Maria Antonietta Perna is a teacher and technical writer. She enjoys tinkering with cool CSS standards and is curious about teaching approaches to front-end code. When not coding or writing for the web, she enjoys reading philosophy books, taking long walks, and appreciating good food.
Maria Antonietta's articles
Flexbox came first. Then came Grid. Is Flexbox needed any more? Yes it is! Learn what each does best and when to choose one over the other.
Learn all about JavaScript arrow functions. We’ll show you how to use ES6 arrow syntax, and what to be aware of when using arrow functions in your code.
Should you use Canvas or SVG? It depends! Let's walk through all the scenarios where Canvas and SVG are an option and work out which is the best choice.
Static site generators are a key element of the modern Jamstack architecture. We explore the standout features of seven leading static site generators.
Gatsby is the Jamstack king, with power, plugins, and community. Our guide will help you get started with Gatsby's basic use case — a static site generator.
Learn about the great features in GreenSock Animation Platform 3, and find out how to use Greensock 3 to create better animations for the web faster.
Learn why SVG is superior to pixel graphics in terms of scalability, responsiveness, interactivity, programmability, performance, and accessibility.
The JavaScript ecosystem offers countless UI frameworks and libraries. These top options help developers build complex reactive apps that scale well.
Asha and Maria offer an accessible but thorough introduction to the use of CSS viewport units for truly responsive typography and layout elements on the web.
Maria Antonietta Perna rounds up 30 top tools for front-end web developers, from code playgrounds and editors to CSS generators, JS libraries, and more.
Learn how to use $.ajax(), the most powerful jQuery Ajax function, to perform asynchronous HTTP requests.
A step-by-step tutorial on how to set up basic jQuery form validation in just a few minutes, demonstrated through validation on a registration form.
Maria Antonietta Perna highlights the benefits of lazy loading images on websites and shows five approaches to implement lazy loading for your website.
Maria provides a roundup of helpful web development checklists, covering everything from front-end and performance to SEO and marketing.
Animation is a part of a UI designer's job. Here are 9 free animation libraries we think deliver the most power for the smallest file size, while being relatively easy to use for reasonably code-savvy designers that aren't full-blown developers.
Want to design your CSS Grid layouts in a few clicks and grab the code? Here are five CSS Grid generators with great visual interfaces.
We introduce you to Zdog, a library that helps you design and animate in 3D, and show you demos that you can reverse-engineer and learn from.
Maria Antionetta Perna shows how you can tackle five common coding challenges you might be asked when interviewing for a JavaScript or front-end position.
Having a great development mentor can boost your progress, from helping you learn to code to getting a job. Find out how to find one.
Maria Antonietta Perna covers the importance of good software documentation, showing you how to get up and running with your first software documentation.
Maria Antonietta Perna walks you through CSS variables/custom properties, the awesome new technology that adds more flexibility and fun to CSS coding.
Maria Antonietta Perna presents tips for optimizing JavaScript animation performance and achieving the 60fps target for smooth motion on the web.
Maria Antonietta Perna takes Bootstrap as representative of CSS frameworks, asking if there are still reasons to use frameworks now that we have CSS Grid.
Maria Antonietta Perna lists a number of Bootstrap UI libraries to style your Angular, React, and Vue.js components.
Maria Antonietta Perna illustrates how you can customize Bootstrap plugins, modifying both the CSS files and the JavaScript files.
Maria Antonietta Perna points out the importance of front-end optimization and lists 3 tips for achieving a great user experience on your Bootstrap website.
Maria Antonietta Perna uses some jQuery and the Animate.css animations library to add some extra subtle visuals to the slides in the Bootstrap carousel.
Maria Antonietta Perna discovered a problem when combining Bootstrap tabs with Masonry. She describes a solution to the issue in this post.
Maria walks through some of the new features in Bootstrap 4, including its modular architecture, reusable components and easier scaling across screen sizes.
Maria Antonietta Perna explores the Performance Tool available in the Firefox browser to find out more about CSS animation performance.