Jen Myers Tumblings

"One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:12:37 -0400

“One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

Yesterday, I wanted to suggest a few self-taught women programmers for an interview series (which...

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:32:20 -0400

Yesterday, I wanted to suggest a few self-taught women programmers for an interview series (which someone else is conducting). However, I wasn’t sure how many of them had learned their craft via non-traditional methods, so, rather than contacting everyone individually, I put the word out on Twitter. I thought that a handful of the women I know follow me would respond if they were interested in participating and fit the bill.

But I keep forgetting I have a wider reach on the internet than I used to. As of now, that tweet has 335 retweets, 27 favorites and more responses than I can count.

This, of course, is awesome and I’m so grateful for and impressed by the interest. Unfortunately, I can’t accomodate all of the responses for this particular interview series. But I have another venue for you to tell your stories.

A while back, I made the High Visibility Project, to highlight the stories of women in technology. I haven’t had the bandwidth to keep up with it, though, and it’s been languishing on my list of things to redesign and reboot. But, well, why miss an opportunity like this to give more women a platform? Let’s start the reboot right now. If you were interested being interviewed, I would like to formally invite you to submit your story to the High Visibility Project and help us build a repository for women’s stories. You can submit no matter what your skill level or background is. Also, if you’re just starting out, watching the videos there is a great way to figure out your own path.

“Some people have said to me, ‘Well, don’t you think...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:46:00 -0400

“Some people have said to me, ‘Well, don’t you think that kind of success spoils one as an artist? If you’re a punk rocker, you don’t want to have a hit record…’

And I say to them, ‘Fuck you!’

One does their work for the people. And the more people you can touch, the more wonderful it is. You don’t do your work and say, ‘I only want the cool people to read it.’ You want everyone to be transported, or hopefully inspired by it.”

When Patti Smith gives you creative advice, you listen.

Jen Update, Spring Edition

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 09:02:43 -0400

There’s suddenly quite a lot going on. I have to capture it all in writing or it might scamper away from me. Here’s what I’m up to in the near future.

Upcoming speaking/travel:

KalamazooX Conference • 13 April • Kalamazoo, MI - I’ll be giving a new talk based on this article about avoiding community burnout. I think the conference itself is sold out, but there will also be a GitHub drinkup afterwards, so come say hi.
Teaching at Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco - That’s right, San Francisco. Starting late next week, it’s you and me for three whole weeks. Currently accepting offers of drinks, recommendations for fun stuff to do on the weekend, especially walking/hiking, and offers of drinks.
MoxieCon • 27 April • Chicago, IL - I’m looking forward to talking about, “How To Change the World with a Girl and a Computer.” This will be a whirlwind trip, but never fear, because …
Chicago - I’m moving the Chicago at the end of May.

Other things!

I’m having a bit of a party to say bye to Columbus. Join us, won’t you?
I’m leading an introduction to web development workshop for girls at Metro High School in Columbus on May 14 and am looking for volunteers to help TA.
I’m looking for a virtual personal assistant. In case you’re into that sort of thing.
The Chicago Dev Bootcamp location is looking for a Ruby instructor. You should talk to this guy if you’re into that.

You can email me or reach me on Twitter with questions about anything. Or offers of drinks.

Looking for a virtual personal assistant

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:50:15 -0400

I’ve idly wished for a personal assistant off and on for a long time, and it finally makes financial and professional sense to try it out. So I’m officially looking for one on a virtual basis.

Things with which I would like assistance:

Scheduling and booking travel.
Responding to speaking invitations and scheduling speaking engagements.
Scheduling both professional and personal appointments.
Keeping track of correspondence and helping to answer it promptly.
Helping to organize side projects.

All work can be done via email and/or phone, so it doesn’t matter exactly where you are physically - however, I’m currently in the US in the Eastern time zone and will be moving in two months to the Central time zone, so sticking close to that would probably help us both out.

I think, right now, the amount of work would average around five hours a week, possibly more. If it works out well, that would probably increase. If you’re located in Chicago and would be willing to help with in-person organization, it would definitely increase.

If you’re interested in learning more about web development, I’d also be more than happy to make this an opportunity to learn about working in the field and to connect with people I know. If you don’t already know me on the internets, swing through my website or my Twitter profile to get a sense of what I do.

If you’d like to chat about it, please send me an email at hello@jenmyers.net to tell me about your experience and rates.

“Great people do things before they know they’re...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:54:24 -0400

“Great people do things before they know they’re ready.” My fantasy BFF, Amy Poehler, on courage.

"Because we are human, because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies, because we..."

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:36:32 -0400

“Because we are human, because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies, because we live in a world where the news is often bad and the prospects disturbing, there is a need for another world somewhere, a world where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers live.”

- Roger Ebert

“I’ve been looking for someone a long time… I didn’t know her...

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:09:47 -0400

“I’ve been looking for someone a long time… I didn’t know her name or where she lived — I’d never seen her before. A girl was killed, and because of that, I found what I was looking for. Now I know your name, where you live, and how you look.” — In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)

"The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re..."

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:05:48 -0400

“The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.”

- Neil Gaiman

"Be disciplined. Work hard. Be prepared to hear ‘no’ a lot and don’t care. My dad..."

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 20:27:00 -0400

“Be disciplined. Work hard. Be prepared to hear ‘no’ a lot and don’t care. My dad taught me an important lesson, which is to look at why someone does something rather than what they actually do. A lot of artists are making art because they they want to be cool and they want people to like them. That’s the wrong reason to be making art. Be prepared to have a lot of people not enjoy your work and have it not bother you; you should do it because you want to do it.”

- The Great Discontent interviews Oliver Jeffers (via jarrettfuller)

“Because you worked hard, this little terribly-dressed...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:00:36 -0400

“Because you worked hard, this little terribly-dressed girl has a puppy. And this little puppy has a home. If Leslie’s taught me anything, it’s that yes, 98% of the time, this job is frustrating and you hit brick walls. But the other 2%, it’s stuff like this kid. And that puppy.” Wisdom from Tom Haverford.

Punk Rock is Bullshit, So Says Some Guy Named John Roderick

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:10:09 -0400

Punk Rock is Bullshit, So Says Some Guy Named John Roderick:

Bill Lipold at I Rock Cleveland calls bullshit on that “punk rock is bullshit” opinion piece going around.

"Greatness, in other words, demands rawness."

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 07:46:14 -0400

“Greatness, in other words, demands rawness.”

- Sara Wachter-Boettcher on empathy, vulnerability and greatness.

On responsive layout and grids

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:53:36 -0400

On responsive layout and grids:

This is essentially why I don’t know what to say when people ask me what responsive framework to use. Or front-end framework in general. Most of the time, I prefer to start from scratch for the particular problem at hand.

“What makes a strong female character is a character who...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:19:51 -0400

“What makes a strong female character is a character who has weaknesses, who has flaws.” RookieMag founder Tavi Gevinson’s talk, “Still Figuring It Out.” In related news, the kids are alright.

Why you should order CSS properties alphabetically

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:12:00 -0400

For a while now, I’ve been explaining my habit of ordering CSS properties alphabetically within each rule to my beginner HTML/CSS students as half-serious issue, half-joke. I’m a writer, and I like letters, and I like alphabetization. Carrying that into CSS started as a personal quirk. But, the more I teach and talk about CSS, the more I’ve begun pushing this type of order as legit, and the more I find I’ve been converting the people around me to follow suit.

Here’s the simple truth up-front: alphabetical CSS ordering makes your CSS most easily accessible to the widest group of people with the least amount of clutter in your stylesheets.

I’ll unpack this. Last October, I gave a talk about CSS organization across teams. I referenced a poll that CSS Tricks held, asking people how they ordered their CSS properties. They found that 45% order by type, 39% randomly, and %14 alphabetical. (And 2% by line length, which makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever and if I ever meet one of these people, I shall shake them with great force and demand to know why, dammit.)

Now, while you random people have no defense, I understand where ordering by type comes from. The problem with that is that we have no established system for ordering by type, so when you order by type, chances are you’re using a type system that makes sense to you personally. Which, when you come down to it, isn’t that much different than doing it randomly. You can add comments to describe which category types your’re ordering by. But how much extra text is that in your CSS file? Do you do it for every CSS rule or just some of them? How much more documentation are you creating that people have to read through to find and/or understand specific elements in your CSS?

None of us is writing CSS in a vacuum. Most of us are doing it in environments where other people are going to have to read and edit our CSS. By ordering properties alphabetically, we’ve insured that there is a standardized system in place that anyone coming to the CSS can parse with a minimum of time and effort. It’s better for distributed teams, and it’s easier for beginning learners - which, by the way, we all were at one time.

A couple notes I anticipate the more particular among you will bring up:

I do treat certain properties that go together as “blocks,” and order alphabetically based on the property that defines the block. For example, I stack “top” and “left” after “position,” and use “position” to order alphabetically in the property list. It would be appropriate to add a comment describing that behavior.
I pretty much only write SCSS these days (using Compass). I put all mixin includes at the top of the property list and also order those alphabetically. I don’t mind so much if the CSS output isn’t purely alphabetical - things like vendor prefixes fit nicely into the “block” rule I created above.
Yes, I’m aware that I’ve spent far too much time thinking about this.

What it comes down to is: remember not everyone has the same context that you do. It doesn’t take much effort to adapt our habits to play nicely with others, and not create confusing barriers for people who want to come in and learn how to play with us.

Update: I got a really good question on Twitter and felt it was worth answering here.

@antiheroine Great article! Why do you think that there isn’t any established systems for ordering by type?

March 14, 2013

Simply put: it’s because we don’t take CSS seriously. It’s mostly an afterthought to developers (I’m sorry, developers, I love you, but I’ve had to edit too much of your CSS to say otherwise), because, frankly, design is mostly an afterthought to developers. And those who do pure design don’t care about CSS, either. It’s going to take more work for us designers who code to gain the respect and consideration of established systems that everyone adheres to.

Should Filmmakers Learn to Code?

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 09:06:27 -0400

Should Filmmakers Learn to Code?:

“As more storytellers consider migrating to the web and other digital platforms, the relationship between filmmaking and programming becomes more pressing.”

If responsive design is completely turning your process upside down, then your process is wrong

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:48:38 -0500

One question I get often at my talks these days is, “How does responsive design change your web design process?” The answer is, “Not much at all.”

I’m not an expert on responsive design practices. My current solutions are not always the most elegant. But learning how these details work is not, nor has ever been, a complete reversal of how I design for the web. 10+ years ago, I learned web design by writing HTML and CSS. I designed in the browser for years before I even knew Photoshop existed. I have always been aware I’m designing objects that will be viewed in different screen resolutions and on different browsers and that pixel perfection doesn’t make much sense in a dynamic environment.

Yes, I now have to adjust my designs for optimization on wildly different device sizes. I have worked on projects where I only produced wireframe assets for mobile views, and it required a longer process than I’m used to with desktop views. I’ve had to work to let go of my lazy, fixed-width layouts and become more confident with fluidity.

But none of this challenged my basic, fundamental way of designing. In fact, it aligns perfectly with it. It’s the natural evolution of the dynamic way I’ve tried to think about creating beautiful, accessible websites from the very beginning.

There is a shift going on with responsive design, but it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with responsive properties in particular. Responsive design has just made it impossible for us to continue to misunderstand or ignore implementation of web design in its intended medium. Frankly, it’s a shift that is long overdue.

What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 07:20:08 -0500

What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years

A month ago, I came on board officially with Dev Bootcamp to help build the brand-new Chicago...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 08:34:00 -0500

A month ago, I came on board officially with Dev Bootcamp to help build the brand-new Chicago location. While I won’t be in town for a couple of months yet, I’ll take up full-time instructor duties at the beginning of June and hopefully will be helping shape a diverse group of students into budding, well-rounded developers.

In mid-February, we hosted the first of our “Day of Dev Bootcamp” events, which we designed for beginners to get a taste of web development. It was good times. Our guest speaker that day, Diana Kimball, wrapped up the great energy and inspiration we saw there. We heard from more than one person that they were nervous or apprehensive before, but felt so much more at ease with the concept of exploring web development when the day was done. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are convinced they can’t do this - but it doesn’t ever surprise me, because I was one of them. Breaking down those imaginary barriers and enabling people to fulfill potential they didn’t even know they had is the best thing ever.

Oh, and we were on the teevee.

I also spoke that week at Groupon for their regular Geekfest event, about design for developers. Fortunately, that talk hasn’t gone out of style yet. Alexis Finch created some lovely sketchnotes for it as well.

I’m almost finished teaching a Girl Develop It course covering beginner HTML/CSS and responsive design principles to a department of UX designers at Nationwide. It’s been a rewarding experience to put into practice my theory that designers who understand more about implementation are better and happier designers. The feedback so far has seemed to support that theory.

I also started teaching a new course of our regular GDI beginner HTML/CSS, probably the last I will teach in Columbus, at least for the time being. Very gratifying to hear more feedback along the lines of, “I was terrified before I came to class, and now I feel relieved and excited to learn this.” This is by far the most common piece of feedback I get teaching, which leads me to think I’m lucky to be doing work that needs to be done. There’s no reason fear or lack of context should prohibit someone from doing something they are capable of and interested in doing.

Which is exactly why I’ve also recently put more effort into putting together the pieces of the scattered Ruby knowledge I’ve picked up over the past year or so and have been working with a Rails mentor on creating my own app, which I’ve also done all the design and front-end work for. I’m pretty stoked to be able to have an application I created myself, from stem to stern, at some point in the future.

On deck for the next couple of months:

Speaking to a group of Girl Scouts about careers in technology
Working with a local STEM high school for a day-long workshop in web development for high school girls
Speaking at the Kalamazoo X conference
Speaking at MoxieCon
Speaking at a couple of other pending, super cool events that I can’t announce quite yet
Teaching a four-week phase at Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco
Moving to Chicago

So, that’s all pretty cool.