The Web Witch's Grimoire // Week of 10 June 2022

I have been deep in learning mode the last 3 weeks learning about all the things API related. Or attempting to. Everyone at RapidAPI has been pretty fantastic about helping me understand how things work and what the developers who use our tools do. Every time I try to get started writing an API while watching a tutorial, I seem to get sidetracked with one of the product experiences I own and start poking around...and when I say poking around, I mean diving in with a shovel to see what's up and try and break things.

If you're interested in getting access to previews of the developer tooling products I'm working on, you can sign up for those previews here.

I spent a week and a half in Berlin, working, attempting to get acquainted with things and then hopped over to Scotland to give a talk on PWAs before heading down for a weekend in London with Jhey and discovering the absolute joy of riding around on Lime Scooters.

Now on my way home, I've had a few incidents in the airport that remind me why it's good to be kind. Are you creating a world where someone who's confused about something can ask you for help? It seems so simple but little moments where people are just helpful for no other reason than being a kind person are good little reminders that not everything is terrible.

Things on the Web #

• Multi-screen Window Placement appears to have shipped in Chromium 100. I get lots of questions when I go speak on dual screen design about whether or not the APIs work with external displays (they don't, they're for one device with multiple viewports) but this API answers those questions I get.
• This aggregation of personal sites built by Andy Bell and maintained by Henry Desroches is lovely while also being a constant reminder I desperately need to redesign my own website.
• The Web We Want is still alive and kicking as a source of developer feedback for the web platform. Folks from Mozilla, Google, Igalia, Salesforce and now RapidAPI (me) look at what comes in. We want to make this a valuable source of developer feedback so if there's something you'd like to see that doesn't currently exist that would make this resource more valuable, leave some feedback on the GitHub repo.

Career Stuff #

• My talk on Progressive Web App UX and Design considerations at All Day Hey! is publicly available to watch here: Building Beautiful Web Apps. This is one I'd like to give in person again.
• My book, Design for Developers, is still available for MEAP, the Manning Early Access Program. It's not done, but that's what the Early Access program is for. You can buy the MEAP for Design for Developers on the publisher's website.

Currently... #

Listening: #

• Album: Raw Data Feel - Everything Everything
• Song: Heartbeat by the Midnight
• Song: Feel It (Claptone Remix) by Crooked Colours

Reading and (Still) Reading: #

• The Wise Man's Fear, book 2 of The Kingkiller Chronicle
• Notes On a Nervous Planet
• Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
• Bad Days in History: A Gleefully Grim Chronicle of Misfortune, Mayhem, and Misery for Every Day of the Year
• Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (99U)

I should perhaps finish some of what I'm reading before diving into anything new but I always like to have multiple books going.

Finished Reading: #

• The Name of the Wind, book 1 of The Kingkiller Chronicle

Watching: #

Kind of watching Obi-Wan on Disney+ but have been entirely too busy! That and Stranger Things is on the list. Positively thrilled that "Running Up That Hill" was featured though. That song is amazing. I love it so much that last year I made a playlist of the top "Running Up That Hill" covers. Here's the Spotify link.