Front End Astronaut

Today we're diving into a topic that's as ubiquitous as npm packages in a Node project: Impostor Syndrome. Yep, that awful feeling that you're not good enough, even when your GitHub is lit up like a Christmas tree with contributions. The Frontend Landscape: A Moving Target Let's set the stage. Frontend development is like surfing on quicksand. Just when you think you've caught the wave with React, Vue comes along and says, "Hold my beer." And don't even get me started on Angular. Remember jQuery? Ah, those were simpler times. The frontend ecosystem is a whirlpool of innovation, which is fantastic but also overwhelming. You've got new libraries, frameworks, and tools popping up faster than you can say "Webpack." One day you're the smartest guy for using Sass, and the next, you're outdated because you haven't adopted Tailwind CSS. The Impostor Within: A Tale as Old as Time Now, let's talk about the elephant in the room: Impo...

Pixelay for Figma is engineered to serve as a conduit between static design mockups and fully functional websites. It allows users to seamlessly compare Figma designs with their real-world web counterparts. What sets it apart from similar tools is its user-friendly interface, featuring multiple overlay options. For frontend developers, this tool is really great for achieving pixel-perfect precision, as it highlights any variances between the design and the coded UI, thereby making the development cycle more efficient and reducing iterative adjustments. Designers also gain by witnessing their concepts come to life in the most accurate way, and QA engineers can quickly spot and report any visual irregularities. This ensures that the final product faithfully matches the original design. What can it be used for? Ensuring the accuracy of Figma designs. Pixelay assists in confirming that Figma designs accurately represent the intended website by comparing them to the live site. This is ben...

As I mentioned in previous posts, I currently work as an associate frontend architect at Verndale , and also am a certified Yoga instructor. As a professional who wears multiple hats, I constantly strive to bring balance to my life and share this sense of equilibrium with others. From September 2022 to April 2023, I had the unique opportunity to lead weekly in-person Yoga practices for a group of coworkers. This journey was both enriching and enlightening, and I am excited to share my experiences and insights with you today. Yoga, a practice rooted in ancient Indian philosophy, is an amalgamation of physical, mental, and spiritual disciplines. It is a holistic approach to well-being that transcends the boundaries of age, culture, and physical ability. It has been a transformative part of my life, and sharing this with my colleagues was a cherished experience. Yoga practice at Verndale The practice is not just about being physically fit, but also about fostering mindfulness, enhancing p...

Serverless architecture has been of particular interest in the recent years, being potentially a game-changer in the realm of web development that's making its mark on the frontend landscape. So what's all the buzz about, and why should frontend developers be paying attention? Unraveling the Serverless Concept At its core, serverless architecture isn't a departure from servers as the term might suggest, but rather a shift in focus. It's about building applications without the necessity of managing servers, hence the term 'serverless'. It’s an innovative approach where the developers can focus on writing code, and the heavy lifting of infrastructure management is taken care of by cloud providers. In a traditional web development setup, developers would have to provision, scale, and maintain servers to run their applications. Serverless architecture flips this on its head. When you deploy your application, you only concern yourself with the code. The cloud provide...

The field of web development can be complex, filled with various technologies, standards, and practices. Amidst this complexity, we often look for simplicity: tools that can streamline our work, enhance website performance, and ensure user satisfaction. In this context, let's explore a really nice tool: the Web Vitals Chrome Extension . I've found myself many times working in teams where non-experts needed to understand the measure of the quality of the user experience on a website, and this tool has proven to be very helpful. So, this post is not intended for experienced developers. For them, there is an advanced set of options that include real-time console logging, user timings and more. We'll speak about that in the future :) Web Vitals Chrome Extension in Action Understanding Web Vitals To grasp the significance of this tool, we first need to understand Web Vitals. This is an initiative by Google to provide guidelines for quality signals crucial for ensuring an excelle...

Greetings, readers. The ever-evolving field of web development consistently introduces features that significantly improve efficiency and usability. One such recent advancement pertains to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), specifically the introduction of individual CSS transform properties. Traditionally, developers had to manipulate multiple transformations using the transform property. This property required the use of various transform functions in a single line, as shown below: .element {     transform: rotate(45deg) scale(1.2) translateX(10px); } This approach, while functional, had its shortcomings. For instance, modifying one transformation without affecting the others was a challenging task. Similarly, overriding a single transformation in responsive design required precise handling to avoid unintended consequences. To address these issues, the CSS Working Group introduced individual transform properties, essentially assigning each transformation its own property: ...

The web development world has been buzzing with anticipation for a certain CSS feature that we’ve all been waiting for - container queries ! Now the wait is finally over. The prototype of container queries was available behind a flag in Chrome Canary for you to play around and experiment with, but now it is widely supported by major browsers. So, what's the big deal with CSS Container Queries? Before we get into the  gritty details of container queries, let's explore why they're so important. In the past, web design has been limited by the constraints of screen size. For instance, if a container is 600px wide, perhaps it has a row-like design, but any narrower than that, it transitions into a column-like design. The limitations have been around transitioning between layouts based on the screen size, rather than the size of an element or its container. Developers often used a system of breakpoints in CSS media queries to adjust styles based on the size of the viewport, not t...