DEV Community: Chris Briggs

Vizhub: VSC Without Hubbub

Chris Briggs — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:18:52 +0000

If you're learning Javascript, React and have an interest in visualising data using the excellent D3 libraries, then check out Vizhub by Curran Kelleher from Datavis.tech.

It's an extremely intuitive, compact online platform that supports collaboration and a forum for those seeking a road into analysis and visualisation. Curran has produced a super informative 17 hour free course on YouTube, via freecodeCamp that takes you on a thorough journey through the functionality of D3 with React.

The course is given in two parts, and I'm tempted to say start with Part II, at least for the first few hours, as Curran explores visualising COVID-19 data. There is some crossover of subject matter between Parts I and II (that's no bad thing), but I found the second part to be gentler for beginners.

Even if graphs aren't your thing, the application of React in context of data visualisation makes the use of hooks very intuitive. In general, I'm not a fan of 'type-n-teach' tutorials, but Curran has a very engaging and methodical way of instructing that by and large avoids the "and then I do this, and then I do that..." pitfalls of this style. Regardless of the visualisation focus, I believe this to be one of the best courses for appreciating React itself, its strength and gotchas.

Vizhub is free, open source, and it supports forking of existing visualisations for practice and analysis. Furthermore, all your projects can be shared publicly as links for free ($5/month for private collaboration).

Vizhub is not a replacement for VSC, but it provides a compact platform for learning JS with less fuss, and completely online.

IMPORTANT: In Part II, the final section on graphs cuts off, so watch the full video here.

Thinking About Recursion

Chris Briggs — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 09:54:11 +0000

A route into appreciating recursion is to read the following article in Scientific American. Learning recursion in terms of algorithms alone is somewhat limiting. It is more than a fancy way of creating loops, and its application is far-reaching within programming. It might be said that recursion is fundamental to thinking like a human, despite its perceived difficulties in conceptualising the process in computers.

There's an 'inside out' process to recursion, that follows with programming in general. A program is typically a series of mini-puzzles within a puzzle. Many puzzle or adventure games have a primary objective (to win) and secondary objectives in the form of tasks that must be completed in order to continue. An experienced player might be able to devise a strategy to win, having learned and memorised the tactics and consequences of completing each mini-puzzle. A novice player may find completing each mini-game to be enough of a challenge without even considering the consequences.

An experienced programmer will 'see' patterns that novices haven't encountered. It took me a while to speak Spanish with some confidence because the rules were getting in the way of applying them in conversation; I had to let go of the ropes and speak without thinking, and it took quite a few iterations to do so; words became phrases became sentences became paragraphs, with lots of syntactical rules to take into account. Once I had 'modelled' the sentences, I was able to focus on what I wanted to say, not how to say it. I used the feedback of others to refine my ability, and so I was learning Spanish recursively. It is the same process in programming.

The mistake I have repeatedly made in programming and learning in general is thinking someone could teach me. I found those with experience often lacked the viewpoint of beginners, and either over-simplified or over-complicated explanations, usually swinging from one to the other with little warning. I found too many explanations were obfuscated with terminology, similar to grammar clouding my Spanish with terms such as 'participles', 'gerunds' and 'conjunctions'. This type of vocabulary is useful to talk to other programmers or linguists, but it tells you nothing how things work; personal practice and failure tell you these things, along with learning to teach.

Two of my heroes are Claude Shannon and Richard Feynman due to the way they applied learning. In his book, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, along with his renowned learning technique, Feynman demonstrates that the faculty of learning and teaching are entwined: teach yourself as you mean to teach others, which is a form of recursion.

So, if you want to learn recursion, study it then write about recursion in a way you and anyone else can understand, or study more until that point. What better way to appreciate recursion than to embody it in your way of learning.

How I improved my coding

Chris Briggs — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 15:10:10 +0000

Reading technical books and applying the knowledge instead of watching videos or even using interactive websites had notably increased my retention span and pace of comprehension. The tortoise outpaces the hare.

Style is servient to content

Chris Briggs — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 11:31:14 +0000

An extremely short post that highlights a key consideration regarding the use of CSS to style HTML content:

Documents that use style attributes on any of their elements must still be comprehensible and usable if those attributes were removed. (Section 3.2.6.5 The style attribute)

This is a direct quote from the HTML Spec, as a reminder that content trumps style and it's a good idea to temporarily disable stylesheets (if feasible) prior to production just to make sure this holds true.