hamilton.likes.to.draw...

For the last few months, I've been practicing my Japanese diligently. I have a goal to be able to travel to Japan and be able to communicate. I've always wanted to. I am now at the place where I can more or less recognize all of the Hiragana. This is a big thing for any learner of a new alphabet. I can read Japanese. I can't understand 90% of it, but I can read it. And that is so cool.

I am now learning the katakana, and God help me, I will soon have to learn the kanji. But that day still seems far off. I've begun trying to read conversationally, and it is... very difficult. Manga is way too far off for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm trying. I bought some of the manga I loved like Naruto, One Piece and Dragonball, but even trying to get three pages into any of these is an absolute struggle. Mainly because as soon as you learn the hiragana you feel incredibly accomplished, but as soon as you get into the real world of Japanese, katakana and kanji are EVERYWHERE. Katakana feels like at least 50% of what you'll read.

And this has been mildly disheartening, but also has bolstered my resolve to learn even harder.

I sat down to make myself a reference sheet for the kana, and I am now sharing it with you, dear reader. https://hdraws.com/kana. This is a work in progress, and currently it's mostly useless on mobile. But it is, at the writing of this blog post, only 2 days of work in javascript, react, and css. I did some big work in css grids. I'm learning a lot about keyboard layouts as well.

Anyways. Thats been the last few days for me.

I have so many projects that will never be finished. So many half started, or incomplete things. FilmsWith will probably never be "done". Hell, I've rewritten that thing in like 4 different languages now. A bunch of projects I will keep unfinished forever as lessons for bad ux or design.

But I've been working on my apptools for EVER. The first commit was in 2018, but that was just when I first moved it into github. Just before my Christmas break, I finally moved two chunks of it in to separate repos. Core CSS and QJS. Over the last two weeks, I have been absolutely thrashing through QJS and the routing system. I think I can make great things with it. But also I started writing documentation for it.

One of the reasons I never felt like I could promote apptools was because it was a hodgepodge mess of stuff I had thrown together. QJS has come a long way recently, mainly because I started writing the documentation. While writing it, I started testing all the old things I had made and forgotten about. Now they're tight. And they work exactly how I want them to... for the most part.

And it's good. I think it's very good. I think it might be one of the best things I ever made. I have probably said it here before, but people used to tell me I was a creative person, and I would always argue with them. I'm not a creative. I'm a puzzle solving programmer. That's what I love and what I'm best at. I'm a way better engineer than an artist. And I'm a pretty good artist.

I'm not actually done with the documentation yet. Now that I've written it all out, and gone through all the testing of the code, I want to see what I can build the way of a documentation website with this tool. Now that I have the code in a working state, I don't think I'll constantly be seeing the limitations of my own tools, and instead just be able to use them to move forward.

If you want to peruse the current state of the docs, they're here. That page is made with both the QJS and Core libraries, and it is very exciting. I can't wait to do more. I am going to go to sleep and sleep forever.

When you get older, and you get a job, and you have friends, and all the social things you do in your life, it gets harder and harder to find not just time but energy for your hobbies.

I think video games are also a problem for me. A long long time ago, I recall reading an article about Joe Madureira and how he couldn't keep to a schedule for his comics because he was always playing video games. And I recall thinking to myself, that dummy, how can he not manage his time better? How could video games be a bad thing. But it's so true. You just waste all your time and energy on something that gives you those dopamines, but doesn't produce any results for you.

Whenever I have other things to do, that seems to always be the time when I'm most inspired to write. For code or prose or this blog, it always seems to strike when I have a deadline for something else.

I'm traveling to Los Angeles this week, and I should be packing. But I've been writing code and documentation for my apptools library all morning. I feel like I made all these things in my life, but I never released any of them. I never finished any of them. I desperately want to release the apptools library. I mean, I've made github releases for it, and I've used it in lots of stuff, but no one else has. And partially that's because no one else know how to use it. And I really want other people to be able to use it, because, genuinely I think it's good.

I'm not even using my Core CSS library that I've built there here on my site, and I totally should be. God, I need to redesign my website too... How many times have I had that scary thought? Ugh. Well. Back to writing code and documentation, and not doing the packing that I should be doing.

I've started a new job. I'm working for PUBG. Well, actually I'm working for a company called Krafton. They're a parent company that purchased PUBG. But I don't get paid by Krafton. It's all very confusing. Working for a modern game company is almost certainly going to be a confusing labyrinth of company names and organizations. But whatever it is, I work there now, and it's cool.

I work with cool people. I feel like I know what I'm doing. And I definitely don't know what I'm doing. :D I mean I do. I know how to program. I know how to code. I know how to design. And I know how to work the game of thrones a bit. But there's so much minutia that is new and different at any new job you'll get to. I'm still figuring it all out.

We had a design layout issue yesterday, and between me and two other extremely smart frontend engineers, we couldn't come up with a "simple" solution to it.

• A list of circle icons.
• When just enough icons for one row can be shown, show one row.
• If it is necessary to show more rows, show them as alternating even and odd count rows.
• Whenever possible avoid having a single hanging item in the last row.

It's that last item that really throws everything into issue. It changes this problem from one that's possible, to one that turned out to be very difficult / near impossible.

And this is when every engineer / designer has to be willing to make compromises. Either compromises on how much work you're willing to put in to solving a problem as an engineer, or how much outlier design goofs you're willing to allow in to a solution which allows a 95% success rate.

After sitting down and pushing some things around, a solution was come to, but it wasn't easy, small, or perfect.

See the Pen even odd grids by Hamilton (@bronkula)

on CodePen.

Ultimately I think it is, however, an elegant solution. It solves for most of the problem, while solving entirely the spirit of the design. Sometimes this solution results in hanging last rows. But that compromise is so that the design always tries to take up as much horizontal space as it can. When it comes to responsive designs you MUST be willing to compromise and figure out what you're willing to give up to reach as close to your goal as possible. Sometimes the math just DOES NOT allow what you envisioned.

So for the past few years, I've been teaching at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. It's been about 2 years now, and I haven't really made a major update to my website code since then. I decided to take a bit of time today to update my CSS responsiveness. I did a lot, with a surprising little. I improved the gallery as well to be a bit more consistent across sizes. I fixed the mobile sidebar which has been janky since the first day I put it in. Honestly, I think I can finally be mostly proud of the mobile experience, which I definitely haven't been able to say in a while.

I've made so much code for students in the past 2 years, and I'm finally getting the chance to put some of it to my own use. It has certainly been a long road. I have learned probably so much more than any one of my students has, and that is sort of amazing. I have honed my own knowledge of all the subjects I teach, and I am now sharper, more knowledgeable, and able to articulate what I need to say in a far better fashion.

The next step for me seems to be improving my lessons, and creating content for learners. I've made a codepen to try to help people understand dozenal grids a bit better, you should check it out, if you're interested.

See the Pen Responsive Dozenal Sass Grid by Hamilton (@bronkula) on CodePen.