Mentoring Meetup

Picked up CS50 again today…I don’t really look forward to it and have been having motivation issues when it comes to dedicating the time, but every time I sit down to work on it, I remember actually it’s not that bad! In today’s assignment we’re learning about compiling code in C and writing makefiles. When I look at the assignments it’s a lot of information to take in, but with a good, quiet place to concentrate, I’m getting through it.

Buuuut it was kind of cut short this afternoon because there was a mentoring meetup night I wanted to go to in my area. It’s when a bunch of people learning to code come, and a bunch of people who work as developers come, and we meet, chat, code, get/give advice, etc. I’d been to a few with this group before and have never been disappointed!

CSS Grid Advice

I didn’t bring my laptop this time and tried to get some advice about CSS Grid with my portfolio site in mind. On one hand it was interesting to hear that some companies are discouraging their developers from using it in their production code because it’s too new. On the other hand there was genuine excitement about Grid and how much sense it makes compared to the band-aids pretty much all front end web development consists of. I got some more good resources to check out:

Rachel Andrew and Grid By Example were suggested again for really learning the basics. The paid tutorial is reportedly a great way to jump in.
Jen Simmons’ Grid Labs is a fun way to do a few experiments and really get more comfortable with Grid after you know some basics.
Also since so much of Grid parallels the layout fundamentals of working in print, for a little bit of an adjacent study the book Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst was recommended.

90s Web Design !?

Also had an interesting chat given I just came across one of my very first websites (circa 1999) on Angelfire using the Wayback machine! Apparently 90-style web design is making a comeback!? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, if that’s how trends work in fashion why not in web. But apparently some agencies are tired of creating super slick single-column sites that look like everybody else’s (fair point!) so they’re going back to the animated gifs and harsh lines and whacked out 16-bit color palates. And it’s called “brutalist web design.” My Angelfire site fits right in!

Up Next

I realized that the eligibility on my CS50 certificate runs out at the end of the year, and if I’m going to get through all the lectures and homework and build an app from scratch for the final product I’ve really got to ramp it up. So full court press this weekend.