3 years. Left work because I felt comfortable with finances and family life, but wanted to try something different. It’s been fun working on personal projects and sharpening old tools. Still figuring out what I want to do long term. Some ideas include becoming a CFP because I like helping people with their finances, working for a tech company in that domain, or expanding the personal project (jch.app) and building more community.
In a good headspace now, right after the first year was feeling lost on where to go next.
> In a good headspace now, right after the first year was feeling lost on where to go next.
Glad to hear. I had a similar experience, people act like "being in transition" where you are unsure what is next is solveable in a month, maybe three months. After that first year I still felt so unsure what I was supposed to do.
I'm in that phase somewhat right now. 30 months in, I'm still kinda unsure what I'd like to do. I know going back to a big enterprise software firm is bit of a last resort at this point, I just cannot convince myself that work is meaningful. Thankfully I'm financially secure (for now, who knows how the global trade shenanigans will actually affect my retirement funds), so there's no urgency to jump headfirst into another job. Yet, despite having plenty to do in terms of side projects, it would be a lie to say I don't feel that I need to do something more meaningful with my time.
Ya, no need comments or updates to it either. But thought it was an interesting piece of web development that's come up in every web framework and server, but has not been pushed into the browser. Would be interesting as a js polyfill even.
Thanks for touching on accessibility. I believe that good accessibility leads to a better design. The nice thing about starting with HTML is there are good defaults.
I wrote another post about building a search form about progressively enhancing a search form (https://jch.github.io/posts/2025-01-30-building-modern-searc...). Starting with semantic <search> and <input> elements gives sane browser and screenreader behavior.
Perhaps my title came on too strong, but I'm not advocating against javascript. It's more about understanding capabilities HTML and CSS can handle, and what is better suited for JS.
The guide is concise and well written. I like how it builds in the same sequence I blogged about: HTML, CSS, JS, and introduces each in a small way with links for further study. I like how it starts with a static site, but I think the end of the guide could include an example for server side processing. It was clever to use 3rd party example like search with fetch, but an example with a small JS backend to process a form and persist to a database / file would tie it together. It sounds like server-side is out of scope for the framework, so perhaps a few examples of small backends and how to plug in?
I think the HTML, CSS and even JavaScript are the most stable and future-proof components of your stack. Your Rails backend, on the other hand, will experience far more changes and API instability in the long run.
JavaScript was considered as a unstable and under-specified part of the Web in the "Dynamic HTML" era somewhere between 1997-2006, when Microsoft Internet Explorer implementation of DOM diverged from more standard Netscape/Firefox in many tricky ways. This has largely been solved by better standards, initiatives like Acid tests and (unfortunately) slowly spiraling into Blink engine monoculture.
> Your Rails backend, on the other hand, will experience far more changes and API instability in the long run
I see this as different layers of stability. On the bottom is a solid foundation of web standards that's widely adopted and resilient to breaking changes. Layered on that is the web framework and language. Before ruby, I really enjoyed perl, so I've experienced the collapse of a language and community. Matz had some good insights drawn from the history of other languages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MM5b2F9zrM
Javascript is fascinating because of its evolution. Its initial popularity and wide install base guaranteed a lot of resources for it to grow. I'm excited to see whether wasm can bring more languages to the web.
I have always hated Gherkin because the extra layer of language expression / abstraction is superficial, and PMs can't write any ol' thing that makes sense, it has to be supported by the parser.
But LLMs can make sense of any ol' thing, so, and it shocks me to admit such, maybe Gherkin is back on the menu.
- I liked the 'surprise' button because I wasn't sure what to type in the search box. I'm so used to typing a location by default.
- I like your examples in this HN post and also the categories below the fold.
- I like that I can favorite things without registering an account. I've been experimenting with guest accounts and blank states on my site.
- When I search for multiple words from the search tab, acts funny. "big windows" became "big". I tried a refresh and the autocomplete said "big windows", but submitting with enter filtered it to "Bath, UK". Maybe there's some timing issue here with fast submits?
- I prefer the screenshots / pitch you have on the app store over the website. I like the idea of browsing and filtering, rather than starting with a specific search. Again, that first point that this is something different than location search and helping me understand what I'm supposed to do.
Beautiful site, well done! I love the idea. I'm based in the US.
Appreciate the post and the discussion around it. As a car enthusiast, I enjoyed reading the specific implementations out in the wild today.
What stood out in the article was the attention paid to designing intuitive haptics. What our bodies expect in feedback when we turn a weighted dial. Doing it in software allows controlling multiple things, but I would still prefer a dumb dial per function, placed in close proximity to where the function acts. Seat controls near seats, climate controls near vents. Personalization stuffed into the screen and menus and profiles.
I did not think I would like auto climate controls until I lived with one. Even then, I would fiddle with it because I didn’t like the sudden high initial fan speed until I got used to it.
Simple Clock
Daylight percentage
Sunrise/Sunset
Timer Face (Advanced Countdown)
Alarms (16 alarms)
Stock Stopwatch
Moon Phase
Pulsometer
Alarm Thermometer
Toss Up (rolling dice/flip a coin)
Time Left (Days passed since my birth/Days left to 90years old)
Secondary faces
World Clock (Dual Time)
Tally Counter
Save/load
Databank (Emergency phone numbers +important passwords)
Preferences
Set time
In a good headspace now, right after the first year was feeling lost on where to go next.