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This week we were joined by Rebecca Murphey. She is a JavaScript developer currently working for Bocoup and creating a training curriculum (something she has experience in doing). Her blog is a must-read for modern day JavaScript devs. We talk about (roughly in order): News’n'Links’n'Drama $foo syntax for CSS variables dropped. Good or bad? Rebecca’s Net Mag drama: an official statement. Q & A Do you prefer function declarations or expressions and why? Is JavaScript at it’s peak? What is JavaScript’s future? What do we think about Adapt.js for responsive design? GitHub Etiquette How do you write tests when your only public functions are init();? Is it OK to charge when you’re still learning? Sponsors Squarespace – A web app for building websites. Use code SHOPTALK8 for 10% off any purchase. Environments for Humans – Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 20% off the Responsive Web Design Summit (online) or $100 off InControl Conference (Hawaii). More Rebecca Blog: Adventures in JavaScript Development @rmurphey

This week we were joined by Tab Atkins. Tab is a member of the CSS Working Group in the W3C and contributes to several other working groups. He is an employee of Google with the title Web Standards Hacker. We talk about (roughly in order): Followup Josh Dyck wrote in with a link to an article by Lee Blue on automating database syncing. #hotdrama Dave and Ryan Irelan go freaky friday. Dave is using Sublime Text 2 all week and Ryan is going Coda 2 all week. TextMate goes open source. Q & A Why don’t CSS float clear themselves? (Or, their parents) Where does Tab land on the whole srcset/picture thing? Making animations smoother (and stuff) Why are there margins, borders, and padding? Shouldn’t those just be one thing? Is higher education necessary in web dev? Do you need to encode characters anymore or can you just use symbols right in code? Sponsor Environments for Humans – Upcoming conferences include Responsive Web Design Summit (online) and CSS Dev Conf (Hawaii) More Tab xanthir.com @tabatkins

This week we were joined by by the amazing designer and “pixel perfectionist” Allison House. Allison has worked with a number of big web/tech education companies like Treehouse and Code Academy. We talk about (roughly in order): News’n'Links Prism Other podcasts Chris likes Q & A How do you get better at Photoshop? How often should you change jobs? Should you stick with what you know to get work done, or always be learning? What are the new layout methods and when can we start using them? Do we use CSS grid systems? Can you transition pseudo elements? (not really, yet) What is the benefit of semantic markup? Why is HTML5 even a thing? Sponsors Environments for Humans – The Responsive Web Design Summit is coming up August 28th. Squarespace – Everything you need to build an exceptional website. Save 10% off any purchase with coupon code shoptalk8 More Allison allisonhou.se @house

This week is a classic RAPIDFIRE where we get through as many reader questions as we can. No guests, no drama, just all question on answer action. We talk about (roughly in order): Mental block on normalize.css Need a bunch of icons for a site, use a sprite or make a font? (Goldilocks, Baby bear, Mama bear, Papa bear) Keeping Twitter Bootstrap up to date in projects. Do you need to? (Dave mentioned diffing with Kalidescope) Trello vs. Basecamp vs. ??? Keeping local and live databases in sync (RAMP) Backing up sites, including databases (VaultPress) Google Maps with intrinsic aspect ratios, can it be done? What to get for legit hosting for $500 a year (MediaTemple (dv), probalby) Reselling domains and hosting for clients. A good idea? Do non-JS users really exist? Are there stats? (Remy sharp’s technique, 2010 data from Yahoo) Why aren’t data URI’s used more often? Sponsors Crafting Type – A 5-day design workshop for designing type in Edmonton, Alberta. Environments for Humans – Upcoming conferences include In Control in Hawaii followed directly by the CSS Dev Conf.

This week we were joined by the legendary Dan Cederholm. Dan is the author of (dare we say) the best books ever written on CSS including Handcrafted CSS, CSS3 for Web Designers, and Bulletproof Web Design. He’s done some very high end client work, founded a few startups, and has done a bunch of speaking. Most notably these days, Dan is the founder and half the team at Dribbble. We talk about (roughly in order): Hot Drama .net magazine publishes a “Optimize your Javascript” by Joe Angus. Rebecca Murphey posts this which basically calls out a lot of the content in the article. Oliver Lindberg, the magazines editor, responded and Rebecca responded back. We’re still talking about IE. But should we be? News ‘n’ Links ‘n’ Followup Lovely quote by Chuck Close (thx Dan Miner) Uncle Dave solved the fluid Google Maps thing. Q & A How can you help (and how do you approach) responsive designs on existing websites? He’s been out of the game since 2004, how does he get back in? How do you charge clients for the fonts that you buy? What is the back end of Dribbble? How did Dan get the idea for Dribbble? Will Dribbble allow for higher resolution shots? What up with Dribbbleboard.com (stuff about API usage) Will Dribbble ever do a conference? Sure, “Just Build Websites”, but where to get feedback on those websites? Sponsors Environments for Humans have some great conferences coming up in Hawaii: In Control runs back to back with CSS Dev Conf. All three of us in this show will be there! Harvest is time tracking and invoicing software for anyone in client services. Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 50% off your first month. More Dan simplebits.com @simplebits

This week we were joined by the talented design and developer David DeSandro. David was formerly nClud and recently joining Twitter in New York. David is known for some amazing projects like Masonry, http://isotope.metafizzy.co/, the 2011 BeerCamp site, and extensive documentation on 3D transforms. We talk about (roughly in order): News’n'Links Paul Irish on IE’s new updating plan jQuery 2.0 (in 2013) dropping IE 8. And how it’s probably not too big of a deal since you can load 1.9 conditionally. Q & A CSS3 creeping in on JavaScript territory. Is it really? Do we care? Why can’t you inset text shadows? Do you have to be the best of the best to work at a big company? I think I might have a case of divitus. Working on an HTML5 url input polyfill and need a regex. Apps that have in-app browsers, are they just WebKit? What steps do we take to ensure usability and accessibility? Resources? What is the performance of Masonry on older browsers? Who is your Yoda? David is colorblind. (resource links) Sponsors Harvest – Time tracking and invoicing for anyone in client services. Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 50% off the first month. Environments for Humans – upcoming conferences include the CSS Summit and In Control. More David desandro.com @desandro

This week we were joined by Rogie King, a talented illustrator and web designer living in (as he calls it) the armpit of the internet: Helena, Montana. Rogie has a super unique cartoonish illustration style but is by no means limited to that. He is also a very detail oriented web designer, Mac app interface designer, entrepreneur, and family man. We talk about (roughly in order): News n’ Links jQuery 1.8 Beta announcement is pretty awesome. Tab Atkins research for CSS4 Colors is also pretty awesome. Dan Gold has all the good jokes. Q & A Fireworks (versus?) Illustrator Dribbble: do we need to define what it’s for? Is it for final work or works in progress? WordPress, WooCommerce, and selling online in general Daaaaaang. How you so good Rogie? How to get started with Mac app design. What are the deliverables? Making time for life. Why hasn’t Disney hired Rogie yet? Would he even work there? Sponsors Enviornments for Humans are doing some upcoming conferences including the CSS Summit (online) and Incontrol (in Hawaii). Guess what? Both Dave and Chris will be at both events. More Rogie Rog.ie @rogie Fine Goods Market Rogie on Dribbble

This we were joined by Jessica Hische, a prolific and talented letterer (listen in to find out what that term means specifically) living in San Francisco. She’s also a darn good web designer and creator of many hilarious and useful side projects. We talk about (roughly in order): Introduction n’ Hot Links Interlink What lettering is and how it fits into the typography world. Moonrise Kingdom (has Jessica’s lettering work in it) Chris is doing two big new things: CodePen and a Kickstarter. Southstreet – collection of fancy tools by Filament Group to help with cross-device web design CSS variables landing in WebKit PayPal’s thin re-design Q & A Working with a small team of folks and feeling like you only do the easy stuff. Pricing for clients (Should I work for free?) Tricks for better font rendering on Windows (see this, picking a that is of high quality, webtype) What are the easiest letters to get started illustrating? (and a fancy word you can start with). How do you make colors look good on all monitors? Should you go through with an $80k design and development degree if you already have a job? How do you deal with non-paying clients? Sponsors Thanks to Environments for Humans for their ongoing sponsorship! Upcoming conferences include the CSS Summit where both Chris and Dave will be speaking and InControl Hawaii where Chris and Dave will also be, and Jessica is keynoting! More Jessica Personal Site & Portfolio @jessicahische Don’t Fear the Internet Daily Drop Cap Mom, this is how Twitter works

This week we were joined by Nicole Sullivan, a long time web veteran, originator of OOCSS, CSS lint, and tons more. Nicole is definitely a thought leader in the modern web development world who is often ahead of us all. We’ve watched OOCSS start out as this abstract and highly criticized concept turn into a pretty commonplace practice on large sites. We talk about (roughly in order): News’n'Links’n'Drama Matt Wilcox on The Responsive Images Problem IE 7 Tax – Company literally charging 6.8% more for products they sell online if browser is IE 7. Q & A Isn’t OOCSS just moving CSS bloat into HTML bloat? Is there going to be a book on OOCSS? Recognizing when many elements have the same classes, and making a new class that @extends the old ones. Can you use the body element like you would a page-wrapping div? What tools to we suggest for validation in the modern world, especially as part of a workflow? How does SMACSS compare/contrast to OOCSS? When do you call yourself a professional designer or developer? How about universally setting elements to position: relative; Sponsored by Environments for Humans and specifically the CSS Summit (July 31-August 2) in which all three of us in the episode are presenting! More Nicole Website “Don’t Feed The Trolls” OOCSS CSS Lint @stubbornella

This week we were joined by Mat “Wilto” Marquis. He’s now a full timer at Filament group in Boston who, while doing client work (like The Boston Globe, have you heard of it?), have done some amazing open source work for the modern web (e.g. major contributions to jQuery UI and Mobile). Mat chair’s the Responsive Images Community Group and has been front in center in the work (or shall we say, #hotdrama) toward dealing with responsive images in web design. We talk about (roughly in order): News’n'Links’n'Drama Kicktastic Mike Evans: 23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? RWD Calc Coda 2 Axis Q & A What up with Filament’s Enhance.js (new beterness coming!) Can we as authors just choose not to use features we don’t like? Is the RICG (the so-called “picture pushing club”) lazy? (Hint: no. Here’s a link to a recent compromise). Should designers now be making all sites responsive? And thus prices going up? How does a business like Wade’s Tree Service get decent SEO and avoid shady over-promising services? Can we improve the aesthetics of websites during the loading process? What up with Opera Mini? What is / should we always be using Progressive JPGs? Resources for staying on top of responsive web design: @RWD, @brad_frost Sponsored By Mijingo – Screencasts for Web Designers & Developers. Use code HOTDRAMA for 10% off videos about Python, Markdown, ExpressionEngine CMS, OmniFocus and Evernote. WPSummit – The online, live WordPress Design and Development Conference. Use coupon code BACON for 10% off! More Wilto @wilto matmarquis.com filamentgroup.com Wizard Staff

More big, bad, question on answer action. We talk about (roughly in order): Ajax pagination, WordPress, and SEO Developers who insist on screwing up semantic markup Resources for getting started with Git (roundup by Brad Frost) Comparing/Confusing Git and FTP Responsive images, the

This week we were joined by Gene Crawford, master of the South Carolinian Internet and commander of the triforce that is Unmatched Style. Gene cut his teeth doing client work for many years and now does spectacular web conferences like ConvergeSE. We talk about (roughly in order): Followup’n'Drama: Running is good for your back Louis Lazaris on Health Tips for Web Developers Opera gets Webkitty Vendor bang bang Vendor bang bang Q & A Hey great job. But what if we used Squarespace instead? How many years of experience do you really have? How are we handling images for the “retina” display? Do we start the design process with actual pen and paper? Or something like Balsamiq. Also, Styletil.es Where do you add brand new CSS styles into an existing project? How do you stay organized? What tools do we use for testing usability of websites? Silverback. Dave’s dog is a troublemaker. Sponsored by Mijingo – Video Training and Screencasts for Web Designers & Developers Winners of the Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3 book Jeremy Worboys Barry Maxwell Kyle Gordy More Gene @genecrawford / @unmatchedstyle crawfishstudios.com period-three.com unmatchedstyle.com convergeSE.com

It’s RAPIDFIRE time! No guests, no hot drama, and sadly this week no sponsors. We just dig into as many questions as we can. We talk about (roughly in order): Should clients have to pay for security updates? When to use a PHP framework like Yii, CodeIgniter or CakePHP How, Why, and When to use modern support tools like Modernizr Why is there no “wrapper” pseudo elements? Couldn’t we achieve what CSS preprocessors can do with PHP? Dealing with health and a sedentary lifestyle Interactive elements in jQuery UI vs native HTML5 Finding clever domain names (Try Domainr or Thsrs) Disappear an image on scroll down Using JavaScript to insert/remove content at different width breakpoints Pricing yourself and the awkwardness of asking for money Making a triangle with shadow in just HTML/CSS (Dabblet)

This week we were joined by Ian Stewart, a Theme Wrangler for Automattic working on WordPress themes for WordPress.com, the biggest Automattic project. We talk about (roughly in order): News’n'Links’n'Drama Chrome 20 supporting date and color input types as well as scoped CSS behind a flag Running stable and canary Chrome side by side Semicolons Q & A About WordPress MultiSite Dealing with clients who are confused about the “admin” of WordPress and when/if to bring the power of creating posts to the front end The difference between WordPress and Drupal Syncing databases (ramp) Boilerplate theme with child themes, and overriding functions/parts of the parent Are Gantt charts useful? Can you break out into the industry without going to college? How to spellcheck your site both within WordPress and the code itself. (After the Deadline, turn on spellcheck feature in your code editor) Sponsors LessMoney – A conference in Tampa, FL about running a better business and making more money. More Ian ThemeShaper iandanielstewart.com @iandstewart

This week we were joined by Jenn Lukas and Allison Wagner who are front end web developers at Happy Cog (Philadelphia). Links’n'Drama Tim Kadlec’s research on resource downloading JS2Coffee.org Drinking at Conferences (Ryan Funduck’s blog post) Q & A Single line vs. Multi line CSS (findability, information density, CSS3 issues, comments, etc) Level of JavaScript knowledge What to learn next / Is higher education necessary for a career in web development? Dirty code / Clean code awareness Meeting other front end devs (Montreal and elsewhere) Do we use reference charts for HTML and CSS while coding, or is it all memorized? (We ended up talking about some generator tools like these two gradient generators) Sponsors Harvest – Time/Expense tracking and invoicing app. Use coupon SHOPTALK for 50% off the first month. LessMoney – A small intimate conference about making more money in Tampa, FL. More about Jenn and Allison @jennlukas – jennlukas.com – Happy Cog – .net Magazine monthly columnist @alliwagner – Happy Cog