Software Developer
Go to a grocery store right now and try to fill a cart for a family of four. Watch the total climb past $200 before you’ve even hit the dairy aisle. Then open your phone and scroll through your timeline. A tech CEO is bragging about how many tokens he burned this month. Another is posting a wrist-shot of a $40,000 watch. A politician is musing about a new carbon surcharge. A fund manager is…
There is a bill moving through Parliament right now called Bill C-22. You might not have heard much about it because the media is busy covering whatever distraction the government has cooked up this week. But you should know about it, because if it passes, it will fundamentally change what it means to be a Canadian with a phone, a laptop, or a private conversation.
I have been writing Ruby for more than fifteen years now. Started back when Rails 3 and 3.1 were current and everyone was still figuring out how to deploy with capistrano. Back then I chose it mostly because it felt pleasant to type. All these years later, after switching between languages for work and side projects, I keep coming back. Ruby is not the fastest or the trendiest, but it still feels…
I sat down last week to fix a small bug in one of my side projects. Nothing dramatic, just a weird race condition in a background job. Ten years ago this would have been a whole evening. I’d open the code, stare at it, make a change, run the test suite, swear a bit when it failed again, make another change, go for a walk, come back, and eventually land on something that worked.
There has probably never been a better time to be a Mac user who likes small, opinionated software.
For years, Microsoft survived on inertia. Windows was the default. Office was the default. GitHub, after the acquisition, became the default forge for software teams. That kind of position lets a company coast for a long time.
A few weeks ago I bought a Kamrui Pinova P2 off Amazon for around two hundred and fifty dollars. AMD Ryzen 4300U, 16GB of DDR4 (single channel, socketed and upgradeable), 512GB M.2 NVMe. The whole thing is about the size of a thick paperback. It came with Windows 11 Pro installed, which I booted exactly once to confirm the hardware worked, then immediately reached for a USB stick.
We were once told that our healthcare system was a crown jewel of Canadian identity—a beacon of universal, high-quality care that set us apart from the rest of the world. But for those of us living through it today, that narrative has completely shattered. What we have now isn’t a healthcare system; it’s a series of failures, long waits, bad service, and a growing sense of desperation.
I’ll admit it: I had grown quite rusty in front-end development. Over the past few years, my focus has been deeply entrenched in backend systems—optimizing database queries, building robust APIs, and scaling infrastructure. Every time I glanced over the fence at the modern front-end ecosystem, I was met with a bewildering array of meta-frameworks, complex hydration strategies, and an obsession…
For over a decade, Sidekiq has been the undisputed king of background job processing in the Ruby on Rails ecosystem. Powered by Redis, it offered blazing speed, reliability, and an excellent ecosystem. But with the release of Rails 8, the “omakase” menu has officially changed. DHH and the Rails core team introduced Solid Queue, a DB-backed background job processor that leverages modern RDBMS…
I used to call myself a classic liberal. I believed in the fundamental pillars of individual liberty, free speech, free markets, and a government that existed to serve its people, not to rule over them. But over the last decade, I have watched the political left abandon these principles, plunging headfirst into a brand of creeping authoritarianism that has left me, and millions of other Canadians,…
Hey there, fellow sufferers of urban disappointment! If you’re reading this, you’re either an Ottawa resident desperately seeking validation for your daily rage, or you’re some wide-eyed tourist thinking, “Ooh, Canada’s capital! How quaint!” Spoiler: It’s not. Ottawa is like that one friend who shows up to the party in a tuxedo T-shirt – thinks it’s fancy, but everyone knows it’s just a sad…
Tired of the same old bland terminal? Does staring at a wall of monochrome text make you yearn for something more… you? Well, buckle up, fellow command-line aficionados, because we’re about to embark on a thrilling journey into the world of terminal ricing. Think of it as giving your terminal a makeover–a personalized touch that not only looks fantastic but also enhances your workflow.
I’ll say it upfront: I genuinely enjoy writing Ruby. Its focus on developer happiness is real. The language is elegant, expressive, and the Ruby on Rails framework is a productivity powerhouse. But no language is perfect. After years of working with it, certain “features” and quirks have gone from minor annoyances to significant frustrations.
Canada has long been known as a welcoming and inclusive country—open to people from all walks of life. And for a time, that reputation felt well-earned. But in recent years, the cracks in the system have become impossible to ignore. Poor planning and government complacency have had a serious impact on housing, healthcare, the job market, and almost every other aspect of daily life.
73 is often considered the best number because of its unique mathematical properties. Here’s why:
Alright, folks, Rails 8 just dropped, and it’s packed with some seriously game-changing features! Whether you’re the kind of developer who loves deploying on cloud VMs or want to keep things simple on your own hardware, this version has you covered. Let’s dive into the highlights.
As a software developer, the tools you choose can make or break your productivity. With the right setup, you can streamline your workflow, focus more on coding, and less on the distractions of managing your environment. Here’s a breakdown of the essential tools I use daily for software development, and why you might want to consider incorporating them into your own toolkit.
Introduction