I’ve been working in F# lately, and one of its smaller features has had a big impact on my programming style: Variables are immutable by default. If you want to change something, you have to declare it mutable. Sometimes, this is what I naturally reach for, and the language rubs my nose in it.
Here’s a story of one of those instances, and a new pattern I’ve picked up as a result. Read more on Folding Away Mutations in F#…
I previously wrote about building a Node app on VSTS Windows agents. Since then, we’ve started using headless Chrome on those agents. Here’s how. Read more on Headless Chrome with Testem on VSTS-Hosted Agents…
I’ve been a happy user of wasd mechanical keyboards at home and work for years, but lately I’ve grown interested in improved ergonomics. Some of my colleagues use various generations of Microsoft ergo boards, but I wanted the flexibility of a split board and didn’t want to give up mechanical switches.
When I learned of Kinesis’ new split mechanical keyboard (shortly after its successful Kickstarter), I knew I had to try it. Read more on Review: Kinesis Freestyle Edge Keyboard…
Say you’re building a modern web front end with tools in the JavaScript ecosystem, but you work for a Microsoft shop, so you’re looking down the barrel of running CI in Windows on [Visual Studio Team Services][VSTS]. I’ve been in this situation for a while now, and I have a few tips. Read more on Tips for Building Your Node App on VSTS Windows Agents…
I recently found myself looking for a modern tool to diagram relationships between tables of data. When I came up short, I used a very old tool instead. Read more on Table Relationship Diagrams with Graphviz…
.NET Core makes it convenient to develop and test C# code across platforms. On my current project, this means we can do much of our work on Macs without ever firing up a Windows VM.
Even the best abstraction layers occasionally leak, though. Here’s a story of an OSX-specific issue we encountered, what we learned, and how to resolve it. Read more on .NET Core, OSX, libcurl, and OpenSSL…
Dynamic DNS (DDNS) can give your home’s changing IP a reliable hostname. I recently redid mine with some new tools. Here’s how it went! Read more on DIY Dynamic DNS with OpenWRT and Google Domains…
I’ve been meaning to try out fish for ages, and I was finally inspired to dive in after reading Julia Evans’ recent take on it. In this post, I’ll describe some highlights from my first week. Read more on fish (Shell) for a Week…
I don’t think I have a particularly common name, but I’ve received email intended for at least four other John Rubles. This creates awkward and amusing situations. Here are some of my stories and some lessons we can take from them for implementing email-based account systems. Read more on That’s Not Your Email Address…
Our client wanted a demo version of their Ember app to take to trade shows, use for sales demos, etc. Ideally, it would run on a laptop with no internet connection and not require the use of any developer tools. We decided to run the Ember app against a mocked backend.
Read more on Build an Offline Demo of your Ember App with Ember CLI Mirage…
