When I opened Johnson’s completed assignment, I found a short note from the good doctor, explaining why he had chosen to use CoffeeScript: “Sir, the funcktion key-word is an ALBATROSS and the curly brace is worthless FILIGREE. I desire a clean and artickulate script for the dockumenting of my varied MUSINGS”.

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If Kerouac wrote JavaScript is a post from CSS-Tricks

This is just a note to let ya'll know The Almanac section on CSS-Tricks is complete. Not complete as in totally done and never will be changed or anything foolish like that, but complete as in all CSS selectors and CSS properties are present and have complete informational pages about them.

It took a while! I wrote a good number of them, but then pulled in help to get it all completed. Big thanks to: Louis Lazaris, Estelle Weyl, Zachary Kain, Dennis Gaebel, Hugo Giraudel, Timothy Miller, Jared Stephens, Chris Burton, Rob Simpson, and Sacha Schmid for helping out (sorry if I missed anyone there!).

I already have several big ideas to make it better, so we'll just keep trucking along there. If you see something incorrect in there, just leave a comment. I'll see it and fix it.

The Almanac is “Complete” is a post from CSS-Tricks

While building Monocle, I noticed that deploys to Heroku were taking absolutely ages; specifically the asset pre-compilation stage. I tried a variety of things, including removing a bunch of CoffeeScript files, but deploys were still taking in the order of several minutes.

After talking to Josh, it seems the solution is a simple one. Simply enable Memcache caching for sprockets during the pre-compilation stage. By doing this, I’ve reduced asset compilation from 100 seconds to between 4-9 seconds.

By default, each Heroku deploy is in a isolated environment. This means that Sprockets can’t take advantage of previous asset compilations, and has to compile everything from scratch. The solution is to have a shared cache between deploys.

If you’re using Heroku, the first step is enabling a Memcache addon. I’ve gone with the memcachier service, as they’ve got a generous free plan (which is all we need at this stage).

heroku addons:add memcachier:dev
    

Then we need to make sure the environmental variables are available to your app during the pre-compilation stage. Usually this isn’t the case on Heroku, but they’ve got a new labs feature called user-env-compile which will do the trick.

heroku labs:enable user-env-compile
    

Next you’ll need to add the dalli and memcachier gems to your Gemfile. Finally, the last step is to configure Sprockets.

With Sinatra

I’m using Sinatra, so I’m configuring Sprockets manually. I’ve written a wrapper around the Memcache gem Dalli to ensure it exposes the sort of interface Sprockets expects.

assets       = Sprockets::Environment.new
    assets.cache = Sprockets::Cache::MemcacheStore.new
    

With Rails

With Rails, just configure the assets cache store in config/environments/production.rb.

config.assets.cache_store = :dalli_store
    

Welcome to faster deploys!

It’s time for another issue of the Teacher Spotlight, where we interview one of the Treehouse Teachers so you can get to know them a little better offscreen, and enjoy a sneak peek into their story, their inspirations and what makes them tick.

This month the spotlight is on front-end designer and Teacher, Guil Hernandez. In this interview, Guil talks about his past, his passion for design, what brought him to Treehouse, and what he’s looking forward to for the future.

The Interview:

When did you first become interested in front-end design?

I didn’t know much HTML and CSS right out of college. I did a lot graphic design work at first, designing logos, ad creative, and Photoshop mockups. I also did a lot of Flash work back then.

It wasn’t until I had my first full time job in the web industry that I learned to code. I would stay up all night doing tutorials and reading books so that I wouldn’t be completely lost the next day at work. But I really liked it, so I stuck with it.

After that, I became really interested in front-end design because I discovered how powerful designing with code could be, and on top of that, being able to add those layers of functionality and interactivity with JavaScript or jQuery.

How did your career evolve in the web industry?

At first, I dabbled in freelancing until I got hired at a startup in South Florida where I helped design rich media creative and a lot marketing websites and landing pages.

I guess they liked the work I was doing––the late night studying paid off––because I was later put in charge of the design department.

Soon after, I moved on to a different agency because I wanted to do more front-end work for websites and applications. Meanwhile, I was also taking on loads client work on the side. It was pretty exhausting, but that’s how I really honed many of my front-end dev skills.

Again, I must have been doing OK at work, because later, I earned the opportunity to lead the design team. My last year there kept me really busy with mobile design & development, and front-end performance projects.

What brought you to Treehouse?

I knew all about Treehouse and their mission to change the world through technology from the very beginning––since the day they launched as Think Vitamin Membership.

I really wanted to be a part of tech education and helping people. The moment I realized that I could play a part in changing people’s lives by teaching them how to code, I knew that’s where I had to be.

Fortunately, I’ve already seen some of our members’ lives change since I’ve been at Treehouse. It’s very rewarding. There’s no doubt this is the best industry to be a part of right now.

How do you balance being a teacher and a designer?

The 4-day work week helps and I tend prioritize a lot. I understand that I need to set aside time for personal design and front-end dev projects in order to stay sharp and be a better teacher.

Lately, I’ve been spending most of my work time writing and refining content, coming up with cool projects to teach, and seeking ways to improve teaching efficacy. I also spend a lot of time in CodePen experimenting with stuff.

With so many conferences on the calendar at the moment, which design conferences would you recommend?

I recently attended Front-End Design Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. I’d have to say it’s one of my favorites at the moment––they do a great job. I’m also interested in attending the upcoming Circles and Blend Conferences.

Design conferences are the best way to meet people who share your love for design, technology, and the web. You come out of them recharged with inspiration and possible lifelong friends. I highly recommend attending at least 1 or 2 conferences a year.

Who are some of your favourite designers at the moment?

I’ve always admired Ryan Singer’s approach to UI design. He got me really interested in learning about the mechanics of interfaces: breaking things down into simple functions (or tasks) that enable users to create outcomes they want.

Also, Lea Verou, she is a CSS artist. Her projects and presentations continually push the capabilities of CSS. She does unimaginable things with such simplicity––a true forward-thinker.

Other designers and developers I follow are Daniel Burka, Jessica Hische, Paul Irish, and Cameron Moll.

What is the most valuable advice you would give Treehouse students who are interested in front-end design?

Focus and practice a ton. It doesn’t come easy, so you’ll need to push yourself.

If you find yourself trying to wrap your head around a difficult concept, write about it. You’ll be surprised how synthesizing your thoughts into writing can bring clarity to something.

Try things that scare you. That means stepping out of your comfort zone – it will always be there for you. Make the best out of every opportunity – big or small.

When learning to design, imitate the masters. There’s nothing wrong with doing that as long as you develop your own style.

The most important thing is to pay close attention to the details in everything you do: writing, coding, designing, etc… You’ll soon find out how truly rewarding it can be.

Are there any new techniques or technologies you’ve been excited about lately or are looking forward to later this year?

I’m really excited about how CSS preprocessors like Sass have made writing CSS so much fun and efficient. I think it’s time we all embrace preprocessors in some way, even if it’s just for the variables feature, nesting, or dealing with those pesky vendor prefixes.

I’m also looking forward to using many of the new CSS features like flexbox, filter effects, and the upcoming CSS Shapes module as fully implemented web standards.

Finally, I’m totally pumped about the future of tech education. There is a lot of work to be done and archaic education models to disrupt.

Tell us something about yourself you don’t think anyone would ever assume!

Long before I knew what a code editor was, I was a musician. I played trumpet for over 10 years. I even received a music scholarship and performed in front of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people throughout the years. It was a lot of fun.

The post Teacher Spotlight: Guil Hernandez appeared first on Treehouse Blog.