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A stream of consciousness by Laurence Hughes

Hi, I’m Laurence. I’m a Glaswegian web developer using modern web standards to create user-focused, responsive websites. I also make music, play records and ping pongs. This is my online home; a playground for coding fun and place to share thoughts on the web, music and more.

Latest Posts

Design Systems should avoid “God components” and Swiss Army Knives

Something we often talk about in our Design System team is that components should not be like Swiss Army Knives. It’s better for them to be laser-focused because by limiting their scope to a single task they are more reusable and support a more extensible system through composition.

SaaS startups will have to care about productivity again, by DHH

Getting to profitability is no longer a distant, post-IPO nice-to-have, but a short-term necessity for survival. But how to do that without cutting off the legs of the product team? By using better tools and techniques, that's how.

DHH of 37 Signals and Basecamp offers three pieces of advice for productivity and profitability.

1: Unless market conditions demand otherwise, delay native app development for as long as possible.

2: Hire full-stack developers, and don't let them split the frontend and backend into separate jurisdictions.

3: Hire designers who work natively with the web.

Captain Fantastic

Clair and I loved this story of Viggo Mortensen’s Ben Cash and family temporarily leaving their off-grid existence in the Pacific Northwest to enter civilisation. It poses some interesting questions about parenting, lifestyle and morality but mainly, it’s just a lot of fun.

Judging by his movie review for The Guardian, Mark Kermode seemed to like Captain Fantastic too.

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