Schema.org was an unknown unknown to me for most of my time as a frontend developer. I have been building websites since 2010 and it was just over a year ago when I started at Manifold that I learned of its existence. As someone who keeps up with modern web…

Avoiding the Trap of Mild Successes — In a previous post, I shared my perspective on failure. I emphasized the lasting negative impact failure can have on us. It can be overwhelming and lead to undue stress if not managed well. However, at the very least failure is explicit. It can come in the form of a…

How I cope with constant failure while working at a startup — Working for a startup, my coworkers and I are often attempting to solve problems that have never been attempted before. We’re trying new things, pushing the limits of what’s possible. Inevitably, we often push past limits and fail. We experience failure almost on a daily basis. For instance: scrapping an…

Everyone loves pizza, but do we all have equal access to pizza? As the pizza-ordering process has moved from phone calls to websites and apps, the ordering systems we use to get our cheesy goodness have variably left some pizza-lovers behind. Although web accessibility guidelines have been around for years…

A deep dive into the legacy of Lil Peep and what separates him from other SoundCloud rappers. — You might have heard the name Lil Peep before and understandably dismissed him as just another lil rapper to come out of the SoundCloud underground. …

A cleaner way to write switch statements. — Switch statements can be frustrating. With so many unique keywords (switch, case, break, default) to remember, and the obscure behavior of it’s control flow, it’s one of the most complex primitive constructs you’ll ever learn in programming. A common use for switch statements in JavaScript (and many other languages) is…

TL;DR: Static properties are properties of a class, not of an instance of a class. In university, I was taught object-oriented programming in Java. Like most beginners, the first thing I learned was some version of this: Getting started, I was confused by…

Throughout the rather short history of software development there have been many evolutions in the tools we use to build software. Despite the very nature of software development being rapid change, there’s always been a resistant, change-adverse group downplaying the legitimacy of newer tools. When we advanced from Assembly to…

My friend/co-worker Sam Jesso told me that he hates using flags to modify the behaviour of functions. It makes sense. Functions should follow the single responsibility principle and do exactly one thing. It makes testing and maintaining code easier because it keeps functions simple and concise. …