DEV Community: MauriJHN

Svg Animations Done Easy

MauriJHN — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 17:52:25 +0000

Ever heard of SVG?

For the past year, I have been hobbying around using the new CSS feature to animate paths. I think with all the innovation going on with performance and AI (especially) developers should focus on how to reintegrate technology with our humanity.

Nowadays, there are endless examples of talented artists that can do magical things with paint in a canvas. Following this very creative experience, I think SVG could provide endless possibilities for creative web developers that want to take their designs to a higher level.

I found a very detailed yet concise tutorial on how to play with this by CSS-TRICKS: tutorial

I know this is just a post referencing a post. However, I will be posting more content on SVG and will probably give a peek on a program I have been working on that allows for SVG path morphing!

Think Differently

MauriJHN — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 17:32:27 +0000

I believe as developers we often limit our imagination to prioritize efficiency and organization. AI has changed the world drastically when it comes to creative thinking. To be fair, there is no need to "think different" and be actually innovative nowadays if there is a tool that "does" that for you.

However, ChatGPT is a pretty good pair programmer. In this post I just wanted to showcase a new "tech" I developed that uses the power of SVG to create some pretty cool digital art. The main feature of the project lies in the effect of the picture (try clicking).

"The natural can never be inferior to the artificial, art immitates nature, not the reverse" - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.10

Project: Happy Birthday Brother

Please let me know if this is something you would use in anything web related. Thank you!

AI is just excited to be here

MauriJHN — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 21:24:42 +0000

Any software developer worth their salt can tell AI is just an excited pair programmer.

In the early stages of ChatGPT, everybody was luring me into using the chatbot to help me as a software developer. Everything I heard about it was "heaven-like". When I started using it, I did feel its versatility for developers; even went the extra mile and purchased the premium version. Everybody who was or knew a software developer told stories about how powerful the bot was when it had access to the internet. After less than a week of using the paid version, I failed to see big differences between the paid and non-paid answers.

I then tried out GitHub's Copilot. I found this tool extremely powerful for developers. Not because of the solutions it provided, but because I didn't need to go back to the browser to copy and then paste them in my editor. However, I started to feel an uneasy loss of control over my thinking. It wasn't me programming anymore. I was just trying out snippets until the program worked. Eventually, I configured Copilot to be toggled and disabled by default. I only use it when I don't want to rewrite something or when I'm writing unit tests.

This post is more of a venting outlet for me. I was laid off last year and with all the talks of AI taking over tech jobs and nobody batting an eye at Sam Altman being all excited about it, I think people hyping AI need a reality check. It's a tool, a new software tool, 1s and 0s, and tools are made for us to "amplify the inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitudes" - Steve Jobs