Appreciating the Virtuous Cycle of Nerdery with Mike Wilkerson
Jul 11, 2023
auto_awesome
Matt talks with Mike Wilkerson, lead programmer at Font Awesome, about his love for coding, the design tool used by Font Awesome's designers, and his fandom for the Marble Machine X music project. They also discuss the importance of appreciating good curves and circles, finding motivation in mundane work, and the virtuous cycle of nerdery in building community.
Mike Wilkerson fell in love with coding while working at Walmart and now contributes to the development of Font Awesome's design tool.
Mike Wilkerson addresses issues with circle wobbles in Font Awesome's icons and acknowledges the involvement of the community in identifying and resolving these issues.
Deep dives
Overview of Mike's Professional Background
Mike Wilkerson, the lead programmer at Fawn Awesome, shares his professional background and how he fell in love with computer programming after college. He mentions working at the Walmart Home Office and his passion for coding, especially in Perl. Mike talks about how his expertise in Perl led him to Seattle and later to work at Microsoft. After a hiatus in tech, he returned and eventually joined Fawn Awesome, where he now contributes to the development of their design tool.
The Overhaul of the Icon Storage System
Mike discusses his recent work on the back-end overhaul of Fawn Awesome's icon storage system. He explains the importance of ensuring data integrity and preventing incorrect associations between icons. The introduction of a relational database has made it easier to organize and manage the icons. Mike also highlights the challenges of maintaining consistency with icon names, Unicode, and Unicode aliases, especially when publishing new builds of Fawn Awesome. Additionally, he describes the front-end tool he developed, called 'the factory,' which allows icon designers to import and convert their designs into the appropriate format.
Resolving Challenges with Circle Wobbles and Browser Compatibility
Mike shares his experience in addressing issues with circle wobbles in Fawn Awesome's icon designs. He explains how he used code to perfect circles by using elliptical arcs, ensuring that the SVGs started with a perfect circle source. Additionally, he discusses browser compatibility challenges encountered with certain icons, particularly in Safari. He mentions that bugs have been filed, although the issue is still being worked on. Mike also acknowledges the involvement of community members and external experts in helping to identify and resolve these issues.
On this episode of Podcast Awesome, Matt talks with lead programmer Mike Wilkerson from Font Awesome about his professional background and current role at the company. Wilkerson shares his passion for computer programming and tells the story of how he fell in love with coding while working at Walmart. He also discusses his work related to the design tool used by Font Awesome's designers and shares his fandom for the Marble Machine X music project. -------------------- TIME STAMPS