my 2023 year in code
i know how to code and i'm pretty good at it, but it's not something i do for my full-time job anymore - this is great for me, honestly. so, obviously, i do not write as much code as i used to, but i still made a lot of interesting things this year. here is my 2023 in code.
live laugh blog
that's this blog you're reading. i started it in spring of 2020, and it's both my blog and my sandbox for trying out new styles for my personal sites. this year i went through a "slime green" era that i am still holding onto like a dog and its favorite bone.
i wrote a whopping 9 blog posts in 2023 and that's pretty good - how many did you right, you lil scamp? it's still hosted on glitch and built with eleventy, my ride or dies.
honorable mention: my personal site, jennschiffer.com. you can draw on the background because being able to doodle in unexpected places is THE spice of life.
newsletters for work
coding the emails that comes from glitch is a thing i do, and anyone who has to code emails knows that this is worthy of a big mention on this list. mjml is my bestie and should be yours too if you are coding newsletter layouts.
honorable mention: all the sql i write at work lol
make8bitart as a pwa
apple finally was like fiiine i'll recognize your progressive web apps but we're only going to call them web apps. make8bitart.com, if you're not familiar, is a pixel art editor i made like well over 10 years ago, and i don't have to do much to update it. this year, though, i made significant changes so it would be a pwa. yee-haw.
glitch community code jams
a couple of months ago we kicked off glitch community code jams and for that i started streaming on the glitch youtube account fridays, which is about 50% me live-coding. my self-portrait submission was this eye-following-chips app, and for the gift-giving jam i made this app where everyone on the page can be a present or a cockroach.
honorable mention as part of the gift-giving jam i did a major refresh on my websockets knowledge and created a couple of starter apps. this work helped me out with a work-related feature we have coming out soon, so i was excited to be able to help out.
webwing
instead of bracing myself and holding onto the walls of billionaire-owned creator platforms and hoping the turbulence gives out, i've been exploring ways to bring the old web into the new web in a way that's not pretentious and likely only to be appreciated by my fellow former geocities users, respectfully, xoxo.
i recently decided that "discovery" is going to be my journey through 2024 - a prompt that inspired me to finally get glitch community code jams out the door, and i made webwing as a prototype for enabling people to build their own discovery tools. i think we're beyond just using rss for folowing - you should be able to pull in rss, glitch playlists, csvs, scans of photos of your tv screen, etc. iframes are a rough element to work with, but i'm still working on this and will "figure it out" somehow lol.
honorable mention: i remixed webwing to create inspowation to show the rest of the glitch team my inspiration behind glitch community code jams.
my mastodon server
i maintain my own mastodon server at pixel.kitchen. it's just me, no you cannot join, yes i pay $19 a month in digital ocean usage to host it...anyway, it's not really a "code" thing but i would be remiss not to brag that i also have a background in setting up and maintaining servers for various kinds of apps.
honorable mention: my coworker casey made postmarks, a social bookmarking site using activity pub so you can follow it on other fediverse platforms like mastodon. i remixed it to create postgrunge and i am still working on styling for it before i really start sharing cool apps on it. casey is a great person to follow if you, too, are on a journey to rediscovering how you do discovery on the web.
unhonorable mention: i made a fork to joinmastodon.org to update my old, private mastodon account with my new, public instance and now i get cold emails every week from entrepreneurs who think i'm the creator of mastodon and that my name is santa claus (my github display name).
three.js
i started taking this three.js journey course online a few months ago and posted a few of my projects so far but not all of them. i have to revisit to finish the last 2 lessons of the course, which is a goal of mine for january. i love being able to make 3d models and goof around with them in code. btw, blender is super difficult to work with for what reason?
macropad
a couple of years ago i got an adafruit macropad as a holiday gift from work and i just love it. it's so versatile, i'm always programming new things into the keys. you can see my code here in this glitch app. i'd love to see what others are doing with theirs, and if you know how i can get glyphs (like arrows) to show on the screen please reach out to me asap, my children are starvingggg!
other stuff
- shouts out to greg wilson's 'software design by example' for javascript, it was a great read and i still have some excercises to get through, but learning by doing and the doing part relates back to the work...chef's kiss.
- shouts out to the glitch community who write in to ask for support. most of my remixes over the past year have been remixes to help you get your projects to work - you all have had me writing javascript, bash, css, html, php, python...and lua? did you know roblox is build on a fork of lua?? bless.
- shouts out to the 4 projects (that i can remember) that i have started but have not finished. at least 2 of them will be done soon, keep the others in your thoughts and prayers.
happy new year, may your code bring joy to yourself and others and harm no one. xoxo jenn
