Andrew Smith - Sinistra

Syncing your personal and work calendars in Google Calendar.

I live off my Google Calendar, and both my personal and work calendars can get pretty complicated. I found it difficult to keep the two in sync, namely blocking out time in the workday when I have something personal come up (e.g. a

How to upgrade Ruby.

I've done this so many times, and I keep forgetting what exactly needs to be done. So I decided to write it down. Enjoy! You have a few files to update: .ruby-version -- tells various systems (e.g. rvm) which ruby version to use

rails

Testing an attachment CSV with RSpec and controllers.

Ever send down a CSV from a controller like this: def index @users = User.all respond_to do |format| format.csv { send_data @users.to_csv, filename: "users-#{Date.today}.csv" } end endAnd then wonder how you can test the contents as well as

The Value of Validations

A quick story in the importance of database-level validations... At Transparent Classroom, teachers are allowed to react to photos uploaded by parents with either a Heart or a Thumbs Up. Much like Facebook, you can only have reaction for a post. If you click

Fix Invalid Hook Call Warning in React Tests

So you've decided to hop on board the React Hooks train. Welcome to a fun, wild ride. They can add a great deal of declarative power to React. In my opinion, hooks were the missing puzzle piece in the API developed by React. You

javascript

Basic Babel + Webpack setup in 2020.

Babel and Webpack keep evolving. It's time for yet another article about how to set them up for a web project in 2020. You can check out a complete project

languages

Why I Can't Stand Java.

I've been tooling around on Codewars lately, solving challenges as part of morning routine to awaken my brain and sharpen my problem-solving skills. I decided to try my hand at some Java again, and boy, was I in for a rude surprise. Primarily I

frontend

Advanced Redux TDD: Reducers

We do TDD for most development at Transparent Classroom, including our frontend business logic written in Redux. Doing TDD for Redux revealed certain frustrating aspects of structuring and testing Redux. I set out to make it better. This post offers a slightly different structure

web bundling

Ramda, webpack, and tree-shaking.

Are you using Ramda and Webpack? Then you probably want to read this, because chances are good you're importing more of the Ramda library than you might think... We're all big on reducing bundle sizes for the web. When leveraging larger utility libraries such

devops

AWS DevOps for Dummies: Node.js, Elastic Beanstalk, PostgreSQL, & Travis.

I've put together my first screencast demonstrating deployment of a Node.js app with a PostgreSQL backend to AWS using Elastic Beanstalk and Travis as a continuous integration server. I had a lot of fun putting it together, and owe many thanks to Kevin

javascript

Really, Javascript?

I'm a huge fan of JavaScript, but sometimes I'm left flabberghasted by some of its most basic reasoning. // This sort of makes sense... 1 > null // true // ...what? -1 > null // false I would get it if any number was larger than null, but

frontend

Neat features of Flow.

I recently took a couple hours to read through the Flow docs, which was an informative and valuable use of time. Here are a bunch of notes on useful and slightly intuitive aspects of Flow. Many of these code blocks are pulled from the

testing

Jest + Chai and expect.assertions.

At Transparent Classroom, we use both Mocha/Chai to test our modules and Redux code and Jest to test our React components. Mocha/Chai and Jest are very similar in syntax, except for this annoying difference in that the matchers are different, e.g.

frontend

Source maps for Sentry: setting the UTF-8 encoding.

We use Sentry at TransparentClassroom to monitor errors in our front-end application. It's an excellent tool and has proven very useful, but for the longest time we could not get source maps to work correctly. As a consequence, we'd get woefully useless errors like

backend

Node: exploring asynchronous vs. multi-threaded approaches.

I recently ran a small exercise to demonstrate the power, limitations, and workarounds of Node. In the process, I gained a deeper understanding of asynchronous operations, multi-threading, and forking. Many thanks to my mentor, Anoakie, for his valuable help in walking along with me

web bundling

Gulp basics.

Gulp. Without understanding how it works, reading the file can make programmers perform its namesake. (Still, it's better than the equivalent for Grunt. Oh snap!) Gulp automates tasks. From minifying JavaScript to injecting vendor dependencies into your template index.html file, Gulp offers a

continuous integration

Travis CI and you.

Software projects are an iterative process. Tests, linting, and even deployment should occur at every step of that iteration. One can make such tasks much easier with task runners like Grunt or Gulp, but the burden of remembering to do it still lies on

beginner's path

Environment variables.

Environment variables are essential in practically any web app. If you ever use an API where they give you unique credentials, you need them. If you want automation of any kind, you need them. If you want to be able to deploy your app

beginner's path

Code coverage.

Writing tests are useful, but on large projects it can be easy to lose track of what portions have been tested. That is where the concept of code coverage comes in: quantifying the how much of your code is actually used in tests. Tools

vulnerability

Dealing with failure.

Two weeks ago, I failed. It was not the light-weight kind of failure: the "oops, my bad, let's fix it, no big deal." This failure was not the difference between 70% complete and 95% complete. This failure was the kind that crippled

beginner's path

My first open source contribution.

I am now designated as a collaborator on an open source project! It's for DocToc, a npm package with a noticeable userbase: ~900 downloads from npm in the last month, and 200 stars on GitHub. This status upgrade happened because I submitted a feature

beginner's path

First Chrome extension: searching Stack Overflow.

I created my first Chrome extension! It makes it much easier to search Stack Overflow. All you do is type so into the omnibar, hit space, and then enter your search. The barrier to entry for making a Chrome extension was far, far lower

beginner's path

Beginner's guide to testing with Mocha and Chai.

Writing tests in Mocha/Chai can be intimidating to a junior developer. Here are a few steps I used to make that world less scary. For this post, we will focus on the bare minimum to get you testing quickly using the browser. Table

Hack Reactor

Upgrading the dev environment at Hack Reactor.

Every morning at Hack Reactor, the computers are wiped and restored to default settings. This makes a great deal of sense for the school. They generally provide a clean, happy dev environment. Sadly, the environment does not include classic git shortcuts or the iconic

algorithms

Visualizations of Data Structures and Algorithms - Part I

Inspired by the capabilities of the D3 library, I have embarked on a project to visualize common data structures and algorithms. So far, I have created demonstrations for bubble sort and quicksort. This post will recount an interesting design challenge I encountered. Table of