sass

What I Learned Co-Hosting SassBites

Blog

SassBites is a weekly, lunchtime videocast of Sass topics, hosted by Micah Godbolt. The casts are great. Micah talks about Sass, demos Sass in various flavors (beginner through advanced), and invites other Sass people to talk about and demo their Sass projects.

When Micah decided to host a series highlighting women in Sass, he sent request out for a female co-host. I was intrigued, convinced I would pretty much suck at it, and willing to try. This would be a fine way to step outside of my comfort zone, a goal I have for every day.

Of the six Micah scheduled for the Women in Sass series, I was able to co-host four of them. I missed two of them due to scheduling difficulties.

The whole co-hosting was a good experience. Here's what I learned from it:

  1. If you're not post-editing your recording, production is easier.
  2. Don't pick your nose on camera, if you're not post-editing.
  3. You will always be able to find a bad screenshot, so don't worry about making an odd face. Maybe this should be: so make the odd face anyway.
  4. Don't interrupt the speakers. Oh, gosh, that was awful of me. First time I did it, I wanted a giant UNDO button. Yeah, hosts are there to get the interviewees to talk, let them talk.
  5. Preplanning is key. Have show notes. Prep the interviewee with questions that will be asked. You're not trying to make your guests look bad, you want them to look wonderful! (And if you are trying to make them look bad, you're an ass, go do something else for a living.)
  6. Watch / listen for your ums and uh-huhs that steal the focus. This is an issue with Google Hangouts: it changes the screen focus to the person speaking. If you're saying only "Uh-huh," you don't want the focus on you, so limit those.
  7. Something will always happen to the schedule, just go with it.
  8. If you're co-hosting, let the host lead. If you're new, let the experienced one show you the ropes.
  9. Good internet is key to good online interviews. If you have sucky internet, your view will lag and your questions will lag and, oh, boy is that a hard interview.
  10. Transitions from topic to topic are hard, try to plan ahead. Half listen to the guest talking, partially note the show notes recalling the next topic coming up, and transition when the time is right.
  11. Let the interviewee speak, but keep her on topic.
  12. Live interviews rule.
  13. Q & A can help an interview, but you need to use it. Involving the community is fantastic.
  14. Appreciate the experience.

And the biggest lesson learned: if you are going to co-host an established series, you can't do much better than working with Micah. He's encouraging. He's positive. He mentors well. He inspires. "A++++++++++++++ would co-host with again."

Lazy Dev's Dash through Sass, version 2

Download SLIDES Kitt's Sass Dash V2

YOU ARE HERE http://ki.tt/rpdx
Laziness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall
Sass http://sass-lang.com/
Homebrew http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/
RVM https://rvm.io/rvm/install
RubyInstaller http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/
Compass http://compass-style.org/install/
Grunt http://gruntjs.com/
nodejs http://nodejs.org/
grunt-contrib-watch https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt-contrib-watch
LiveReload http://livereload.com/
Scout http://mhs.github.io/scout-app/
Font Stacks http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/font-stacks/
Make My Logo Bigger http://www.makemylogobiggercream.com/
Sass Style Guide http://css-tricks.com/sass-style-guide/
Box-sizing in Compass http://compass-style.org/reference/compass/css3/box_sizing/
Tim Hettler's CSSConf presentation, Sweating the Small Stuff http://timhettler.github.io/cssconf-2013
Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS http://smacss.com/
CSSCSS http://zmoazeni.github.io/csscss/
FireSass https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firesass-for-firebug/
Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/
Gradients in Compass http://compass-style.org/reference/compass/css3/gradient/
CSSConf http://cssconf.com/
Kuler http://kuler.adobe.com/
Functions in Sass http://sass-lang.com/docs/yardoc/Sass/Script/Functions.html
CSS3 Patterns Gallery http://lea.verou.me/css3patterns/
Ninja Animation via VM Farms http://vmfarms.com/our-platform/ruby/
Sass Animation mixin example https://gist.github.com/Integralist/3931680
Paul Stamatiou http://paulstamatiou.com/simplify
animate.css http://daneden.me/animate/
animate.css partial http://thecssguru.freeiz.com/animate/
animate.css plugin https://github.com/ericam/compass-animate
CSS best practices https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/best-practices/payload
Grunt CSSCSS http://flippinawesome.org/2013/04/22/automating-csscss-using-grunt/
Grunt imageoptim https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt-contrib-imagemin
Fantastic Sass Refactoring example http://wildbit.com/blog/2012/04/16/refactoring-14000-lines-of-css-into-sass/
Support Sass and Compass http://umdf.org/compass

Pragmatic Guide to Sass

Book Notes


Pragmatic Guide to Sass, by Hampton Catlin and Michael Lintorn Catlin
128 pages
Published: 2011-12-16
ISBN: 978-1-93435-684-5

When I was first becoming a professional programmer, I worked with a consultant who, despite being newer to the language and IDE I was using, was able to teach me some new syntax and features. When I asked how he knew these things, he pulled out an intermediate book on the language and commented, "You find a lot of new tricks reading the manual cover to cover."

In that vein, I picked up the Pragmatic Bookshelf's Pragmatic Guide to Sass by Hampton Catlin and Michael Lintorn Catlin. It is a relatively short read at 126 pages, made shorter by the function reference that starts at page 107, and the Haml introduction at page 114

The book is a fast read, made up of tasks and Sass solutions. The basics of the concepts are introduced: variables, imports, mixin, extend, math operators, @each and @if, along with a number of conventions that would surprise anyone who didn't know about them. I'm thinking of the underscore-prefixed file name convention for Sass files that are not standalone after compiling (partial imports) with that comment.

The book is a couple years out of date, and could be updated to include new Sass and Compass features such as namespacing and possibly defining custome sass functions.

As a introduction book, which this book describes itself as, it works. As a refresher book, which this book describes itself as, it works less well. It skims over some of the whys one would use a feature, in favor of how one uses a feature, and doesn't contrast features much. As an introduction, this could be okay for most designers or developers. I prefer the whys, even if only in a sidebar.