🔥 Practical Insights for Developers Navigating Change, AI, and the Modern Web

Weekly Issue #171 | Subscribe to DS | Daily Sandbox Pro

Hello Developers!

This edition dives into life after Google, where one developer shares the emotional journey of losing their role. Learn how to define CSS theme variables using a JavaScript file for more dynamic styling. Get up to speed with performance improvements in Chrome 136 DevTools and explore what human-centered AI really looks like in practice. Discover the impact of HTTP requests on page speed, organize your design files more effectively, and compare Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash with OpenAI’s o4-mini. We also highlight top specialized freelance jobs, share notes from Advent of Code 2024, and offer a prompt engineering playbook to help developers get the most out of AI.

Dive in and keep coding!

G̶o̶o̶g̶l̶e̶r̶… ex-Googler - Last night, my role at Google was eliminated. I'm quite sick to my stomach, extremely sad, and even more angry…

Creating CSS Theme Variables from a JS file - For many projects I work on it’s useful to define all of our brand colours in a JavaScript file, particularly as I work on a lot of data visualisations that use them.

What's new in DevTools, Chrome 136 - Performance panel improvements

Beyond the Hype: Getting Real with Human-Centered AI - Companies are racing to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into every facet of their operations to streamline workflows...

Newfangled Browser Alternatives - You’ve got your classic web browsers with the biggest chunks of market share. The Statcounter website gives us a picture...

UX And Design Files Organization Template - Lost in a sea of UX files, docs, PDFs, and scattered decisions across Slack, Dropbox, Notion, and Figma? We talk a lot about organizing...

Does Making Fewer HTTP Requests Improve Page Speed? - Does it matter how many different resources your website loads? Or is it more important what each file looks like and how it fits into your website architecture?

Gemini 2.0 Flash vs o4-mini: Can Google Do Better Than OpenAI? - The AI battle in 2025 is definitely getting charged with the launch of Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash and OpenAI’s o4-mini.

7 High Paying Specialized Freelancing Jobs - Starting freelancing can feel overwhelming, but mastering specialized, high-paying skills can help you stand out in competitive markets and secure better opportunities.

Advent of Code 2024, some notes - For four years, I tried to participate in the Advent Of Code challenge each December. While waiting for my Christmas gift, I lose myself in these puzzles...

My AI Prompt Engineering Playbook for Developers - You know by now that AI can dramatically speed up your development process (when used correctly. But the key is knowing how to communicate with the AI properly

More news here →

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