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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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UX/Design Practices • Apr 28

Designing for Everyone: Tools to Help You Nail Accessible Color Contrast

Accessible color contrast and strong visual design aren’t at odds. Build a palette that’s on brand, beautiful, and fully WCAG-compliant.

Growing as Makers • Apr 27

Crucial Conversations: In the Heat of it – What to Keep in Mind When Dialogue Isn’t Easy

In part one of this series on Crucial Conversations, we prepared. Next, here's how to keep the conversation real and respectful.

Culture • Apr 26

Coaching That Pushes Without Breaking

High expectations for early-career employees only lead to growth when matched with meaningful support. That’s where coaching comes in.

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Developer Tools View more Developer Tools posts →

Blog post author Michael Li is pictured discussing with fellow developers: A Guide to Browser DevTools - The Console

Developer Tools

A Guide to Browser DevTools – The Console

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Author Doug Shipp is pictured, discussing "Cursor Tips I Learned from Vibe Coders: A Guide to AI-Powered Development"

Developer Tools

Cursor Tips I Learned from Vibe Coders: A Guide to AI-Powered Development

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A screen reading: "Permission Denied" Error: Fixing Azure Docker Containers

Developer Tools

“Permission Denied” Error: Fixing Azure Docker Containers

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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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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 →

Extracurricular Activities

Bringing Your Raspberry Pi on the Road: A Portable Pi Setup Guide

With this Portable Pi Guide, you'll make your Raspberry Pi travel-ready using Tailscale and your phone’s hotspot — no extra gear needed.

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.

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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 →

Pictured is a hand with a pen writing in a notebook, illustrating a point "Retake Your Pen" from the article Crucial Conversations: In the Heat of It

Growing as Makers

Crucial Conversations: In the Heat of it – What to Keep in Mind When Dialogue Isn’t Easy

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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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Atomic Thinking View more Atomic Thinking posts →

Coaching That Pushes Without Breaking

Culture

Coaching That Pushes Without Breaking

High expectations for early-career employees only lead to growth when matched with meaningful support. That’s where coaching comes in.

Double Take: What Digital Twins Can Do for Your Business

Product Development

Double Take: What Digital Twins Can Do for Your Business

Digital Twins might sound futuristic, but they aren't science fiction. Businesses use them to make smarter decisions with real-world data.

Pictured is author Matthew Harper and other developers discussing the topic: Why Developer Experience Matters in Software Consulting

Product Development

Why Developer Experience Matters in Software Consulting

Learn why consultants should prioritize Developer Experience (DX) to boost productivity and deliver lasting project success.

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