Paul Ford lays out a thoughtful article/interactive experience trying to explain to the layperson, “what is code?”. It also delves a little into management of software development via a fictional (I hope) project. It’s long, but I encourage folks to set aside some time and go through it, whether or not you know anything about computer programming. It’s fun!
Implementing a non-blocking quicksort in JavaScript to avoid sorts that run too long, freezing the browser (particularly in IE8). Also: browser timer resolution is only 4ms (or more)? That’s *forever* in CPU time!
Writing a Non-blocking JavaScript Quicksort – Jimmy Breck-McKye
“Neat is a semantic grid framework built on top of Sass and Bourbon. It is simple enough to get you up and running in minutes, and powerful enough to handle any responsive layout you can dream of.”
A library of sass mixins to simplify CSS.
Developers are familiar with the project triangle adage, “Fast, Cheap, Good: Pick any two.”
Of course, the converse from the client side often seems to be, “Budget, Time, Sanity: Pick one. Maybe.”
I have a loose grasp on Promises in JavaScript — I can use them for many simple use-cases. I need to spend some time reading this article over and over, and using them more in real-world code until I grok them.
For a while now, the passenger-side headlight on our van has been covered with a hazy film. We had tried scrubbing it with various cleaners we had around the house, but could never get it to clear up. Susan picked up a cleaning kit, and last weekend I finally had a chance to give it a try.
This is what our headlight looked like before I started:
The kit is the 3M Lens Renewal System. Our kit came with masking tape (to protect the areas around the headlight), a disk attachment, two different grits of sandpaper, a gray buffing disk, an orange buffing sponge, and lens polish compound.
After masking off the painted areas around the headlight, I used the 500 grit sanding disks to sand the surface of the headlight lens. At this point, the lens has a uniformly white surface, and any major scratches should be buffed out:
Next, I used the 800 grit sanding disks to refine the surface, and remove finer scratches:
Then I used the gray P3000 buffing disk and water to do a wet buff. At this point, the lens is starting to look clear again, but is still a tiny bit opaque:
Finally, I used the orange buffing sponge with a little of the lens polishing compound to finish things off. The final result looks pretty good!
I only head to clean up one of our headlights, but the kit came with enough supplies to work on (at a guess) four lights, if needed.
Great quickref site for finding entity codes of common symbols (copyright, trademark, euro, etc.)
Entity Code – A Clear and Quick Reference to HTML Entities Codes
Ghostlab lets you perform advanced debugging (DOM inspection, JavaScript debugging) on multiple devices and browsers, simultaneously. Slick!
Free, open source themes for Bootstrap, for a less Bootstrap-y look.