Articles

Deep work December

do you ever feel like you're working working working and nothing is happening? Like a game character running against an invisible obstacle? That's how I've been feeling lately. Stuck.

How *do* you standout as a developer?

Course creators are always telling you to learn this or that but how does any of it help *your* goals? That's the missing piece 🤔

SSR, SSRwR, SSG, CSR, WTFBBQ???

These abbreviations are getting out of hand. It's like a bad interviewer's wet dream.

You're not asking for a job, you're selling a service

You're not asking for a job, you're selling a service. The true question behind every interview is "How can you help us?"

Gatsby to NextJS pt1, server-side-render or server-side-generate?

Gatsby and NextJS do similar things differently. One is better for websites, the other for webapps. In episode 17 of CodeWithSwiz we explore the biggest difference.

Use private libraries to cleanup your codebase

You're using the many-small-repositories approach to work faster as a team. But where do you put shared code? How do you make it nice to use? How to publish and install private packages?

React context without context, using XState – CodeWithSwiz 14, 15

useAuth works without React Context! 🎉 here's how

What's your code for?

Perfect code that doesn't solve the problem is useless. Perfect metrics that don't serve the user are a distraction.

Reader question: How do you learn programming topics?

Nader writes in worried that he started coding too late and his progress is too slow. Here's my response.

Build better apps faster with the JAMStack

The ultimate test for your webapp: Airplane wifi

Forget time to first byte and time to interactive. What's your time to useful?

Learn Gatsby and NextJS with my new workshop

Think of the last time you started a new project. You spend the first few hours getting started. Ugh

How JAMStack helps you ship

Common problem in engineering teams: Stepping on each other's toes. JAMStack can help.

The mistake that strangles engineering teams

You work hard on a feature. Weeks of back and forth with designers, product managers, tech leads, and the rest of your team. Your feature is amazing and you're proud as heck! But then ...

How I use delegation to get more done

Productivity porn shows you how to pack more into your day. Productivity porn is wrong my friend. You need to remove things to grow.

Swap useReducer with XState – CodeWithSwiz 13

In Refactoring a useReducer to XState we talked about a 5 step process to turn a reducer into an XState state machine. Today answers "Ok now what?"

Sucking is the first step

You ever feel like you have no idea what you're doing? Everyone feels that way. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

How to write tests for XState – CodeWithSwiz 12

Once you know how to refactor a useReducer to XState, you gotta prove you did it right.

Should you take a pay cut for equity

Would you take some % of your salary in bitcoin? The joke is that compared to pre-IPO equity, bitcoin is predictable and has a known value.

Refactoring a useReducer to XState, pt1 – CodeWithSwiz 11

XState promises to be like useReducer+Context combined and the simplest way to handle complex state in React apps. But can it deliver? On this episode of #CodeWithSwiz, we gave it a shot.

Computer science is not software engineering

Wow, college was such a waste of time ... when did you ever invert a binary tree outside of an interview? Honestly I never inverted a binary tree in college either ☹️

Prefetch data with React Query and NextJS – CodeWithSwiz 8, 9

Prefetching lets you start React apps without loading spinners. Gatsby introduced this concept with `staticQuery`, react-query and NextJS make the pattern easier 😍

Why you should learn serverless cloud functions

Times are changing, the future of web development is here.Story time! 20 years of history in a 2min read, it's gonna be great 🤘

My favorite serverless project

When's the last time your first project in a new technology was also your favorite? Doesn't happen very often ...🤔 It happened to me in November 2018.

Modern backend is a JavaScript function

Many engineers think server-side code is the scary domain of True Engineers. Something newbies, juniors, and frontend engineers shouldn't touch. They're wrong. Modern backend is a joy. ❤️

A JavaScript function that makes $40,000+/year

What's the best code you ever wrote? Is it the most clever, or the cleanest. The most fun problem to solve, or the most impactful. The surprise throwaway everyone uses, or the love nobody noticed.

Using JavaScript to commit to Github – CodeWithSwiz 7

Update code with a JavaScript function? Easier than you think 😍

Why NextJS /api routes are fab – CodeWithSwiz 6

In this episode of CodeWithSwiz, we tried NextJS's support for /api routes – code running on the backend. In a word – Wow

Why senior engineers get nothing done

You start a new job and it's amazing. Code all day, clear objectives, easy guidelines, ship a bunch of features be a hero. Then something happens and suddenly you get nothing done. 🤔

Exploring NextJS with a headless CMS, pt4 – CodeWithSwiz

NextJS getStaticProps, environment vars, and why you shouldn't use yarn link – all in this episode of #CodeWithSwiz