CS Visualized: Useful Git Commands – Use this helpful guide – complete with animated diagrams – to better understand Git.
Dealing with Uncertain Times as a Web Designer – How to keep your web design business going in a topsy-turvy world.
Why Design-isms are a problem – Tips for better communication with non-designers.
— Dash Dash – Intimidated by Unix manuals? Try this more visual, user-friendly take.
CSS-Only Marquee Effect – Learn to create a simple CSS marquee effect for menus.
ASScroll – A hybrid smooth scroll setup that combines the performance gains of virtual scroll with the reliability of native scroll.
What Should You Do When A Web Design Trend Becomes Too Popular? – Determining the right approach to adopting trends.
Developing a Sense of Mythology Around Your Designs – How to use your own personal story to craft a compelling design narrative.
16 front-end projects (with designs) to help improve your coding skills – Sharpen your coding skills by creating real-world projects with these designs.
10 Best Slideshow & Gallery Templates for Adobe After Effects – Create beautiful photo slideshows using these gorgeous templates.
CSS Section Separator Generator – Use this tool to create unique separator shapes with pure CSS.
LCH colors in CSS: what, why, and how? – LCH colors are coming – and they are awesome.
Honeycomb – A configurable, mobile first, fluid SCSS framework for your web projects.
Lordicon – A set of 500+ animated icons you can embed anywhere. WordPress plugin also available.
Ellie UI Kit – A free mobile UI kit for Figma.
Coronicons Covid-19 Icon Pack – A set of free icons to help designers create content for the global pandemic.
The post Weekly News for Designers № 535 appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.
Here's what was popular in the PHP community one year ago today:
In this episode of "PHP Internals News" I discuss PHP 8's JIT engine with Sara Golemon (GitHub).
The RSS feed for this podcast is https://derickrethans.nl/feed-phpinternalsnews.xml, you can download this episode's MP3 file, and it's available on Spotify and iTunes. There is a dedicated website: https://phpinternals.news
Hi, I'm Derick. And this is PHP internals news, a weekly podcast dedicated to demystifying the development of the PHP language. This is Episode 48. Today I'm talking with Sara Golemon about PHP 8 and JIT. Sara, would you please introduce yourself?
Hi there. Hi there, everybody listening to PHP internals podcast. I'm Sara. I've been on this podcast before. But in case you're just getting here to for the first time, welcome to the podcast. You have a nice backlog to go through. I am a lapsed web developer, come database security engineer by day, and an opinionated open source dev slash PHP 7.2 release manager by night and also day. I've been involved with the project for about 20 years now off and on. Somehow I just keep coming back for more punishment.
We're leading up to PHP 8, with lots of new features being added. But one of the biggest thing in PHP 8 that I've spoken about on the podcast on before all the way back last year in Episode 7, is that PHP eight is going to get a JIT engine. Would you care to explain what a JIT engine does again?
Well, I'm going to give you the short, you can look this up on Wikipedia in two seconds definition of JIT, means just in time compilation. That doesn't really tell you much, unless you listen to it on the sort of other half of that of AOT, or ahead of time compilation. AOT is what you expect from applications like GCC, you know, you just make an application that you've got C or C++ kind of source code to that's ahead of time. JIT is saying, well, let's take the source for application. And let's just run with it. Let's just start executing it as fast as I can. And eventually we're going to get down to some compiled code. That's going to run a little bit quicker than the initial stuff did. PHP already has this nice little virtual machine built into it. We call it the Zend engine. That takes your script and immediately just says: All right, well, what does this say in computer terms? Well, a computer readable term is a series of these op codes, they're also called byte codes in other languages that give you instructions for: run this type of instruction at this time and get something done. The PHP runtime interpreter interprets that one instruction at a time basically pretending to be a CPU. This works quite well, it runs quite efficiently. But there's still this sort of bottleneck in the middle there of a program pretending to be a CPU running on top of a CPU in order to run other code. The idea of JIT is that this thing sitting in the middle is going to gradually figure out what your program really is trying to do and how it's intended to run, and It's going to take those PHP instructions and it's going to turn them all the way down into CPU instructions, so that it can get out of the way and let the CPU run your code natively as if it had been written in a compiled AOT kind of language. What that actually means for execution of PHP code in PHP 8 is still sort of a, you know, a question that's, that's left to be answered here. I listened to your interview with Zeev. Episode 7, is a good episode of getting some good information on that. We do definitely agree on what the status of the JIT within PHP is, right now we can. It's subjective facts like this is how much work has been done largely by Dmitri, where we can kind of expect to see the best gains come from. I personally think I might be a little bit more pessimistic than him in terms of the actual
Truncated by Planet PHP, read more at the original (another 22291 bytes)
I’ve been a home-based freelance web designer since 1999. So, when the COVID-19 pandemic started forcing a lot of people to work remotely, I figured not much would change in my routine. I even quipped on social media that isolation was just “old hat” for me.
True, working in a mostly-empty house for 20+ years does prepare you for a home-based lifestyle. During the workweek, I rarely get to venture further than my child’s school a few blocks away. So, staying home is nothing new.
Even so, there have been some unexpected challenges in trying to get things done at work. I’d like to say it’s just “business as usual”, but it’s really not. Here are a few things I’ve noticed during the quarantine.
I admit that I am bit of a news junkie – even in the best of times. But the Coronavirus coverage has been especially difficult for me to ignore. And the more I read, the more concerned I am.
There’s a lot to digest. People falling ill and losing their lives. Businesses shutting down – including some that may not come back after this all passes. Kids (including my own) with no school to attend.
Speaking of which, I now have a housemate during the workday. That has been quite an adjustment so far. Trying to work and parent simultaneously is difficult – though I feel fortunate to have the opportunity. I realize so many others aren’t in a position to do so.
But all of this does make it harder to concentrate on work. Whether it’s breaking news or parenting duties, there are a lot of other things on my mind.
Certainly, these are issues that a lot of people are facing right now. The whole work/life balance has been thrown into a blender.
Like many locales around the world, daily life in my region of the United States has come to a screeching halt. One day, everything was open for business. The next day, only the “essential” places remained. Everyone else is either working remotely or closed until further notice.
The swift change has kept web designers busy, that’s for sure. A number of clients have had to post messages regarding how their organization has been affected. Some have had to adjust their operating hours, some have closed and others have had to temporarily turn off eCommerce because they can’t fulfill orders.
This has resulted in a bit of a feast-or-famine cycle. Updates come in and need posted immediately – or as close to it as possible. Then, it’s quiet as can be for a period – until the next wave comes in.
Meanwhile, the sporadic chaos has had an effect on ongoing projects as well. It seems like gaining a bit of momentum in this area has been difficult.
Between the jaw-dropping news and the rush of emergency work, there’s been a real appreciation for anything that resembles normalcy.
Many of the everyday tasks I do for work have remained. In a strange way, it actually feels comforting to do them – even the grunt work. They are little reminders of how things used to be (even if it was just a few weeks ago).
Beyond that, the web development community has also kept moving forward. There are still plenty of tutorials, essays and news to occupy the mind.
One of the more surprising tidbits is that, in the WordPress space, there are still plenty of plugins being updated. I actually wondered if there would be a prolonged slowdown in new features and bug fixes, but that has yet to happen.
However, perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised by that. A number of releases were probably in the works before the impact of COVID-19. And, a lot of those who work in the WordPress community are doing so remotely. So, it makes sense that they continue to write code as other businesses close up shop.
As to what the future holds – that’s anyone’s guess. At the time of this writing, WordPress hasn’t altered their release schedule. And WooCommerce 4.0, a major release, recently came out. So, there will still be plenty of new features to play with from the comfort of our home offices.
The one part of the community that has been hurt are the in-person gatherings. WordCamps all over the world have been postponed. Some online-only events are popping up, though. That at least provides an avenue for learning and a little bit of virtual socialization.
Overall, I don’t think my experience has been at all what I expected. Although, it’s not like any of us had a whole lot of time to think about it in advance.
Some things remain very much the same. I boot up the computer at the same time each day. I perform tasks for clients. I’m still working from the same comfy chair I’ve been in for years.
But there is definitely a cloud of uncertainty. The news is still concerning, if not frightening. And, as the days go by, it’s hard to know what will happen to my business or those of my clients.
I guess the bottom line is that we’re all in the same boat. Fortunately, being a web designer allows us to keep on working – even when the world seems to be in chaos. That little bit of normalcy keeps us going and puts food on the table. For that, I am very thankful.
So, how has the quarantine affected you and your design business? Hit me up on Twitter and let me know how you’re doing.
The post Trying to Maintain ‘Business as Usual’ During a Quarantine appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.