Weekly recap #1
This post shall be the first of some weekly recaps which I plan to do on fridays. Half a year ago I started trying to journal daily, but quickly stopped doing it as I simply could not keep up. Let‘s see how this works out 🙃
On monday Jan and I headed to Berlin to attend and speak at the #Webinale. In general we had a very good time during the two days: At the speakers reception we met two like-minded people from Berlin and had lots of fun joking about the potential creative possibilities of delivering a conference talk. I guess we will use the ideas for a future talk when we might have more time to prepare and shop some shark costumes.
Thursday we attended the conference and had our share: In contrast to the rather theoretical talk we gave last year, we focused on the practical side of #UIengineering. Jan and I showcased the tools and techniques we use to prototype, validate and develop web applications with an UI-first approach. The talk was attended by almost 180 people and my impression was it went pretty well.
Back home I started to work towards the 1.0 release of the #UIengine. When I started the project one and a half year ago I did not anticipate how much time it would consume. I knew the scope of what I wanted to build, but would not have guessed that it might consume as much of my spare time as it finally did. This might sound negative, but looking back I am very grateful, even for some rather frustrating hours of coding and trying things. I learned tons of things and feel pretty comfortable in #nodejs and #vuejs and modern #css now.
Back to topic: I am putting the finishing touches on the first stable release to make it available to a wider audience. Up to now the UIengine has been used in projects we or people that personally know me developed. Now that it starts to feel stable and I do not foresee big breaking changes anymore I guess it is the right time to grow its audience. Today (friday) I implemented the last feature I wanted to be part of this release, next week I will take care of the details.
I don‘t want this to be a purely work-related recap, nevertheless there are two more things I would like to share: On wednesday I released the #VomRost #Alexa skill as an experiment. In its current form it is more or less just a toy or joke app I use to try things. But I might grow this further, extend its usage and connect it to the recipes I have published.
On thursday I received a long and very kind email from an #iOctocat user. This and several other emails I received during the last year made all the effort put into the app worth it. I am honored that people still enjoy using it as their mobile GitHub companion on a daily basis and am thankful for everyone taking the time to let me know this.
Alright, let‘s cover some personal topics: Lotta did a great job at playing the main role in the school theater. I am so proud of her, especially since she otherwise is the last one to be speaking up or wanting to be noticed in a larger group. She is not shy, but does not put herself in the forefront unless being asked for it and she did a great job at it – well done, Lotti!
By now I have established a pretty solid #workout schedule, which gives me a very satisfying feeling: I enjoy running about six kilometers four times a week and body weight training has become a routine on the other three days a week. Running really helps to mentally clean up, especially since I stopped to listen to music or podcasts during that time.
As all of this makes me sound like some high-performance jerk, let me inform you I also found a new hobby during the last two weeks: I honestly enjoy wasting my time with about two hours of playing #Splatoon2 each day. I love this game and do not regret any minute of simply spreading ink around each and every corner.
Well, this turned out longer than I expected, but I guess this is normal when you are trying to start out. Hope you liked reading it as much as I did writing this. Have a nice weekend! 🤘