Boost

I’m writing web development musings at Frontend Masters new publication Boost. Here are some recent ones that I’m proud of:

Fine, I’ll Use a Super Basic CSS Processing Setup.

In which I end up setting up Lightning CSS because even on fairly vanilla projects there is some CSS help I wanted.

Light-DOM-Only Web Components are Sweet

My classic complaint that styling through the Shadow DOM sucks and you don’t always need it anyway. You can still get decent HTML abstraction (along with easier styling) with Light DOM.

Event Delegation and connectedCallback are like Brother and Sister

Custom elements trigger a JavaScript function whenever they appear in the DOM, meaning you kinda get event delegation for free.

I’ve always admired Frontend Masters. It’s a no-bullshit company that just provides good web development training for a fair price. Maybe it’s our shared Midwestern roots.

They elegantly handle training at different skill levels. Beginners stuff is free, the stuff more aimed at getting you to a senior developer is paid.

Back when I was running CSS-Tricks, Frontend Masters was one of our biggest long-running primary sponsors. We named them the “eductation partner”. I was always happy with that because CSS-Tricks only really offered education in the form of answering questions you might have in the moment, or keeping you educated because you read the site like a newspaper. I could never tell someone “go to CSS-Tricks to learn web design” because, aside from an old video course here and there, we didn’t really do A to Z structured learning like that very well. Instead, I would happily point people toward Frontend Masters for their structured web development training:

When I sold CSS-Tricks, it ended up being a small bummer for Frontend Masters because it turns out CSS-Tricks was a decent source of finding new customers. I’m proud that CSS-Tricks was so effective, but also bummed me out that I wasn’t helping Frontend Masters anymore. I’m a firm believer that a publication is a great way to connect with people and ultimately be a marketing resource. Doing that in-house, as Frontend Masters is doing now with Boost, is a smart call. I hung out with Marc not long ago and he agreed. So I’m helping!

I’d grab the RSS feed if I were you.

On the site, notice the sidebar section THE BEAT. The plan there is shorter-form posts with some small nugget of helpful information or news. The RSS feed with have both kinds of posts.

The overall thrust of the site is helping people learn and stay up with web development. Particularly for those on their way to furthering their career in web development. “Helping Your Journey to Senior Developer” as it were.