Karl Swedberg
Who is Karl Swedberg?
By day I’m a web developer at Fusionary, specializing in client-side interaction. I love my job and the people who work there. I’m also the husband of a beautiful woman and the father of a 9-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl. I grew up outside of Philadelphia, spent some time in Virginia and Seattle, and ended up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I’ve remained for the past 15 years, despite the relentlessly brutal winters.
About Learningjquery?
Learning jQuery is a blog I started in 2006 as a way to keep a record of things I was learning. When I started the site, I had only been programming for a few months, so I had very little idea what I was doing. I figured a good way for me to learn would be to put things in writing and expose it to the scrutiny of others who might stumble upon it. After a while, as jQuery gained in popularity and the blog’s readership grew and my skills developed a bit, the site naturally became more outwardly focused, helping others learn. Quite a few other people have posted articles on the site in recent months, which is a great thing since I haven’t had as much time to devote to it as I’d like to.
What does your typical day look like?
During the week I spend the day at Fusionary, doing the web thing. Occasionally I take a peek at what’s going on in jQuery Land — see who’s tweeting, what’s happening in the forum, which comments need moderating on the API site — but most of the time it’s nose to the grindstone, cranking out the code. After work, I hang out with my family, read a bit, chat with the neighbors, and catch up on jQuery stuff that I may have missed during the day.
What do you do in your free time?
When I’m not feeding my internet addiction, I like to read and occasionally watch TV series via Netflix. I enjoy doing just about anything with my family. And a couple times a week I let out some physical aggression through karate (Okinawan Shorin Ryu). I have a thousand and one interests, but almost no time at all to pursue them. Or so it seems.
Current favorite apps?
TextMate is a favorite, mostly because I live in it much of the day. TextMate is like a Swiss Army Knife of text editing, but most of the apps I like just do one thing and do it well. I’d be lost without Quicksilver. Skitch is great for quick screenshots with annotations. MarcoPolo opens and closes certain apps for me and connects to various resources depending on where I am physically at the time.
What OS do you prefer?
Mac OS X. I worked for Microsoft a long time ago, and I felt a strong sense of loyalty to the company for many years after I left, so I stuck with Windows 95, 98, 2000, and XP until I just couldn’t bear it any longer. I’ve heard some nice things about Windows 7, but I don’t think I’ll be switching back any time soon.
Small picture of your Workplace?
Here is my office:
And here is where I do most of my work at home:
Favorite: JS Framework? and why?
You probably won’t be surprised to read that my favorite is jQuery. When I first came across it, I was able to put it to use fairly quickly for little sprinklings of progressive enhancement here and there — and that was with little more than a firm understanding of HTML and CSS. I’ve learned a ton since then and have even written a couple of books on jQuery, but it still amazes me and I’m still learning things all the time just by looking at the source.
To be honest, I haven’t spent a lot of time with other JavaScript frameworks. I’ve used Prototype, mostly when maintaining legacy code from former employees at my day job. And I’ve mucked around a bit with Mootools and Dojo. I’d love to explore Mootools and Dojo more, but I can’t see how I’d find the time unless a project demanded it.
Name something that has inspired you recently?
Last summer I bought 25 goldfish at the grocery store for 10 cents apiece and dropped them in a makeshift pond that I dug in my backyard. I didn’t expect them to survive more than a month or two, let alone all winter. But last week when the temperature climbed above freezing and the ice that had been covering the pond for the past four months finally melted, there they all were — every single fish, alive and swimming around. That was one of the most inspiring things I’ve seen in a long time.
Shaun White on the half pipe, too. Totally blew me away.
What are your personal projects and goals for 2010?
I guess my main goal is to continue meeting the increasing demands of my “web life” without neglecting my physical life and especially my family life. On a less abstract level, I’ve been really focused lately on the online jQuery documentation, which is now based on the book that I co-authored, jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide. I’m working on JSONP output that should make for really fast and flexible querying of the jQuery API. Also, I started digging into Jörn Zaefferer’s API browser the other day and hope to update the XSLT to work with the new XML format. Other than that, I’m speaking/presenting more at conferences and teaching more classes on jQuery (mostly Idea Foundry). And I have a bunch of old, crusty plugins that are in dire need of an update. When I find a few minutes..
