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The Software Life

Why Software Consultants Benefit from Liberal Arts Education

Technical skills are vital for software development, but success also depends on skills that are at the core of a liberal arts education.

Riley Collins Software Consultant & Developer at Atomic Object Grand Rapids.

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Growing as Makers • Apr 13

Do the Interesting Work

Interesting work sticks. Lessons learned while genuinely engaged are retained longer, bolstering competence for future challenges.

Business Practices • Apr 12

First Impressions Matter: Sales Intake Strategies That Work

Answering inquiries isn't simply administrative work but an essential part of the sales intake process. That first interaction sets the tone.

Exploratory Testing • Apr 11

You Can’t Outsource Test-Driven Development to AI

A software engineer uses AI to write unit tests first — but the results reveal why true Test-Driven Development can’t be outsourced.

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Developer Tools View more Developer Tools posts →

Pictured are two developers with laptops discussing using Zod to Upgrade Your Form Validation

Developer Tools

Use Zod to Upgrade Your Form Validation

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RAG with Pinecone + LangChain

Developer Tools

Simplify RAG with Pinecone + LangChain

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4 Apps to Visualize Redis Stream Data, including Redis Commander, pictured here

Developer Tools

Try These 4 Apps to Visualize Redis Stream Data

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Pictured: a team of developers considering the question "Strapi or Not?"

Developer Tools

Strapi or Not? Making the Right Choice

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UX/Design Tools View more UX/Design Tools posts →

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React / Redux View more React / Redux posts →

Use React Hook Form with Zod Validation: Part One

React / Redux

Use React Hook Form with Zod Validation: Part One

React Hook Form is a library that smoothly handles forms in React. Let's look at examples of how to use React Hook Form with Zod validation.

Improve Asynchronous State UX in React with useOptimistic

React / Redux

Improve Asynchronous State UX in React with useOptimistic

React 19’s useOptimistic hook helps reduces annoyances by providing a built-in hook for Optimistic Updates.

Decide Between Server and Client Components

React / Redux

The Only Question to Ask Yourself to Decide Between Server and Client Components

Can't decide between server components and client components in React? Here's one question to ask yourself to pick correctly.

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Web Apps View more Web Apps posts →

How to Build and Publish Browser Extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari

Web Apps

How to Build and Publish Browser Extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari

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Embedding Payload CMS 3.0 Admin UI in Your Next.js App

Web Apps

Embed Payload CMS 3.0 Admin UI in Your Next.js App

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About a year ago, I used Remix on a short prototype app to that displayed a series of reports and I loved it. For those who don’t know. Remix is a framework for building websites. It uses React JS as a base and adds some specialized compiling. The app was a great use case for Remix for a few reasons. First, the pre-built stacks got the app deployed quickly. The main parts of Remix that shined were its prefetching, directory-based routing, and its loader functions. The prefetching helped the reports load faster because some data would be retrieved before the user navigated. The directory-based routing made it easy to setup the structure of the app. Last, Remix’s loader functions were able to retrieve small amounts of data each as it was needed. I am now using Remix on a second website that has a different structure than the prototype and we aren’t able to use the same features to the same degree. This time around, I am finding myself using fewer of the features mentioned previously. We aren’t using perfecting because we have a single page with a lot of complexity. We have fewer loader functions retrieving lots of information at once which makes them perform worse. The main difference that I found between the two projects is that the prototype was a multipage app and the second has been turning into a single page app (SPA). Based on Remix's documentation and my experience the best use cases for Remix are ones that can be modeled as multiple pages. Challenges for single page apps For this post, when I refer to a single page app I am referring to an app that tries to pack a variety of behaviors onto a single route. An example would be Google Calendar. Pictured below: In order to render this page, we need to load a few different things. We need to load all the events for this month, all the calendars for the user, and the details for the apps along the lefthand side. Then to use the app, we need to track which event is selected. When the user drags an event, we need to keep track of the calendar it is on. Then when it is placed, an alert is displayed if there are any conflicts. This state and behavior may need to be done in one component, which means one loader function. We may also want to perform component tests which are only partially supported in Remix, based on this git conversation. Make it optimal Instead, let’s talk about structuring an app to leverage Remix’s strengths. I am assuming we want to make use of Remix’s speedy loading while getting around some of its component testing limitations.The files that are used for routing should each be responsible for retrieving, displaying and mutating a limited set of information. As an example of a UI structure that could work well in Remix let’s look at Slack. Slack's UI can be visually broken down into three sections. The workspaces are on the far left. Then the channels within the selected workspace are listed, and lastly, we have the current chat for the selected workspace. A Remix app with this UI could have a URL like: slack/workspace2/proj-new-website. The root of the app would get the list of all workspaces, then /workspace2 would load the details for the selected workspace. Lastly, the chat window for /proj-new-website would load the chats and display them. This app can be modeled as a multipage app because the responsibilities are spread at different levels of the page instead of being concentrated in one component, like with the Google Calendar example. This would be a Slack-like app, and a better use case for Remix than a calendar app. Use the right tool for the job Remix is a powerful tool for web development. It can produce polished prototypes quickly and can build performant production apps. However, an app in Remix needs to keep Remix's design principles in mind. This means splitting the app's pages into pieces that can be loaded and rendered separately and keeping components as simple as possible in order to limit component testing on the frontend. Designing an app this way will enable the app to leverage the performance benefits promised by Remix.

Web Apps

Remix is Incredible — If It Fits Your Use Case

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Vercel: A Valuable Debugging Tool

Web Apps

Vercel: A Valuable Debugging Tool

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Development Practices View more Development Practices posts →

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DevOps & System Admin View more DevOps & System Admin posts →

Hot Reloading Kubernetes with Skaffold

DevOps & System Admin.

How to Hot Reload Kubernetes with Skaffold

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Docker Compose Dependency Management Isn't a Silver Bullet

DevOps & System Admin.

Docker Compose Dependency Management Isn’t a Silver Bullet

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Working with Docker Containers Made Easy with the dexec Bash Script

DevOps & System Admin.

Working with Docker Containers Made Easy with the dexec Bash Script

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How and Why You Should Add Color to Your Scripts

DevOps & System Admin.

How and Why You Should Add Color to Your Scripts

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Extracurricular Activities View more Extracurricular Activities posts →

Build a Joke-Telling Chatbot with LangGraph and Streamlit

Extracurricular Activities

Build a Joke-Telling Chatbot with LangGraph and Streamlit

Let's explore how to build an interactive joke-telling chatbot - including a setup and punchline - using LangGraph, LangChain, and Streamlit.

A photo of multiple stacked networking switches with many blue ethernet cables coming out of them

Extracurricular Activities

How to Run the Pterodactyl Game Panel Behind Tailscale

By setting up your Pterodactyl panel behind Tailscale, you can ditch risky open ports and secure your server with a simple, private mesh VPN.

Building a Game with AI: A 30-Minute Experiment

Extracurricular Activities

Building a Game with AI: A 30-Minute Experiment

I wanted to see how far I could get programming a game with an AI chatbot, while only using two keyboard shortcuts—copy and paste.

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.NET / WPF View more .NET / WPF posts →

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Personal Optimization View more Personal Optimization posts →

Embrace Your Talk-to-Think Communication Style at Work

Personal Optimization

Embrace Your Talk-to-Think Communication Style at Work

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You Don’t Know Everything and That Is Ok

Personal Optimization

You Don’t Know Everything, and That Is Okay

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Software Developers: Don't Do it Later. Do it Now-ish.

Personal Optimization

Software Developers: Don’t Do it Later. Do it Now-ish.

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TypeScript View More TypeScript posts →

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React Native View more React Native posts →

Don't Reinvent the Wheel or the Modal. Use React Native Reusables Instead.

React Native

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel or the Modal. Use React Native Reusables Instead.

React Native Reusables is a toolkit that lets you instantly add pre-built, customizable, and time-tested components to your React Native app.

How to Style MUI Line Chart Components

React Native

How to Style MUI Line Chart Components

Styling an MUI component can be challenging. This guide shows ways to customize the LineChart component to achieve your desired look.

Embrace App Monitors: A Solution for State Changes in React Native

React Native

Embrace App Monitors: A Solution for State Changes in React Native

Let's look at why relying solely on useEffect might make your code a bit of a puzzle and how App Monitors can alleviate this issue.

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Growing as Makers View more Growing as Makers posts →

Three developers look over a problem on the computer. Jake Silas says: Do the Interesting Work

Growing as Makers

Do the Interesting Work

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Working Ahead of the Curve: How Developers Become Consultants

Growing as Makers

Working Ahead of the Curve: How Developers Become Consultants

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Junior Devs: Avoid These Pitfalls with LLMs

Growing as Makers

Junior Devs: Avoid These Pitfalls with LLMs

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The Secrets to Being an Effective Mentor and Mentee

Growing as Makers

The Secrets to Being an Effective Mentor and Mentee

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Atomic Thinking View more Atomic Thinking posts →

First Impressions Matter: Sales Intake Strategies That Work

Business Practices

First Impressions Matter: Sales Intake Strategies That Work

Answering inquiries isn't simply administrative work but an essential part of the sales intake process. That first interaction sets the tone.

What the Concept of Council Taught Me About Generous Attention

Culture

What Snap (Improbably) Taught Me About Generous Attention

I facilitated Councils with my family and with my team. Each one build an ineffable sense of attention, culture and care. I'm hooked.

The Power and Perils of Place: Weighing Colocation vs. Distribution

Managing Your Team

The Power and Perils of Place: Weighing Colocation vs. Distribution

According to PMI's IT Project Success Survey, co-location in agile teams achieve a 79% success rate compared to just 55% for distribution.

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