With lockdown easing in London I’ve spent most of summer outside throwing tennis balls around in the park, rather than sitting in front of screens writing words. It’s been a good break, but I’ve missed researching. The British winter will descend again soon and I’ll be back inside tending to the digital garden.

Dan Abramov and I finally launched Just JavaScript after 2 years of work. It’s an interactive book that teaches JavaScript with a specific focus on mental models. I created the diagrams and animations that help communicate the core concepts. We created it with the support of the egghead team who took care of logistics like email promotion, web infrastructure, and customer support.

I’ve become enamoured with Visual Programming and End-user Programming over the last 6 months. The Future of Coding community and Gordon Brandon ’s newsletter have been particularly valuable hubs of insight.

Chatted with a few podcast folks;

1. Adam Wiggins and Mark McGranaghan on Metamuse about visual programming.
2. Scott Francis and Evan Payne on Frontend Heroes about a little bit of everything

Currently preparing a talk for two conferences in October; React Live Conference in Amsterdam and React Advanced here in London. On various ways to visualise React, why visual representations work so well, the pros / cons / wicked historical problems of adding graphical and spatial affordances to programming interfaces, and why we should keep trying despite the challenges.