It starts when I can see my way through to the end. A story about working effectively with personal projects.

Here I am again. It’s had many iterations over the years. I get to the point in a personal project that I can see my way through to the end of it, and the boredom kicks in.

It’s functioned well over the years, as a way of identifying that I’ve got to the point when there’s nothing left for me to learn. If I continue now, it’s going to be hard work only.

The question is, is it worth it to continue with this as a business. It’s been fine as an experiment, I can see it has value, whether or not others will see it has value is another question. …

Getting to know the media playback options available in web browsers.

Media playback is well supported in web browsers. The <audio> and <video> elements are backed by JavaScript interfaces offering full control.

This article covers the essential features, with a comprehensive set of links to learn more (provided at the end).

Introduction

Media is included on web pages using the <audio> and <video> elements. Behaviour is controlled using the HTMLAudioElement and HTMLVideoElement interfaces.

It’s not necessary to control playback yourself; the browser can provide controls to the user. They vary between browsers and offer no options for customisation.

Most of the features for playing back audio and video work in the same way and won’t be discussed separately. Some features are specific to one type of media and I’ll point this out when it occurs. …

Absolute positioning does not include a property to take position relative to center. It doesn’t need one; but we need a way to achieve it.

There’s not much to this, but it has some caveats, and we’ll look at those.

Having discussed this on Twitter, there seems to be some confusion around it, and where it fits in the larger spectrum of technologies we call CSS.

Let’s take a look at how CSS can be used to declare an absolute position relative to center without hacking margin.

TL;DR

There is a clean approach to declaring absolute position relative to the center of the containing element, that only uses a single declaration. …

“It was 3am. Code hung limply from the screen in front of her.”

I recently began a serial on Twitter, examining the skills of a professional developer in story format.

It is a story about a freelance developer who struggles with her work, wants to improve, but doesn’t know how.

The skills of a professional developer are explored in a lightweight format, making them easier to digest.

Each installment ends with a poll. The votes are used to decide where the story goes and how the topics develop or change.

It’s an experiment and a lot of fun! The first two installments can be found below. …

How can knowledge work be defined? This is not simple. It changes. It’s fickle. A concise definition is not useful.

Knowledge Work Naturally Evades Definition

It is not useful to attempt a concise definition of knowledge work. An understanding of it is not sufficiently established in the collective consciousness. We don’t have the language to talk about it. Yet?

Knowledge work is about understanding the process of understanding itself. It has to be experienced; it has to be known. It is about consciousness; it evades definition; its nature is change.

Problems that knowledge work deals with are complex. There are no single “correct” solutions to them. There are dials to tweak. Achieving optimal configuration… depends. It changes. …

I’d stayed for the money before. I wasn’t going to let it happen again.

My first week with an unnamed startup had been unorthodox to say the least. But then, isn’t that how startups are? That’s what I put it down to. At first.

It didn’t take long. I’d been dissatisfied before. I’d stayed for the money before. I wasn’t going to do it again. I was sure of that.

Let’s start from the beginning.

It was a Sunday evening in late September. The 22nd, if you want to know. …

My journey to the heart of agile development, and how it revolutionised my writing process.

I started writing more often recently, while at the same time studying agile software development methodologies, and product development methods in general.

I’ve been working on getting to the heart of the agile development method without all of the particular structures, processes and framework that might be found in a particular implementation.

There has been some success, which I’d like to share here. I’ll start with how it helped revolutionise my writing process.

A New Approach to Writing

Over the years, I developed a writing process that was dysfunctional. It would achieve results at times, but it got in the way. It was hit and miss. …

Knowledge work is still very new, at least to business, and little understood. Even by knowledge workers. Perhaps, especially by them.

Knowledge work is especially misunderstood for product development. Say software engineering, for example. Business struggles to control knowledge work, and it shouldn’t try.

Knowledge work is misunderstood by business. Business has established itself over millennia in a certain form. Business as a mindset, as it has been mostly practiced for millennia, simply can’t get knowledge work. It’s antithetical.

Business wants answers. Clear answers. Predictable answers. Actionable answers. Fixed answers. Marketable answers. Pragmatic answers.

“And it is also said,” answered Frodo: “Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.” …