Disqus - Latest Comments for rarst

Re: Dear Wirecutter: Do Posture-Correcting Smart Devices Actually Work?

Rarst — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:03:01 -0000

I was prescribed a course of using posture corrector ("dumb" kind with stiff back and elastic straps around shoulders) by a doctor earlier this year, so it is a little surprising to hear it implied they are unscientific.

It's not something casual you just wear randomly (or subtly). I have to follow a specific schedule for certain amount of hours a day for significant span of time (2 months, couple months of break, 2 more months on). It definitely made a positive change to my posture, both visually and how I feel.

So I would say if your posture is bad to the point of health issue — you should probably consult a doctor and seek treatment, not a gadget.

Re: The Best Budget Android Phones

Rarst — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 04:08:01 -0000

Past age when I obsessed over details and just needed to buy a phone right now, so went with Moto G5 Plus. Great performance, Android 7 is fantastic improvement (coming from 4), fingerprint sensor is one of those how-did-I-live-without features.

Camera is awful. And I don't mean this-is-a-budget-phone awful, I mean it seems to consistently and completely screw up white balance and other things. Bleak washed–out shots, in the bright summer sun.

Overall good budget pick, thank you! :)

Re: The Best Carry-On Travel Bags

Rarst — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 06:38:42 -0000

Article a little too focused on larger US–centric bags.

I had been using Tatonka Flightcase for couple of years. It’s a little basic in features, but is pretty much pure space and in the end does everything it needs to do. Also it somehow manages to _look_ compact, last trip they gave it a cabin sticker for a smaller propeller plane, while everyone else had to gate check anything remotely close to that size.

Re: Día de Muertos

Rarst — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 13:22:40 -0000

WordPress community had also lost Kim Parsell early (and suddenly) this year. Memorial site at http://wpmom.org/

Re: Rethinking WordPress Admin

Rarst — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:42:57 -0000

Are jQuery plugins/code supported in your browser without jQuery library? :)

On learning curve - two points:

(1) valid CSS is valid LESS (I am fuzzy on others, since I mostly use LESS so using it as example). I think people imagine preprocessor to be like jumping between distinct programming languages. It's not - it's pretty much same CSS plus extras.

(2) preprocessor workflow is not necessarily more complicated than CSS workflow. What is easier - to point person to change color once in variables file or find and change every instance of it in whole CSS source? What is easier - instruct person how to use one line of mixin or ten lines of horrible CSS, packed full off vendor prefixes?

In a nutshell as for me preprocessors are not working to replace CSS, they are working to fix its shortcomings. I remember people hacking variables and stuff into CSS (generating through PHP, etc) for about as long as I've been online. Preprocessors are just good at it.

Re: Rethinking WordPress Admin

Rarst — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:15:11 -0000

Just for perspective WP has no problem committing to libraries. SimplePie, jQuery, recently Backbone - just to name a few. It has quite a few library commitments as well as history of changing them (SimplePie replaced earlier Magpie, Prototype was deprecated).

This is not an argument to go smash preprocessor in core right now, but that choosing and bundling libraries is nothing extreme - just a normal development process for large and multi-faceted project like WP.

Re: Rethinking WordPress Admin

Rarst — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:09:59 -0000

I just grabbed "Buttons", could be anything there really. Button is probably too contained component for reuse example (slap on a class in markup, done). The point is - current state of admin is resistant to customization and what customization you do - code rots at alarming speed (constantly pitiful state of style guide kinda proving that :)

CSS is prone to bloat and while maintaining pure CSS is possible, in my opinion, that is quickly becoming technically inferior approach.

Re: Rethinking WordPress Admin

Rarst — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 07:47:49 -0000

I am no front-end wizard but from my perspective there are two core features of preprocessors that make their workflow massive improvement for [large volume of] CSS.

Variables. Variables make two important things possible - make massive skinning changes by changing them alone (not actual CSS rules) and refer to variables instead of hardcoded values. See Bootstrap for example ( https://github.com/twitter/... ) you can completely recolor it without touching a line of code and you don't need to hunt for exact shade or size of anything when you want to use it in your own rules.

Mixins. Simply put mixins replace massive amounts of re-creation, that tends to happen in CSS, with genuine re-use. Look at current state of style guide for buttons for example - http://dotorgstyleguide.wor... . Recreating WordPress buttons will currently take considerable block of CSS. That block will get instantly out of sync if any single property in core changes. Reducing it to single mixin eliminates all the code, as well as issue of updates.

This doesn't make preprocessors some silver bullet, but it is massive and practical improvement to the part of CSS workflow that is historically dead weight on it - copy/paste all the things.