DEV Community: Dani Subject

Demand-Responsive Design: designing apps that respond to grid demand

Dani Subject — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 21:19:14 +0000

While advocating for a greener web, I often revisit the concept of a “demand-responsive” design. What would the internet look like if it became common practice to design digital products that adjusted to energy demand?

I first came across the concept of demand-responsive design in a blog post by Tom Jarrett, a web designer for Branch magazine. In his post, Jarrett explains the concept of designing applications and digital products that “adapt to and reflect the physical infrastructure of the Internet and the energy behind it.”

The concept of demand-responsive design builds off of the concept of responsive design, which is an approach to application development that builds apps that dynamically adjust to different screen sizes and device orientations. Responsive design has also grown to include network connectivity, which refers to applications responding to various network connections and latency.

Demand-responsive design takes responsive design to the next level by building applications that adapt to grid demand.

What is grid demand?

The demand for electricity is in a constant state of flux. When demand is low, meaning less electricity is being used, suppliers need to adjust by generating less electrical energy. On the flip side, when grid demand is high, suppliers need to compensate for the increased demand by generating more electrical energy.

What is carbon intensity?

Carbon intensity describes how clean electricity is. Specifically, it’s a measurement of the amount of greenhouse gases it takes to make one unit of electricity. Carbon intensity is measured in grams of CO2 per kW/hour of electricity.

Carbon intensity varies throughout different times of the day as well as throughout the year, depending on how many renewables are added to the supply. Unfortunately, you can’t turn the wind or sun up when grid demand is high. Therefore, to manage the intermittent nature of renewable sources, a source for baseload generation is required. In many cases, this baseload generation comes from fossil fuels. Peak power demand is often satisfied by sources that can be easily stopped and started, such as burning fossil fuels.

Above is a real-world example of a user interface that responds to different grid intensities using a grid intensity API and the user’s location. As you can see in the example, as the carbon intensity of the electrical grid changes, so does Branch magazine’s design.

At low carbon intensity, the grid demand is lower, which means there are higher outputs from renewable energy sources. At low intensity, the full magazine cover is shown, as well as other media content such as videos.

At medium intensity, there are fewer outputs from renewables, so the cover image and any other media are displayed in a lower resolution. Finally, when grid demand is high and carbon intensity is high, images and other media are not automatically shown. Instead, the user is provided with the alt text and the option to click to reveal.

Building green applications doesn’t solely rely on developers — every role in the development process of an application, from architects and developers to designers and testers, is responsible for limiting a product’s impact on the planet. As we move toward shaping a world that is more environmentally conscious, we must shift the way we approach new technologies. In reshaping our traditional ways of approaching responsive design, we can build an Internet that adapts to the hurdles faced by climate change, including grid demand and carbon intensity.

Originally published at https://www.changingthesubject.ca.

How To Break Into Tech? Tips From Content Writer To Senior Software Developer

Dani Subject — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 19:40:37 +0000

I was recently invited to be a guest on my friend Tiffany's podcast, where we chatted about breaking into tech, career changes, and sustainable software. Check it out below :) And let me know your thoughts.

A Coder’s Rocky Relationship with Math

Dani Subject — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 18:15:43 +0000

I didn’t consider myself to be “bad” at math until I failed advanced functions in grade 11 and was forced to go to summer school. Up until that point, I did alright in it.

When I made the decision to go back to school for web development, my past relationship with math crept up on me like a recurring nightmare. It was absolutely a source of anxiety for me for most of my way through the coding bootcamp I attended.

I remember the first time I saw a “for loop” (a type of loop used in programming to iterate over a sequence and allow code to run multiple times) I completely froze up — it was the first time I really doubted my decision to code. I freaked out. I stared at that loop for three days, trying to figure out how to make sense of it, but my lack of confidence made it impossible for me to get past my own wall. It wasn’t until one of my teachers sat down with me and showed me the beauty of console.logging everything that I was really able to understand the loop.

I’m not going to sit here and blame everyone else for not doing well in math in school. I definitely shut down at a certain point along the way and made a conscious decision to avoid it as much as possible. However, I do think that a lot of the reason I didn’t succeed at it in the first place was that a) I didn’t have good teachers b) I accepted the narrative that women are inherently bad at math (which is completely and absolutely false).

In high school, you could take two “routes” — academic or applied. If you wanted to go to university, it was generally assumed that you would stick to academic courses. In retrospect, I realize now that this was a load of garbage. You might not have been able to only take applied courses and get into university (I actually have no idea about that), but you could definitely take a few and still find schools that would accept you. I can’t help but wonder how different my relationship with math would be now if I hadn’t taken academic functions and flunked; if I had taken an applied course instead and done decently well.

It’s no secret that women are geared toward a less technical direction in school. I grew up thinking that men were better at math and women excelled at arts and social sciences. None of my teachers explicitly said this to me, but I was very observant of the fact that all of my math teachers growing up were men. High school guidance counsellors also pushed me in more of an artsy direction — I was actually specifically discouraged by my high school guidance counsellor to pursue science or math-related courses in university because I didn’t “have that type of brain.”

I was listening to a podcast the other day where the guest was a woman who made the transition from nannying into coding. Of course, it was an inspiring story to listen to — this woman who came from a completely non-technical background, realized she wasn’t happy doing what she was doing and made the switch into programming. If you’ve read my previous article, you’ll understand why I empathized with this woman’s journey so much. Her name is Sudie Roweton and she’s now a software engineer at Hill Air Force Base.

There was a point in the episode where both Roweton and the interviewer, also a woman in tech, stopped and pondered the fact that they were never pushed in a more technical direction in their academic upbringing in the first place. As Roweton explained that she credits her stepbrother for putting the idea of coding into her head, she also wondered why she had never considered such a profession in the first place.

“We were just hanging around, Pat and I, we were just doing nothing and chatting, and I remember lamenting about my directionless path that I was on, like I had no idea what I was doing but I [knew] I wanted to do something cool. And he just out of the blue suggested ‘hey, have you ever considered coding?” And it took me aback because I had never even considered that and I’m not sure why. It had never even come up, not once.

And that’s kind of a sidebar too, which is quite interesting. I’m not sure why that wasn’t brought up in high school when I had this aptitude for mathematics and logic, you know?”

In university, I had what I thought would be my final nightmarish encounter with the logic-based subject. I was one week into a business math course when I decided I was on a fast path to failure. I dropped the course and changed my minor from business admin to marketing so I could avoid future math courses.

At the end of the day, it came down to a complete and utter lack of confidence.

When my coding teacher sat down with me and console-logged my way through a nested for loop, I’ll never forget that moment. She saw that I was struggling (could have been the mascara leaking all over my face) and she levelled with me as a woman in coding. She pointed out that I might be a visual learner, and maybe if I could see exactly what was happening with the ‘i’ variable in my loop, that maybe something would click. And she was absolutely right. After graduating, I moved on to become a teaching assistant for the following cohort and used that exact same method to help other web development students who were dealing with similar anxieties.

When I think about that moment, I can’t help but wonder what a difference it would have made for me if I had a teacher like that in high school. If someone had figured out that I might learn a little differently, and maybe took a few minutes to find a way to explain a concept that would click.

Now I genuinely enjoy math and problem solving, and that is a direct result of learning what my brain is truly capable of over the last year. I’m no mathematician, I still need help calculating the tip at a restaurant, but I no longer freeze up when I’m approached with a problem I don’t know because I have the confidence to approach it. I’m even taking a few online courses to better my skills and make up for everything I didn’t learn in high school and university.

I don’t regret my choice to major in English. Those four years were well spent surrounded by books and staying up till 4 am writing essays that to this day I’m still proud of. It was all wonderful.

But I do wish I had minored in some sort of science. What stopped me was my disbelief that I could handle it, and now that I know I could, I wish I could go back and tell my 19-year-old self that.

If you’re considering coding but not sure if your brain can handle it, know this: there is nothing you can’t do in this world if you’re willing to put in the work. Everyone learns differently and yeah, certain things come easier to some people than to others, but anything can be accomplished with practice and confidence.

Plus, your past experiences make you unique, especially as a programmer. Every discipline, whether it be arts, communications, trades, etc, offers a unique skillset. Find what makes you stand out, discover what you can offer from your own experiences, and own it.

Feel free to add me on LinkedIn, or follow my journey on Instagram!

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A writer’s journey into programming

Dani Subject — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 18:10:45 +0000

[this post was originally published on October 22, 2018]

This time last year I was laid off. I had been working as a content writer for a local radio station — my first real job coming out of university. I had come out of school with a major in English and a goal to pursue a career in writing, so when I scored the job at the station I thought I was pretty much set. The truth is, I am very grateful for the opportunities I was given at the station. I was able to spend my time writing content for Toronto, interviewing local talent, meeting musicians that I admired, and even learn a thing or two about voicing for commercials. It was all pretty rad, and I made some great friends along the way. But when I walked into work one day and left without a job, I was forced to reflect on the choices I had made for myself and the choices I had yet to make for my future.

If you had told me just over a year ago that I would become a programmer I would have probably (absolutely) laughed. For the majority of my life, I stuck to what I knew: creative writing. I excelled at any writing-intensive class in high school, which led to my choice to major in English. I actually went into my undergrad with a very strict plan to become an English teacher, which I very quickly changed my mind about.

My first real run-in with programming happened in the second year of my undergrad. I had been volunteering most of my time to writing for the University of Guelph student newspaper, the* Ontarion. Next to reading the greats, music was my first love. My parents’ common denominator was their love for music — and that definitely rubbed off on my siblings and I growing up. Once I figured out that I could get into free concerts in exchange for a 500-word write-up, I jumped into chasing my new dream of becoming a music journalist. *Almost Famous might have also had something to do with it. Regardless, it felt so great to be able to combine two passions into one.

Man, I still remember the day I had my first byline published in the newspaper. I was standing in the middle of the University Centre, reading my very own article in print entitled *Are Vinyl Records Making a Comeback?* It was surreal.

Music writing led to starting my own blog — a WordPress blog I called SeamstressForTheBand (which, in hindsight, probably would have led to serious copyright issues). Believe it or not, this blog is still up — you can view it **here** if you’re curious.

Here’s a screenshot of the header. Try not to laugh at my design skills.

After creating an account and choosing a theme, I decided to learn some HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) in order to customize the site. For those who aren’t familiar, HTML is a markup language used to create web pages and applications (if you’ve ever seen a

, that’s HTML). CSS is a style sheet language used to add style (ie colours, font styles, etc).

Pro tip: If you’re using Chrome, hit command + option + i (Control + Shift + i for PCs). This will open up development tools in your browser. Click the ‘Elements’ tab at the top and you will see a whole bunch of HTML and CSS — everything that’s making up the page you’re looking at right now.

I digress. The point here is when I started SeamstressForTheBand, I had my first exposure to programming. It was small, and I didn’t think about it much because my main motivation was to get my blog up and running so I could start interviewing local artists around the city and publish my work.

A few months later, a web editor position opened up at the Ontarion and I jumped on it. Getting this job meant my first paid position as a writer — something I desperately wanted. I knew the Ontarion’s site was hosted on WordPress, and all the job posting asked for was a little bit of experience with HTML and CSS, which I could prove I had with my blog.

I stayed with the Ontarion for the remainder of my undergrad, graduated in 2015, and stayed for another year to work as Arts & Culture Editor. I would soon be moving on from Guelph to work in Toronto at a local radio station as a full-time content writer.

So that’s all great and fun, but why learn to code? Isn’t that why you’re reading this in the first place? The truth is, my decision to code wasn’t something that came out of a steady decision-making process. There was a little bit of weighing pros and cons involved, but my decision to attend BrainStation — a digital boot camp that offers various programs, including web development — was the result of compulsiveness, some erratic thought processes, and a few serendipitous events.

The summer before I was laid off, I knew that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be — I didn’t feel like I was living up to my potential. I had fallen into that trap where you turn your passion into work and it no longer feels like a passion. My creativity had plummeted and I didn’t have much of a direction. To put it simply, I felt stagnant. I was also deeply depressed for a long time — I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) the year after I graduated university (something I’d like to write about more in the future), and this became a leading factor in my decision to make a career change. There was a lot to take into consideration.

I had learned about BrainStation through reconnecting with a friend (she is one of the most inspiring people I know, you can check out her blog **here**). I had noticed that she was making a lot of career moves and I asked her about where it all started — she told me she graduated from BrainStation’s User Experience Design program. She also told me about their coding program, and something lit up inside my brain when I heard this. Until that point, I hadn’t reflected on how I felt about web development. I thought about my past with blogging — in retrospect, I had really enjoyed it. The code part was something that came intuitively to me.

There is a missing piece to this puzzle, and that is my mom. I was raised by a programmer. I learned how to use a computer before I could do anything else. Growing up, my house was the place that friends brought their computers after getting the blue screen of death, in hopes that my mom could fix it (and she always could). I have vivid memories of her bringing our family computer back to life after my brothers and I put it through hell and back using LimeWire and clicking pop-ups on eBaum’s World.

I attended BrainStation’s Winter 2018 cohort, which meant I started pretty much the first week of 2018. The program was 10 weeks of class, full-time Monday to Friday. And my god, it was hard. It was friggin hard. JavaScript week proved to be one of the most challenging weeks of my life. I’d like to reiterate the fact that I was never great at math — I was an English major because I was right-brain heavy. So when it came to learning a real programming language, I essentially had to train my brain to think in a way that I wasn’t used to. I had to problem solve and think logically. It took me 72 hours of talking out loud to myself to figure out what a ‘for loop’ did. Object-oriented programming? Cool. I had no idea what the hell that meant. I like to imagine that up until that point, my left brain was covered in cobwebs and all of a sudden was being called forth to work. It was very, very difficult and there were countless moments where I seriously considered giving up.

But f*ck, I am so glad I didn’t.

I often tell web dev students that much of learning to code involves a battle with your own psyche. When I first looked at a line of JavaScript, it looked exactly like it was; a foreign language. There were variables, weird symbols, and math. I was shook. All things that I dreaded in school. However, I had great teachers. The amount of support I received during that program was incredible, and I think that was what I was missing growing up. To put it bluntly, I didn’t have good math teachers in high school. Our education system was designed to cater to a certain type of learner, and anyone who doesn’t fit into that very tight box will have a hard time making the grade.

I learned a lot about myself while learning to code too, specifically about how I learn. Everybody learns differently. For example, I’m a visual learner — I like to draw things out, I like to visualize. In the same way that you plan an essay before you write it, before I write code I write out my thought process on a good ol’ fashioned sheet of paper. I drew my entire final project — a React Native app — out on a whiteboard.

I also learn through metaphors — one of my favourite explanations of the way HTML, CSS, and JavaScript work together is to think of HTML as the noun, CSS as the adjective, and JavaScript as the verb. That’s just one example of many comparisons that I’ve learned along the way, and when I returned to BrainStation as a teaching assistant, I taught code using these techniques.

Needless to say, I’ve fallen in love with something that I never thought I could fall in love with. The world of programming is like walking into a record store — there is so much to choose from, so much to discover, and so much you haven’t heard. It’s beautiful and overwhelming at the same time. It’s a community that I fit into, which is something I haven’t felt since writing at the Ontarion. A community of like-minded people who are passionate about tech and just want to bounce ideas off each other, start new projects, and get their hands dirty. It’s wild. And the friends I have made along the way have been my biggest and most important takeaway from this whole experience.

And that’s pretty much my story. It’s an ongoing one, and I’d like to continue writing about it. I’ve been in the industry for about 10 months now, so there is still so much for me to learn (and write about). But if I’ve learned anything in the last three years, it’s that, like this blog post, life isn’t linear — shit happens, opportunities open up, people change, YOU change, and you just never know where you’re going to be a year from now, let alone five years from now.

Feel free to add me on LinkedIn or check out my website.