A look at how I've been using Git aliases to remove repetitive tasks, automate workflows, and generally optimise working on the command line. They're small tips, but they've had a big impact on me.

Having literally just pushed my ideas about job titles out into the world, I discovered that the world was coming to a totally different conclusion. That was an unusual and anxiety-inducing position to be in, but I think it was ultimately beneficial.

Making the case for the title UI Engineer as a meaningful descriptor for those of us that consider our work in front-of-the-front-end terms.

Amazon Photos on Windows has been force quitting for unknown reasons. Well, I finally found a fix, so I thought it might be worth sharing it with other people.

A lot of blame is heaped on the near-mythical "algorithm", but is that really just an easy scapegoat for actual societal issues?

The combination of the Carbon design system and NextJS should make for rapid website development, but I ran into a few small hurdles getting them to play nicely with one another using existing documentation and community guidelines.

What do you do when a website has loaded but the content is still being fetched from an API? One answer is to fill the page with animated placeholders, creating a skeleton of what the user can expect, with a dash of CSS animation to let them know that something's still going on behind the scenes.

I love books. I have a huge collection of them and I routinely add to it. But when it comes to the topic of spreading knowledge and information, I think the web wins. It may not be as nice to use, but it is more accessible, and that means it's more valuable.

I've been thinking a lot about an article I read recently that called out technical writing online for being overly trusted. But shouldn't that same argument apply more universally to third-party code coming from any source?

The new dominant layout methods in CSS – grid and flexbox – have solved a lot of issues. Still, sometimes the ideal layout is somewhere in the middle: a flexible grid-like mashup. With a bit of outside-the-box thinking, you can there from either angle.

Another month, another big and fully remote JavaScript conference. JSNation fit into my schedule a little less (and didn't quite overlap with my interests as neatly) but it was a fun event with some interesting talks on topics that are often only on my periphery. Much to think about!

There are several strong arguments for moving away from using "master branch" as default terminology, but what should it be replace with? Personally, I like the idea of extending the tree abstraction that we use when talking about branches, so have started using "trunk".