
Are you afraid to write code? Does the thought linger in your brain that somewhere out there somebody has already done this? Do you find yourself trapped in an analysis cycle where […]
Discussions about problems in programming in general. These may be motivated by concrete languages, or be abstract in nature.
Are you afraid to write code? Does the thought linger in your brain that somewhere out there somebody has already done this? Do you find yourself trapped in an analysis cycle where […]
A staple of compact code, the ternary operator ?: feels like it’s earned a place any programming language. I use it often; you should use it often. However, I don’t like the […]
You’ve baked a fresh batch of gingerbread cookies. A bunch of little men, snowmen, stars, and bells are cooling on some trays. You clean up the table and lay out the colours […]
Our favourite hobbies, like baking cookies or painting pictures, take time. Let’s ask a question though, does it take longer to bake one cookie or paint one picture? It’s hard to answer. […]
Let’s get into some technical details about how a layout engine works. We assume that we have a tree of elements that comprise the UI. Starting from the root node, we request […]
Images require various sizing modes to fit in a responsive layout. Here we’ll look at the relationship between the element and visual and the basic sizing options. I’ll also look at […]
A box model describes how to measure an element for layout. It defines what size is and how it relates to the content, margin and padding. It may seem trivial, but clear […]
A good UI design must accommodate the various device formats and resolutions that users have. Element placement cannot be absolute, but rather be constrained and expanded by the available space. Layouts […]
Layout determines how children are positioned and sized within their parent element. There are three approaches to placing child elements within a parent: Additive: The children combine to define the size […]
Devices have various physical resolutions and densities. One phone may be 10cm wide and have 800pixels across, while another may be 8cm wide and have 1200pixels across. A UI engine needs to […]
Elements have either a natural size, a dependent size, or combination of the two. The size of an element influences its placement. The user and creator of a UI layout system must […]
We hear it often, “global variables are bad, avoid using them!” But is this actually good advice? Simplified blanket statements are already a bit suspicious, but if we get into the details […]
You’ve heard the term, you’ve probably even used them, but what exactly is a closure? It’s a combination of data and code that have become a staple of modern programming. They offer […]
Reactive programming is a paradigm that creates permanent relationships between values. Rather than one-time calculations, a reactive expression updates its result whenever the source value changes. Perhaps first popularized in spreadsheets, and […]