Potluck - Working with designers × Is WordPress Crap? × When to stop working × More

It’s another potluck episode in which Wes and Scott answer your questions! This month - working with designers, criticisms of WordPress, avoiding burnout, time management, and more.

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Show Notes

5:05 - How can you help a designer understand how styling works and how layouts work in the web? In other words: How do I explain my boundaries as a front-end developer to a designer?

• Work closely with the designer
• Allow the designer to push your limits
• You can help them understand by:
  • Showing them poor performing websites
  • Showing them things that usually are taxing on the GPU to paint - rotations, background images, drop shadows, etc.
• Don’t be afraid to let a tough design push your boundaries

13:23 - How do you manage your time for learning new things when you have children and a daily full-time job?

• Those who figure out how to make it a priority will win out
• Family first - talk to your spouse
• Ask your boss for time to learn and grow
• Find ways to get paid for learning

19:45 - How do you deal with burnout in this constantly evolving front end tech ecosystem?

• Make time for hobbies away from the computer
• Do projects just for fun
• Solve your own problems
• Syntax 035: Keeping Up with the Codeashians
• Syntax 041: Preventing and Dealing with Burnout in Web Development

25:00 - Do you code at night (past 9pm)?

• Start your wind-down time earlier
• Let your brain wok on problems while you sleep
• Get it out of your head
• Listen to podcasts, audiobooks, etc.

29:23 - How do you compress your videos/audio for your courses/tutorials?

• Handbrake Fast 1080
• Use presets
• Output from video editor, rip from YouTube, or compress directly from video editor

33:10 - It seems like in the web dev community, a lot of people give WordPress crap. Any idea why?

• WordPress is dope - people just like to complain.
• WordPress is often one of the first things people learn and have bad memories of it
• It’s easy to write bad code with WordPress
• It can be slow
• It can attract a certain type of developer

33:10 - What are some of the biggest mistakes that people make when they are learning programming and what’s the best way to overcome them?

• Don’t focus on too many things
• Don’t worry about picking the right technology
• Focus on the fundamentals
• Let your curiosity and excitement drive you
• Celebrate wins

40:29 - What are your best tips for writing documentation?

• Start with basic API documentation, them move to more “article style” docs
• Use tools like CodeSandbox and Swagger
• Syntax 073: Reading Documentation

43:08 - What are some good questions or techniques to better understand a client’s requirements?

• How does your business work right now?
• What are people coming to the website for?
• Questionnaires are good - they get people thinking
• It’s your job to understand what a client want out of a website - what problems they have and need solved

45:38 - Do you guys have any tips for taking over maintenance and development of existing websites where the previous developer is no longer reachable?

• Take time to asses the codebase before writing anything
• Learn what’s there any and why
• Don’t start ripping out code without understanding what’s really going on
• Don’t leave it worse than you found it
• It depends on the stack, but it’s probably worth giving it an honest go before re-writing the whole thing

××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ×××

• Scott 1: Drillbrush Bathroom Surfaces Tub, Shower, Tile and Grout All Purpose Power Scrubber Cleaning Kit
• Scott 2: iOttie
• Wes 1: Sabrent Wireless Charger
• Wes 2: CD Player Mount

Shameless Plugs

• Scott’s Level Up Pro Subscription
• Wes’ Advanced React Course

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