{"id":5,"date":"2026-03-31T12:35:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T12:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/?page_id=5"},"modified":"2026-06-16T03:29:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T03:29:04","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-cover wp-duotone-unset-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"wp-block-cover__image-background wp-image-23\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pexels-steve-29404570-1024x576.jpg\" data-object-fit=\"cover\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pexels-steve-29404570-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pexels-steve-29404570-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pexels-steve-29404570-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pexels-steve-29404570-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/pexels-steve-29404570-2048x1152.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><span aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-cover__background has-background-dim-40 has-background-dim wp-block-cover__gradient-background has-background-gradient has-blush-light-purple-gradient-background\"><\/span><div class=\"wp-block-cover__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-cover-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color has-large-font-size wp-elements-8d680f16545a9fed6bcc0044d0268f1b wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Better Code<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-3a7073147f4a680cdc4cb94291fb04d0 wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m <strong>Vania Nettleford<\/strong>, a Senior Software Engineer focused on building maintainable systems and improving code quality at scale.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also help small business owners automate their operations \u2014 receipts, task management, email triage \u2014 built on the same systems thinking I apply to software. On this site, I share code reviews, refactoring walkthroughs, and engineering lessons from real projects. My goal is to show how thoughtful architecture and clear code can make teams move faster and systems last longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<ul style=\"border-style:none;border-width:0px;padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small);padding-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small);padding-right:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small);margin-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small);margin-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small)\" class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__list has-dates wp-block-latest-posts has-background has-silver-blue-background-color\"><li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/?p=53\">What if the boring parts of running your business just&#8230; handled themselves?<\/a><time datetime=\"2026-06-16T15:46:19+00:00\" class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-date\">June 16, 2026<\/time><div class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-excerpt\">I used to end every week with a pile of things I hadn&#8217;t gotten to. Not the important things \u2014 I always got to those. The other stuff. Filing receipts. Writing down tasks I needed to follow up on. Sorting through emails to figure out what actually needed my attention versus what could wait. None&hellip;<\/div><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/?p=41\">The Engineering Lesson I Learned From Fixing a \u201cSimple\u201d Table<\/a><time datetime=\"2026-04-16T23:28:03+00:00\" class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-date\">April 16, 2026<\/time><div class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-excerpt\">I thought I was fixing a small accessibility issue. We had tables rendering with only &lt;tr&gt; and &lt;td&gt;. Visually, everything looked fine. Bold text made headers stand out. The layout made sense. So I assumed this would be quick. It wasn\u2019t. When \u201clooks right\u201d isn\u2019t actually right Here\u2019s what we were working with: To a&hellip;<\/div><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/?p=35\">Engineering Lab: A Small CSS Change That Simplified My Layouts<\/a><time datetime=\"2026-04-07T02:41:07+00:00\" class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-date\">April 7, 2026<\/time><div class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-excerpt\">During a recent code review, a colleague suggested using gap instead of individual margins inside flex and grid containers. I hadn\u2019t thought about it before, but after applying it to a real component, the difference was immediately clear: the layout became cleaner, easier to maintain, and more predictable. In this post, I\u2019ll walk through the&hellip;<\/div><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/?p=32\">When \u201cCorrect UI\u201d Isn\u2019t the Best UX: Rethinking a Login Button<\/a><time datetime=\"2026-04-03T02:28:20+00:00\" class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-date\">April 3, 2026<\/time><div class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-excerpt\">In theory, UI should always reflect the correct state. In practice, that\u2019s not always the best user experience. I recently worked on what seemed like a small issue\u2014a login\/logout button flickering between \u201cLog in\u201d and \u201cLog out.\u201d But it turned into a deeper discussion about performance, correctness, and what actually matters in user experience. The&hellip;<\/div><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/?p=1\">Avoiding JS Code Smells for Layout and Transitions<\/a><time datetime=\"2026-03-31T03:21:41+00:00\" class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-date\">March 31, 2026<\/time><div class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-excerpt\">In real-world React applications, components often start small but quickly grow into complex beasts that are hard to maintain. One pattern I noticed repeatedly is using useEffect for tasks that could either live elsewhere or be handled more elegantly with CSS. In this post, I\u2019m walking through a refactor of a video carousel component, highlighting:&hellip;<\/div><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Code isn\u2019t just syntax \u2014 it\u2019s communication. We&#8217;ll explore real projects, I&#8217;ll share my thinking, and show you how thoughtful architecture makes teams faster and systems last longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"padding-top:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small);padding-bottom:var(--wp--preset--spacing--small)\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I also help small business owners automate their operations \u2014 receipts, task management, email triage&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50,"href":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanianettleford.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}