custard doughnuts

It's not easy being a backend developer. Not only do you have to code massive websites, you also end up being responsible for maintaining things like build scripts and database migrations, and being called on every five minutes to fix the dev system of the front end developer working on your project, who probably caused their problem in the first place. On top of that, you often have to wait for that same front end developer to get on and give you some front end before you can properly check that your website is working correctly.

As a front end developer, I genuinely sympathise, so here's my thoughts on the best way to work on front end when the front end isn't ready yet.

Whenever I get asked to work on an existing website I haven't worked on before I tend to find a lot of CSS classes on elements that on first glance don't appear to do anything. As a naturally tidy person, this irks me. Why are they there? Is there some element much further down in the DOM that relies upon that class, or is there some bit of JavaScript somewhere that acts on it? Or is it simply an unused class that can be safely removed?

A quick search through the CSS and JS should answer this question pretty quickly, unless the class in question is a generic word, like 'select' or 'option'. Believe it or not, this happens more often than you'd think.

This isn't a huge problem, it's a small pain that adds a few extra minutes here and there. I'm just tired of it. I'd like to propose the following convention to remove this problem entirely.

Here's how to build a grid generator using Less CSS that can be easily configured to give any number of required columns and spacing.

Having been initially enthused by the idea of LESS CSS, then horrified and totally against it, I now find myself using it for every site I build and enjoying it more and more. Even doing small amounts of work in plain CSS, such as a print stylesheet, feels awkward and clumsy in comparison.

Despite my acceptance, I still have cautionary advice to dispense regarding its use. Here then are some thoughts on how to organise your LESS files.

Over the last year the workload at my office has been so high that we've on occasion needed freelancers to help out with front end work. Having been involved at various stages with this kind of situation I've seen what can work and what doesn't. Here then are my thoughts on writing front end for a backend system you'll never see.

It's been a loooong time coming, but I've finally managed to overhaul custard doughnuts. I thought it was about time I had a website that reflected my current level of web development ability. Having said that, consider this the pre-launch - the front end in particular is entirely preliminary and more thrown together than properly designed.

So what's new?