Today is a bit of a story about how sometimes it can take a really long time to realize that you’ve actually had a really good idea. Or, well, that’s the case for me, at least. You see, I recently have become so excited about how we can use a CSS feature that I’m changing my approach to creating the core structure for websites going forward. The sort of final version of this idea I’m talking about is something that I posted about this week on my main channel, but in reality, it’s something I figured out over five years ago, and I just never realized how great it was at the time. Or rather, I realized I was onto something, and then, for reasons we’ll get to later, I stopped bothering with it and eventually totally forgot about it.

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• CSS Wrapped: 2023 on the Chrome for Developers blog
• A few ways CSS is easier to write in 2023 by Geoff Graham

What I’ve been up to this week (and other links of mine that I mentioned):

• My first video on Grid
• My video from 2018 on grid as a container replacement
• My recent video on using grid as a container replacement
• My video from this week that expands on that idea
• I ranked the CSS units into different tiers

This week, I focus on two of the most important skills a developer can have, which also happen to be two of the hardest ones to teach:

• The thought process to break down more complex problems.
• Being able to dive into existing code and quickly make sense of it.

These are probably two of the most important skills you can have as a developer, but they don’t get much attention because they aren’t as easy to convey as “follow along as I code this up”.

I’ll give some tips on how you can improve your skills on both of these though, and as a bonus it can even be a little fun!

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• ShopTalk show’s How to Think like a Frontend Developer
• Hyperplexed’s channel
• Hyperplexed video that I mentioned:
• CSS4 is coming by CSS Weekly
• Workarounds for Buggy Gradients by Keith J. Grant

What I’ve been up to this week:

• The code behind a Hyperplexed video
• Awesome filtering animation with vanilla JS
• CSS Shorthands aren’t always worth it

Find me elsewhere on the web:

• My Newsletter
• This podcast’s YouTube channel
• My Primary YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads

This week, I’m going to be talking a lot about CSS length units because one of the complaints I hear about CSS is the number of length units it has, with a total of 54 (not all of them are supported yet, though).

That is a lot of units. But this is a feature and not a bug.

Other awesome stuff around the web:z

• Sara Soueidan’s article on setting up screen readers

What I’ve been up to this week:

• The flowchart
• The flowchart video
• Keeping up with CSS: The features released in 2023
• Select all siblings of an element using :has()

Find me elsewhere on the web:

• My Newsletter
• This podcast’s YouTube channel
• My Primary YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads

This week is going to be a bit of a preview for a more in-depth video on my main channel that will be coming out in a few weeks because I’m in the middle of breaking down a few interviews that I’ve done to get some insight on helping people get their first jobs.

In the video I’ll be talking about everything from positioning yourself to help you land interviews, how to have a successful interview, and how you can sometimes even skip a few steps along the way, but for this edpisode focus on how do you even know that you’re ready to start applying for jobs.

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• Modular CSS and different ways to structure your stylesheets by Chris Ferdinandi
• The Three Cs: 🤝 Concatenate, 🗜️ Compress, 🗳️ Cache by Harry Roberts
• Why you suck at CSS by Zach Jensz

What I’ve been up to this week

• CSS position deep dive
• Use these instead of vh
• Combining transform with the individual rotate property makes things so much easier

Find me elsewhere on the web

• My Newsletter
• This podcast’s YouTube channel
• My Primary YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads

This week, I’m going to be talking about the results of the survey I ran last week asking about people’s primary pain point with CSS and exploring if we can find any correlation between years of experience and specific pain points—spoiler alert, we can!—as well as sharing a few of my favorite resources that I use to keep up with CSS.

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• Stephanie’s newsletter
• CSS weekly newsletter
• Ryan Mulligan’s Layou Breakouts with CSS Grid
• Breakout of the container snippet by Stephanie Eckles

What I’ve been up to this week:

• A new approach to container and wrapper classes
• A better image reset
• CSS animation keyframe tips

Find me elsewhere on the web:

• My Newsletter
• This podcast’s YouTube channel
• My Primary YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads

The survey: https://kevinpowell.co/painpoints

A lot of people get frustrated by CSS, but there are so many different aspects of it that seem to drive people crazy, and I’d love to know what they are for you!

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• Chris Coyier on light-dark() (and other cool CSS functions)
• Bramus’ article on @scope
• Una taking a look at horizontal rules in select elements

What I’ve been up to this week:

• One of the most common CSS issues people run into
• True parallax with CSS-only is now possible
• 7 simple ways to center with CSS

Find me elsewhere on the web:

• My Newsletter
• This podcast’s YouTube channel
• My Primary YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads

If you’re learning something new and you’re putting in a lot of work, one of the best ways to supercharge your learning is to take notes. I know a lot of people might scoff at that idea because they see note taking as a waste of time, but in this episode I talk about how there are ways of doing it that can not only be effective, but which can supercharge your learning.

What I’ve been up to this week:

• The problem with mobile-first CSS
• Subgrid & Container Queries change how we can create layouts
• How flexbox and grid are like owning different types of shoes

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• Reality Check #1: Building out a furniture site from Dribbble

Find me elsewhere on the web:

• My Newsletter
• This podcast’s YouTube channel
• My Primary YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads

Online courses are awesome, but it’s really easy to get started with one only to let it drop by the way side after completing 20% of it, or actually finish one, but not feel like you learned as much as you were hoping to.

In this episode, I explore some tips on how to get the most from online courses, and how to help make sure you actually get all the way to through them as well!

What I’ve been up to this week:

• I asked people to make this simple layout and was surprised by the results
• A simple approach to layouts when going from design to code
• :nth-child has a super power most people don’t know about

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• Sara Soueidan’s Practical Accessibility

Find me elsewhere on the web:

• My Newsletter
• This podcast’s YouTube channel
• My Primary YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads

You follow a few tutorials and feel pretty good with the small projects you’ve been able to build. Then you have a cool idea for your own project, you open up VS Code, and you have no idea where to start.

This is a common problem, and it happens because understanding something is not the same thing as being able to do something.

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• Naming Variables in CSS by Jonathan Dallas

What I’ve been up to this week:

• How to create and style lists with HTML & CSS
• Simplify your code with this underused pseudo-class
• Using CSS custom properties like this is a waste

Find me elsewhere on the web:

• My Newsletter
• My YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads

This week, I talked about whether or not I can break the curse of every conference that I get invited to being cancelled 😅. So far, I’m four for four, but I have a chance to break it to start off 2024, when I’ll be speaking at THAT Conference in Rolling Rock, Texas! 

Also, I'm still a little sick, sorry if I'm talking a bit funny 🤧

What I’ve been up to this week:

• The State of HTML
• 5 tips to getting better at CSS
• Taking on a CSS Battle
• The easy way to make sense of complex selectors

Other awesome stuff around the web:

• Maxi Ferreira’s Astro + View Transitions demo with a 3D model of a person walking that persists across pages
• Codrops article by Igor Penaque exploring the basics of View Transitions with Astro

Find me elsewhere on the web:

• My Newsletter
• My YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Threads