How I reduced the bounce rate on my GatsbyJS website

Watch this video if you want to know how I implemented a related articles section on my GatsbyJS blog. I had an ugly bounce rate on this website, and the first step towards reducing it was to offer users more articles they can read, after going through ... more

�� Make your Swagger configuration files dynamic using Node.js

I got the idea for this article after solving this problem for the team I was working with, for a client. So, what's the problem? After wrapping up work on a Swagger configuration file, and successfully generating a client JavaScript library to consume ... more

How to create a CSV using template strings in Node.js

I recently had to create a CSV from some data returned by the Jira API. Went on the Internets to find a module on NPM that would do the job. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a single module that would perform only that simple task. We were already ... more

Why do data scientists use Sklearn's StandardScaler and what does it do?

Been doing some Machine Learning "learning" in the past two weeks. I'm interested in learning to use TensorFlow.js at a decent level and solve a personal problem — software estimation and road-mapping, for the teams I work with. This has led ... more

How I built a product that failed and won

It was almost a year ago that I started building a self-destructing tweets app, just like Snapchat's snaps... ... and nobody used it. The not-so-short intro In 2017 I set out to create a self-destructing tweets application. Nothing impressive but it ... more

How to get the real type of any JavaScript variable

This weekend I published a short article talking about how to create a CSV using template strings in Node.js. I posted the link on Reddit and a couple of more places and the general feedback was something along the lines of "great article but the ... more

How to test Node.js modules installed from NPM locally

I'm surprised by the number of people who think you can install modules from npm only in your project's folder, and only if you have package.json . This is why I decided to create a short video describing my way of testing modules from NPM before bringing ... more

What is your story of going from zero to hero and changing your life completely in the face of failure?

I saw an answer request for the following question, on Quora. What is your story of going from zero to hero, and changing your life completely in the face of faliure? I though about it for a while. It seemed shallow. Someone was looking for nice stories ... more

Be a good citizen, write code for humans.

You write code everyday. You'd be forgiven for assuming you write code for yourself. At the end of the day you're the one who's going to deliver that task. Why not implement it to your liking? It's all about you , right?! Well, not quite! Because you ... more

Quick checkout and rebase in Git

Here are two simple versions of the checkout and rebase subcommands I use to perform faster branch updates and merges. Check out the last visited branch git checkout - This command is useful if, let's say, for example, you were on master and you checked ... more

Reading: BigInt in Chrome, how to handle big numbers in JavaScript & CSS architecture

Numerous battles have been carried out by developers with JavaScript’s Math . Today, I found some big news on the web, about BigInt landing in V8. Mathias Bynens — BigInt: arbitrary-precision integers in JavaScript Adding BigInts to V8 Source Code — ... more

I'm learning Go

I've been trying to make time to learn Go since 2015. I've been on and off with it, tried various resources, hacked on a couple of projects, but I still don't have the confidence necessary to work on real-life projects and put Go on my CV. For the past ... more

��‍♂️ Thoughts on software development process

I was talking to a developer, over lunch, about some of the struggles the team I’m currently with is facing. I was telling him about the long hours we had to spend to deliver some work to the client, our code quality issues and the overall experience ... more

My twisted Git workflow ⛏

Recently I took a lot of interest in Golang. I was listening to the GO TIME podcast — GoLand IDE and managing Gopher Slack and there was a lot of chatter about IDEs vs. editors. What sparked my interest was the discussion around working with Git from ... more

Can I learn React.js if I don't know JavaScript?

I receive a notification from Quora. Someone had asked me to answer this question. At first, I was tempted to give the "Learn the language basics and then go for libraries" sermon. But I stood and thought for a moment. Since the time I used ... more

The quality paradox in software products

While working as a software developer I've been more or less accused of: "focusing too much on quality", "polishing too much", "overanalysing", "not letting work go", or "lacking in commitment". As you ... more

How to fix bootstrap-datetimepicker reset to 12/31/1899

jQuery is not dead! I'd love to say it is, but it is alive and kicking. Unfortunately, its existence hit the team I'm currently working with, and it hit pretty hard. We had this admin panel built on an older version of the Metronic theme, and the bootstrap-datetimepicker ... more

5: Getting Into Web Development in 2018

In this episode I'm talking about the attitude we, as experienced professionals should have towards the people who want to learn web development. It's also short valuable lesson for aspiring web developers. I recently started researching the problems ... more

4: Frustration, new microphone, broken keyboards and Apple updates

It seems that since Christmas Eve 2016 I've been running form one problem to the next. In this episode I go over the issues I had with my 15 inch retina MacBook Pro, how I tried to fix it and ho I ended up not fixing it. Luckily, I still have my old ... more

�� �� �� �� Software is eating the world! What are we doing about it?

This article is just a strand of random thoughts put together to look like they make sense. The way we implement automation and the ways in which we use machine learning and artificial intelligence must always reflect our race's best interests. It's ... more

Dev Time Stories Episode 3 — Five steps to quickly track down and handle uncaught exceptions in Node.js

If you're a Node.js developer and your application hasn't crashed yet, because of some uncaught exception, you're an amateur. I mean it, you're probably just getting past "Hello world!". But keep reading, it's good to be well prepared for the ... more

Reading list: Issue #3

Our industry has a problem. It's a trend problem. Whenever you hear two developers talking libraries you'll hear a heated debate between personal preferences. There's no objective discussion. Nobody talks about contributor count, who are the project ... more

Dev Time Stories Episode 2 — Should you remain a generalist or should you specialize?

In a previous article I wrote about my decision to specialise. I gave a bit of information into the process, what each option brings to the table and how to stay on top of things. But while thinking about the article, I realised I would be limiting my ... more

I started my own podcast — Dev Time Stories

If you've been around here for a while, you know I love audio/video content. I consume videos and podcasts and audiobooks on a daily basis. Last week I was watching Gary Vaynerchuck at Brand Minds Singapore, talking about the importance of audio for ... more

Two strategies for migrating an existing application to a new framework

Finally got your migration budget approved? Is that Angular vs. React vs. Vue giving you headaches? Not sure whether it's worth moving to Node.js microservices, because your team already knows JavaScript or if you should have them learn Go? Wondering ... more

Reading list: Issue #2

The meat PCWorld — 7 Backup Strategies for Your Data, Multimedia, and System Files Older article but with valuable information. It is mostly geared towards Windows users, in terms of tooling. Goes on to talk about types of backups and what are they suitable ... more

Five reasons big software rewrites fail

This article is part of a larger series where I plan on laying out the truth behind technology migration / decoupling projects. Having taken part in a couple of BIG REWRITE™️ and DECOUPLING™️ and SCALABILITY™️ projects in the past 3 years, I decided ... more

[WIP] Keeping up to date with JavaScript development in 2018

I published a similar article in 2015. Back then, I was using GTD, Evernote and a lot of tools that have since disappeared from my stack. This is not an update to that article, it is a competitor. I will update it in the days to come as it currently ... more

Is it better to be a software development generalist or should I specialise?

You want to be a freelancer and you would like to have a stable stream of income. You read it all over the web that you need to specialise. But you're afraid that if you work with only one front-end framework, you won't be able to get enough clients. ... more

Google Chrome extensions every software developer should use

So today I didn't feel like ranting on anything so I thought I'd actually give people some useful stuff. This article is about the unsung heroes tucked away in my Chrome menu or sitting near the address bar, doing their thing. I have a list of extensions ... more