Aug 5, 2020Optimizing a dockerfileThere are 3 major points to consider when optimizing a Docker file: Build context size Cached layers Final image size Build context size The build context is the entirety of the disk contents for the folder containing your Dockerfile, except parts ignored by .dockerignore. …Docker5 min read
Jan 21, 2020Securing a large Gatsby site with a CSPContent security policies are a great way to lock down your website, and it can be relatively painless to get some benefit. (Photo by Piotr Hamryszczak) Recently I shipped a large project using some of the hot new tools in the React community—Gatsby and MDX—serving a global audience with about…React5 min read
Jul 5, 2019How a walkout happens in techAt 1:30pm on Wednesday, June 26th, hundreds of Wayfair employees walked out of the office after failing to reach an agreement with Wayfair’s executives about furnishing an ICE detention center. What I wanted to know is, how does a walkout happen? What is the sequence events that begins with somebody…Work6 min read
Feb 9, 2019The Future of Bitcoin and EthereumThe world has gushed over Bitcoin and Ethereum, but the future doesn’t look so rosy. — I’ve loosely followed cryptocurrency for almost a decade. In 2011, I briefly mined Bitcoin (and Litecoin, when it became clear that GPU mining BTC was unlikely to net me much of a reward) from my college dorm room. Bitcoin’s proof-of-work algorithm to create a trustless ledger was a true innovation…Blockchain6 min read
Jan 21, 2019Symptoms of a dysfunctional teamI’ve had a lot of jobs (8 since 2012), which means I’ve worked with a lot of teams. …Software Development7 min read
Oct 25, 2018Everything you need to know about React Hooks(Also published on my personal blog) React just announced a new feature: Hooks. It’s a brand new set of APIs that enables powerful new ways to share stateful logic between components, optimize performance without significant rewrites, get some of the benefits of Redux-style separation of concerns, and more. They also…React11 min read
Aug 27, 2018Staying on top of new Javascript featuresWith modern JS tooling, we have an opportunity to use Javascript features before they are implemented in browsers or node. However, not all features are equal. Some are more likely than others to be integrated into the language. Some will undergo significant changes before being added, and some will be…Java Script6 min read
Aug 23, 2018Shipping code effectively(Cover photo by Tobias A. Müller) There are a ton of “best practices” preached when talking about authoring software. Ways to improve performance, readability, maintainability, flexibility. Much of the advice is more dogmatic than pragmatic, though. When you’re actually shipping features, what you really need is code that isn’t a…Software Development4 min read
Jul 23, 2018Handling errors with async/await and promisesI love promises. They’re a fantastic model for asynchronous behavior, and await makes it very easy to avoid callback hell (though I'd argue promises do a great job of that on their own). …Java Script5 min read
Jul 9, 2018Testing npm packages before publishingWhen developing an npm package, you have to confirm that it can actually be used. It’s great if tests pass, examples build, and demos run, but it’s broken if consumers can’t install it. npm provides a tool to help test packages before publishing, npm link. The docs explain it very…Java Script3 min read
