HTML All The Things - Web Development, AI, and Developer Careers

The most popular social media & video sharing websites out there now support (or are centered around) vertical video in the form of short-form content that commonly comes in under a minute in length. As the popularity of these short-form videos has taken off in recent years, we've seen this form factor escape smartphones, arriving on desktop computers and TVs. Unfortunately, this presents designers with a perplexing problem as vertical video (portrait aspect ratio) is not ideal for screens that are almost always landscape (widescreen). In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss the rise of vertical video (short-form content), discussing & debating on how it is shaping our user interfaces, and how it could even start shaping the hardware we use in the home.

CSS attribute selectors are a lot more powerful than I thought! I wasn't aware that they could not only select elements based on the presence of an attribute, or the presence of an attribute with a specific value, but that they could also "filter" through that attribute value by placing specific parameters on them using just CSS. In this episode, Matt and Mike discuss these "advanced attribute selectors" and cap the episode off by discussing another powerful CSS feature - custom attributes, done the right way! 

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-attribute-selectors-custom-attributes

We all have holes in our knowledge that lurk...just around the corner...lying in wait to pounce and completely destroy our confidence and workflow! This scary truth falls into virtually every corner of web development from WordPress devs that have zero experience with PHP, to frontend developers that have no idea what a web server is. This week Matt and Mike discuss some of the web dev technologies that can scare even the most seasoned developer.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-scariest-web-development-tech

There are a lot of ways to write CSS either directly or indirectly. By using tools like SASS, Bootstrap, TailwindCSS, and many more - you're largely avoiding vanilla CSS, replacing it with a new syntax, or maybe a website building library to make your workflow more efficient. But where does this leave vanilla CSS? Does anyone write just vanilla CSS anymore? And if so....why?

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/does-anyone-use-vanilla-css-anymore

Full-stack development demands both frontend and backend development skills, meaning one individual can spin up a website from the hosting, through the database management, and even the user interface. Recently, some people in the developer community have voiced their observations on how complex both frontend and backend development are on their own, stating that it's not really possible to be a full-stack developer if you want to maintain a high level of skill in all the technologies involved. In this episode, Mike breaks down a stack that he has recently started using that should allow him to provide a full-stack's worth of work through 2023.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/full-stack-development-has-changed-in-2023

Full-stack development demands both frontend and backend development skills, meaning one individual can spin up a website from the hosting, through the database management, and even the user interface. Recently, some people in the developer community have voiced their observations on how complex both frontend and backend development are on their own, stating that it's not really possible to be a full-stack developer if you want to maintain a high level of skill in all the technologies involved. In this episode, Mike breaks down a stack that he has recently started using that should allow him to provide a full-stack's worth of work through 2023.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/full-stack-development-has-changed-in-2023

Browsers and web development tools are constantly evolving their support for new features. This forever changing landscape of our industry can lead many developers to ask whether they can use whatever they're using in production websites, or if they should stick to older methods that are more tried and true. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed how to choose production-ready technologies based on the type of project you're working on.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/can-i-use-this-in-production

Svelte and React are two frontend JavaScript frameworks that, through their immense popularity, draw a lot of debate and questions from the web development community. For established developers, the question looms as to which one you should use and for what reason. Junior developers are left asking what the differences are and which one they should learn first, or if they even need to learn both at all. Today on the podcast, Matt and Mike discuss the differences between Svelte and React, pitting them against each other to debate their usefulness, best features, and which one you might want to use for your latest project.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/svelte-vs-react-what-you-need-to-know

CSS selectors are a fundamental piece of CSS that allow it to select HTML elements based on a collection of parameters that the developer has set. CSS selectors can be used to select elements by type, class, ID, and can be written in a more complex way with the use of combinators. This week we discuss CSS selectors in great detail, covering their syntax, popular use cases, and clearing up (hopefully) some confusing bits that junior developers may struggle with.

Show Notes: www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/css-selectors-crash-course

This week Mike discussed his experimentation with ChatGPT and other AI services, like GitHub Copilot. ChatGPT, Lensa, and other AI have been taking the internet by storm recently, whether it be through cool looking profile pictures, or the controversial ways they operate. In this episode we discussed things like how fast AI has advanced in such a short period of time, the opportunities innovators have to make their mark on the industry, and whether or not something like Copilot will take away your programming job.