Hi there graceful devs! Here’s what’s new in the garden…

Content Updates

90% of the episodes I’ve made were inspired by recent experiences either with consulting clients or with my own projects, and that’s definitely the case with the episode on Boolean Environment Flags. I found myself once again implementing an environment-variable true/false flag, and I decided to capture some better practices around making environment flags with a positive developer/operator experience. Check it out on the site!

Site Improvements

Graceful.Dev has always been, and will probably always be, a banana stand. I’ve prioritized getting content out there over checking off all the boxes for projecting a “slick” product presence. That’s why I build on a commodity CRM, and that’s why up till now, we’ve used some off-the-shelf royalty-free graphics for our brand identity.

But no more! This little garden is grown-up enough now to warrant a real logo of its own, and you’re seeing it here for the first time:

If it looks familiar, that’s not an accident; I wanted it to feel like an evolution of the visual design we’ve used up till now. This new design builds on the old symbol and incorporates all the themes I think are core to Graceful.Dev: a floral, garden vibe; an ornate wrought-iron motif inspired by 19th-century garden gates; a tinge of Art Deco—a personal favorite of mine that inspired some of the earliest design choices for the site—and the spirals-within-spirals symbolism of practicing as a Full-Circle Developer.

Expect to see this new branding rolled-out across the site and across the Graceful.Dev social media accounts over the next few weeks. If you find a spot where the old art hasn’t been updated that you think I might have missed, please let me know!

And that’s all for this month. Stay graceful,

— Avdi