I’ve been experimenting a bit with Gleam and Elixir lately as part of my search for a new programming language.

One of Gleam’s flagship features is that it can call Elixir code and libraries, but I couldn’t find any examples of how to do that. I wrote a simple example of calling an Elixir library from a Gleam project, based on my beginner’s understanding of the Gleam/Elixir/Erlang ecosystem.

Install dependencies

For this example, I’m using

Highlights

• The writing techniques I planned last month helped me publish faster and focus better.
• I need to find more ways to talk to readers about my book.

Goal grades

At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:

Publish two chapters of my book to pre-order readers

• Result: Published “You’re Qualified to Write a Blog Post” and “Good vs. Bad Content Marketing”
• Grade: A

I completed these chapters and sent them to pre-order customers.

Some weeks ago Oliver from Pixel Pioneers asked me: "How did you come up with the idea for your upcoming Pixel Pioneers talk, and what can we expect to take away from it?". This is my answer:

Around two years ago I realised that I was feeling a lot of decision paralysis when building brand new shiny projects from scratch. I was feeling very overwhelmed with all the new cool CSS things, and I would panic a little bit wondering if I was building and styling something up to the best and ultimate standards. This isn’t particularly healthy. I noticed a pattern of feeling safe and relaxed when I worked on legacy codebases. Someone made a decision years ago on something and I could work on it and note the impact. CSS is fantastic at failing, and modernising an old codebase can be particularly exciting. But because CSS is undervalued and it “just works”, it can be difficult to convince stakeholders to take the time to give it some love. But I’ve done it, and it does make a difference in the end Hopefully, by the end of the talk, people will feel confident to approach an old codebase without immediately deciding to rebuild.

I've been doing some test runs this week with work and friends and I am finally feeling excited and not just nervous.

The first big public run of it will be at CSS Day this week and it is sold out! (But there's still tickets for the live stream). The following weeks will be at Middlesbrough Front End and Pixel Pioneers. Both in the UK and with tickets still available.

Then, later this year, I will also be at SmashingConf Freiburg!

Let me know you if you're attending any of these and please do come say hi!

I recently got to attend the inaugural Peter Wallensteen Lecture at Humanistiska Teatern. When I originally signed up it already had a waiting list, but I luckily got an email about a spot opening up just a few days before. The series is intended to honor department founder Peter Wallensteen and this first lecture was deliverd by Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell.