremendous impact on our overall output, and yet we don't always treat it as very important. A look at how collaborating with design can supercharge our own productivity. Keep reading.

If you've ever tried to animate a gradient, you've been met with a harsh reality—it isn't possible. At least, it wasn't! In this tutorial, we'll leverage bleeding-edge browser features to animate ANY CSS property, including background gradients, using CSS Houdini, CSS variables,…

As remote work becomes increasingly popular, I am frequently asked how to get started. This article shares everything I know about landing that first remote gig. Keep reading.

I've spent half of my career working remotely. This post chronicles those experiences, giving a real-world window into what it's like to work fully-remote as a software engineer. Keep reading.

As engineers, it can be really satisfying for us to implement clever, terse solutions to problems, relying on advanced tricks and techniques. As a result, we often write code that is hostile and inaccessible to the junior folks on our team. This article makes the case that we…

In this post, we'll explore a technique we can use to "fold" a DOM node, like folding a letter in real-life. On that journey, we'll learn a lot about 3D transforms and CSS animation techniques! Keep reading.

A deep dive into Bézier curves in React. We'll look at how to build dynamic effects such as scroll-to-flatten using SVG path instructions, and how to architect our components for maximum readability and reusability. Keep reading.

An in-depth look at the surprisingly complicated problem of animating the transition when two items in a list swap positions. Keep reading.