Engineering

Why declining requests is stressful, who it affects most, and how to navigate the pressure without burnout.

“If you had to offer some principles for modern software development, which would you choose?” At a recent Extreme Tuesday Club (XTC) virtual meet-up, we were discussing whether the SOLID principles are outdated. A while ago I gave a tongue-in-cheek talk on the topic, so ahead of the meet-up one of the organizers asked what principles I would replace SOLID with since I disagreed with them. I have been thinking about this for some time and I proposed five of my own, which form the acronym CUPID.

This post introduces Optique, a new library created to address the pervasive problem of repetitive and often messy validation code in CLI tools. The author was motivated by the observation that nearly every CLI tool reinvents the wheel with similar validation patterns for dependent options, mutually exclusive options, and environment-specific requirements. Optique leverages parser combinators and TypeScript's type inference to ensure that CLI arguments are parsed directly into valid configurations, eliminating the need for manual validation. By describing the desired CLI configuration with Optique, TypeScript automatically infers the types and constraints, catching potential bugs at compile time. The author shares their experience of deleting large chunks of validation code and simplifying refactoring tasks. Optique aims to provide a more robust and maintainable approach to CLI argument parsing, potentially saving developers from writing the same validation logic repeatedly.

Simultaneously render one or more pages in the same view that can be navigated independently. A pattern for highly dynamic applications.

How our quest for “best practices” turned a simple API change into a multi-day debugging marathon, and why I’m now convinced that strongly-typed simplicity beats framework complex…

Adding a multi-step form, for example user onboarding, is really straight-forward to do with Rails. This article outlines a solution that is easy to follow, easy to adapt and tweak.

The .well-known directory is a convention that is used by web servers to provide information about the server or website to client software. It is a standard way of exposing machine-readable data…

When you get a certificate from Let’s Encrypt, our servers validate that you control the domain names in that certificate using “challenges,” as defined by the ACME standard. Most of the time, this validation is handled automatically by your ACME client, but if you need to make some more complex configuration decisions, it’s useful to know more about them. If you’re unsure, go with your client’s defaults or with HTTP-01.

Struggling to understand module bundlers? This guide breaks down what they do, why they matter, and how they optimize your frontend apps. Perfect for developers who want faster, more efficient code! 🚀

You want to get into coding? You are already coding professionally, but are afraid AI will take your job? The solution is very easy: get…

Why the obsession with being a coding Swiss Army knife is sabotaging careers — and how to reclaim your superpower

Software development topics I've changed my mind on over the course of a decade

Learn about what security protections are built-in Next.js and view a guide for auditing applications.

Rails partials have many lesser known features. From counters to spacer templates! Learn all there is to know about partials.

Posted by Joshua Bloch, Software EngineerI remember vividly Jon Bentley's first Algorithms lecture at CMU, where he asked all of us incoming Ph.D. ...

A blog about random hacks, graphics and design, math and other ephemera.

Take your Next.js SSR game to the next level — fast, scalable, unstoppable

Try building software using basic tools only to declutter your developer toolbox and learn which tools are worth using.

📚 A curated list of papers for Software Engineers.

Professional software developer with several years of industry experience.

Hey folks! This issue is about IndexedDB, WebCrypto, and my surprising conclusion to the problem of where to put the key in a local-first app. You can also...

An ongoing project to create a complete, professional-quality game accompanied by videos that explain every single line of its source code.

Automate your git cleanup! Here's a shell function to add to your bashrc/zshrc file to delete all merged git branches in one command.