Backend Web

7 articles · all categories

December 2021

pg-mem and jest for smooth integration testing

The cult of TDD leads you down a dark and stormy path towards brittle code with a false sense of security. But there is a better way. A sweet spot between unit and heavy integration.

March 2021

If you can JavaScript, you can backend

When you think of a backend or server developer, who comes to mind? A wizard of arcane magics. The future belongs to full-stack frontend engineers.

August 2020

In 2020's, what is "frontend"? 🤨

"He's a frontend guy, is this even a fair question to ask?" The head of engineering was worried about our systems design question …

March 2020

How you can start using GraphQL today without changing the backend

GraphQL for new projects looks great ... buuuut how do you use it with that old backend cobbled together in Rails over the last bazillion years?

September 2019

REST API best practice in a GraphQL world

GraphQL is taking the world by storm and it is wonderful. But in the real world, you're still dealing with REST APIs aren't you?

May 2019

TypeScript for serverless lambda backends 👌

A few months ago I inherited a Kotlin project. It was an unfinished prototype and all I had to do was wrap it up and deploy. Every time I touched the project, it broke. Nothing worked. Wouldn't run on my machine, wouldn't read API requests, couldn't get tests working, if I changed some code I broke it all. That's when I realized learning a new field is super hard

June 2014

My new favourite Javascript trick

Using returns and callbacks in the same function. Sounds like crazy talk I know, but hear me out, I have good reason. I think.