Tag: code

Status

My Labor Day weekend project was moving this site to Linode. It’s all up and running now, along with a new Twenty Thirteen child theme I put together. Overall the process was pretty simple. Linode’s default script for a LAMP stack worked well. From there I set up a multisite network, adjusted some virtual host records, and was on my way. The upside is that the site’s now way, way faster than it used to be. Huzzah for SSDs.

Are you too old to learn to code?

But unlike walking, where there really is a developmentally appropriate age to learn to do it, the idea that there is a “right” time to learn to code (or most anything else) is a construct — a creation of our own determination to hold ourselves back.

How I Learned to Code:

I grabbed the “Learning Python” book and walked straight home.

This time, I wasn’t excited; I was terrified.

If I didn’t learn to code, we were done. I would have to crawl back into the world of finance. I’d have to tell all my friends and family that I had given up, that I had completely failed.

Memorizing a programming language using spaced repetition software. Interesting approach to memorizing a programming language from Derek Sivers. Probably the kind of thing that doesn’t work for everyone but works really, really well for certain types.

Using WordPress to track my reading

A while back I put together a small plugin for tracking the books I read. Today I put the code up on Github in case it’s useful to others. You can see a live demo of it on my reading page.

The plugin uses a custom post type for books which lets you track each book as a new post. There’s also a custom taxonomy to keep track of the authors you’re reading as well.

I also wanted to create a repository for the notes I take when reading. I went with the easy way to do that. 🙂 Within the custom post type any content will show as notes. The main reading page has a little “View notes” link that is added automatically once you add content. It means I’ll slowly build up a public, searchable set of notes from my reading.

For displaying books I put together a few templates as a child theme. It’s what I use on this site and the child theme is up on Github. I need to clean up the author archive templates a bit but it at least gets a basic layout done.

In the future I’d love to add a graph at the top of the page which plots monthly stats of my reading. Having a visual representation of my reading velocity would be neat to see over time.

Code with me: Portland

I’m really excited to be a mentor for Code with me, a 2-day workshop in all things HTML, CSS, and Javascript for journalists without coding experience. The event’s in Portland on May 4th and 5th and costs just $85. That’s ridiculously affordable for 2 full workshop days and a student to mentor ratio of 2 to 1.

Applications are due tomorrow, April 6th, at 9 pm Pacific. If you’re interested you should apply now!

The Code with me site has an early outline of what the schedule will be along with information on the rest of the mentors, sponsors, and more.

Coffee and Code

Coffee and Code
Coffee and code this morning. A double espresso of sorts. 😉

On the slate is cleaning up the theme powering this site and pushing the changes to the Minimal Stream project on GitHub. It’s been too long since I’ve updated that.

Making the WordPress fullscreen editor the default

A couple weeks ago Patrick Rhone mentioned that:

It is kind of sad that, in 2012, I have yet to see a blogging engine with a post editor designed for doing the very thing we online writers go there to do… Write.

Shawn Blanc mentioned that WordPress has a built in fullscreen editor that is pretty minimal. He’s right, the fullscreen editor is one of my favorite additions from the past couple years. The new media improvements are even better.

I decided to take a crack at making a plugin to automatically enable the fullscreen editor. Turns out it was actually pretty easy to do. 6 lines of PHP and 3 lines of JavaScript later the plugin is live. I tested it in WordPress 3.5 with a few other things installed but the testing was by no means extensive. If you find any bugs feel free to open an issue on GitHub.

The code is hosted over on GitHub in case you want to give the plugin a spin. I’m positive the plugin isn’t for everyone, that’s fine. 🙂

Learnable Programming:

a well-designed system is not simply a bag of features. A good system is designed to encourage particular ways of thinking, with all features carefully and cohesively designed around that purpose.

This essay will present many features! The trick is to see through them — to see the underlying design principles that they represent, and understand how these principles enable the programmer to think.

Top 20 Secrets of Coda 2. I had no idea some of these existed. The user-agent previewing is my new favorite discovery, really well done.