Technical blog of a full stack software engineer, working on all things web since 2013
I have noticed a trend recently of library authors abandoning their CHANGELOG.md files, in favour of Github Releases. For a library author, the choice is understandable. A Github Release message contains much the same information as a changelog, so why duplicate effort and risk having no source of truth by maintaining both? But there’s a pretty big problem with this: Github Releases today sucks UX…
GraphQL is an incredible piece of technology that has captured a lot of mindshare since I first started slinging it in production in 2018. You won’t have to look far back on this (rather inactive) blog to see I have previously championed this technology. After building many a React SPA on top of a hodge podge of untyped JSON REST APIs, I found GraphQL a breath of fresh air. I was truly a GraphQL…
In a previous post I talked about how I set up server side rendering of React components in Rails with Hypernova . I went on to build a complex Ruby based GraphQL data pre-fetcher because I could not work out how to do asynchronous pre-fetching of data in Hypernova alone. Well, it turns out though unclearly documented, its actually quite easy to do async pre-render work in Hypernova. That means we…
UPDATE: This post has been made redundant by my discovery of a simpler approach. Please see: Server Side Rendering for React + Apollo GraphQL Client . In a previous post I talked about how I set up server side rendering of React components in Rails with Hypernova . One detail I skimmed over in that post was how I got the data dependencies of our React components in Ruby-land. We’re a React +…
I recently discovered Hypernova , a wonderful tool from Airbnb, making the unimaginable possible: server side rendered React components, in a Rails app, with no Node server required in development, or even production . In the post, I’ll walk you through how to make this a reality in four steps: Installing Webpacker 3.4.1, in a Rails 4.2+ app Installing Hypernova Ruby Client , initially just client…
For a Rails side project recently I finally had the need for a background task handler. Now traditionally I’d jump at Sidekiq , and for good reason. It’s sexy, relatively simple, and comes with a ton of niceties like automatic exponential back-off retries. For this project however, at least at this stage, Sidekiq is overkill. We just need to run some ActionMailers out of the render loop, so we’d…
The topic that’s got me - and it seems a great deal of others - hot under the collar lately is that of the ‘self driving’ car. As Google and others further the technology necessary for a world free from steering wheels, one can’t help but wonder just what that world will be like. Many have dabbled in this topic but I hope to raise some points here I’ve not myself heard. Resistance While we’ve come…
Time for some serious business. Buzzfeed level serious. Today we’re talking about something a Brit holds dear and oft claims Americans do not. Today we’re talking about… chocolate . One of the many things friends and family repeatadly warn you of before flying out is invariably how shit the chocolate in America is. “They put weird stuff in it! Anti melting agents!” they say. Well of course,…
This is how the weekend began. Its been a few days since the 48 hour coding grind that was the Launch Hackathon , and I think I’ve caught up on enough sleep to attempt a cohesive paragraph or two. Launch prided itself on being the largest hackathon ever, with 1,500 applicants. They didn’t all show, but it was certainly huge. That room is where I spent the entirety of my weekend. From Friday to…
Up until now I’ve found it hard to articulate exactly what it is that makes Silicon Valley such a different experience to the rest of the world, but after a few weeks of living it, I think I’ve got it now. Let me take you through some of the mad things than happen here that are just considered normal to the locals. Firstly, the sheer density of tech workers here noticeably affects the culture of…