Rob Dodson is a web developer focused on building impactful web experiences with a strong passion for climate change. He shares insights on front-end engineering, climate tech careers, and sustainable technology through practical posts and real-world projects.
70 articles from this blog
Using Claude AI to automate the organization of a personal knowledge base, eliminating manual maintenance and enabling focus on idea connections.
The article compares AI agent security to early e-commerce, arguing we need a multi-layered security stack (supply chain, prompt defense, sandboxing) to make agents trustworthy.
A developer critiques AI chatbots as data gatekeepers, then builds a custom solution using Claude Code and a local database for richer financial analysis.
A software engineer shares his journey to Voltus, a company using tech to balance the power grid and fight climate change through demand response programs.
On September 9th 2020, I woke up to find that the sky outside of my window looked like this:San Francisco, September 2020Smoke from nearby wildfires w
A front-end engineer shares their journey and practical advice for finding a job in the climate tech industry, covering job resources and self-education.
A developer shares his 2021 productivity toolkit and workflow for managing tasks, projects, and a distributed team at Google.
Explores how command palettes, inspired by desktop app menu bars, can improve accessibility and usability in web applications.
A guide detailing the step-by-step process for migrating a blog from the outdated Ghost 0.x to version 2.0, including data backup and local migration.
Lists which HTML elements can and cannot have a Shadow DOM attached, with examples and exceptions for Web Components.
Explains the technical challenges of automated screen reader testing and why testing the accessibility tree is a better approach.
A developer's 2017 reflection covering political activism, travel, and professional work on web components, accessibility, and a promotion at Google.
Explores the challenges and best practices for making custom web components accessible, including semantic meaning and keyboard support.
Introducing polymer-webpack-loader, a tool to integrate Polymer web components with Webpack, enabling ES module imports and cross-framework compatibility.
Explains why jQuery plugins fail inside Shadow DOM due to DOM encapsulation and offers troubleshooting advice.
A response to criticisms of Web Components, arguing they are maturing and can coexist with frameworks like React.
Explores patterns for building interoperable Custom Elements that work across frameworks like React and Angular, focusing on properties as the source of truth.
Explores challenges in building accessible web components, focusing on keyboard support for modals and offscreen menus, and proposes platform improvements.
A developer's guide to troubleshooting Java and Android Studio installation issues on macOS Yosemite, with step-by-step solutions.
Explains a workaround for using @font-face rules within Shadow DOM encapsulation in web components.
