The Spinneret: Issue #10

My Updates

Notable changes in my life, on my website, and in other projects.

There are so many things in motion right now, I don't even know where to start, so I've broken up all the updates into their own sections below.

New Job!

I got a new job! I am now the Developer Experience Engineer for Stackbit. I'm really excited about this move because now I get to do what I really love every day — help developers build better websites.

Newsletter Changes Coming

Because of the job transition, I'm rethinking my entire (personal) content strategy, including this newsletter. I suspect this thing will change entirely — its look, frequency, and structure. But you can expect the same for at least the next couple months while I figure out where I'm going.

While I make these adjustments, I'd love to hear from you. Is there some piece of this that you enjoy that absolutely stay? Let me know!

Guest Author

I introduced my first guest author on the blog — Prathum! I don't know what this will mean for the future, but I was excited to try the experiment. We've published two articles so far and will add another three in the next month or two.

I don't have an "official" guest authorship program. If you're interested in writing, let's talk.

Evolution of "Jamstack"

I mentioned this last month. The conversation around the definition of "Jamstack" has been hot in the last couple months. For me, it started with being interviewed by JavaScript Jabber. Then I wrote an opinionated article on the subject, which led to sitting on a panel for the JavaScript podcast. I'm interested to keep a pulse on this conversation, especially as the company I've joined is so heavily invested in the term Jamstack.

Good Websites Club

One interesting result of these conversations has been the birth of a new community we're calling The Good Websites Club. I don't know exactly what this will turn into, but I really like the idea. You can be one of the early members in the Slack community by signing up through the website.

Okay, now on to the good stuff!

My Words

New blog posts and videos I published last month.

I wrote a lot in June, but not much in July. (And I expect the lull to continue through September.) Aside from introducing a new guest author, I had a couple pieces I was really excited about. Exporting Bear Notes as Markdown Files was a fun tutorial that I will eventually spin off into exploring Bear as a CMS (wild idea, I know!). And I also introduced a new license for my open source projects. It felt a little tacky at first, but I'm happy with where it landed.

Guest Articles

• A Beginner's Guide to Z-Index by Pratham
• CSS Animations Quick Start Guide by Pratham

New Definitions

• WTF is Frontmatter?
• WTF is a Static Site Generator?
• WTF is Continuous Integration?
• WTF is Markdown?

And the Rest

• A Simple CSS Build Pipeline Using PostCSS
• Start with the Wins
• Export Bear Notes to Markdown Files
• Commit Code Changes Using GitHub Actions
• The Use With Love Public License
• Delete Multiple Local Git Branches

My Reads

Articles and news I read last month that I found interesting, with some commentary.

I've already taken up a ton of space and your time, so let's shorten the end of this. Here are some quick-hitters from happenings in our community:

• React 18 was released
• Sanity raised $39 million in its Series B
• Vercel (Next.js) raised $102 million in its Series C
• GitHub is trying out a new issues view

My Finds

New tools that I've recently discovered. They aren't necessarily new.

I came across some tools and sites I think are super interesting. Check them out:

Astro is a new SSG. TBH I'm a little frustrated that the creator did not work with Eleventy to come up with a stronger SSG together. I think there was a huge opportunity lost, and now we have yet another tool. That said, this looks to be exactly what I thought Eleventy was missing. I'm working on an introductory tutorial for it that should come out in August.

the New Dynamic is a community run by Bud Parr. I hadn't previously heard of it, I've joined the community and am excited to talk about websites with these folks!

Krisp is seriously magical. It removes background noise on the fly. I tried it out and now I don't think I can go back.

Cloudflare Pages is a way to deploy and host static sites that I just discovered. I haven't tried it out yet.

And last, Command E seems cool. Although, honestly, I'm not going to use it since it requires me to give them access to virtually all my information.

That is it for this edition. See you next month!