How to Test Storybook with Cypress
Storybook can be really useful for a team developing a web app. But like any software, it’s prone to rot when left untested. On my current project, I finally have a good way to test it. Here’s how!
Author: John Ruble
How to Use an Old iPhone as a Webcam for Your Mac
So we’re all working remotely right now and participating in a lot of video chats. Unfortunately, laptop webcams are generally terrible.
A Quick Guide to Building a Custom Docker Image for CI
Most of today’s popular CI services support running jobs in arbitrary Docker containers. In this post, I’ll describe why Docker is such a great fit for CI and how it can be made even better with custom images.
LocalStack + Terraform + CircleCI for Lambda without AWS
On my current project, we’re using LocalStack in lieu of AWS for development and test. In this post, I’ll walk through how we’ve set it up and what we can do with it.
Android Emulator on CircleCI’s MacOS Executor
The Android Emulator, unfortunately, doesn’t work in CircleCI’s conventional (Docker-based) Android build environment. With a little tinkering, though, we can make it work in another environment!
Sharing TypeScript Code Between Web and React Native
We’re building a hybrid mobile app out of an existing web app. The front end will run out of a webview, and we’re adapting the back end to run on-device in [React Native]. One of the challenges we encountered was how to share code between our existing [monorepo] built with [webpack] and our new React […]
Ergonomic TypeScript Generics with Higher-Order Functions
Much of TypeScript’s flexibility comes from its support for generics. They’re great for building up reusable abstractions so that you can share the “how” across your codebase even as the “what” varies significantly. In this post, I’ll describe a limitation that recently got in my way, and how I worked around it.
Document Your Project’s package.json File
The package.json file is the heart of any Node.js project, but it often goes entirely undocumented. In this post, I’ll review a few areas that are worth documenting, and how I like to do it.
Organize One-Off Task Files with Dated Work Directories
Say you’re about to begin a task that will involve working with some files. Perhaps you’re creating a diagram or encoding some GIFs. Where do you put the files?
Replacing Heroku Review Apps on Non-GitHub Projects
If your software team develops multiple new features simultaneously, you need to be able to deploy and test them in isolation. The gold standard for this is to use Heroku’s review apps, which are temporary environments automatically spun up for each pull request. Unfortunately, the feature only works with GitHub; if you’re using another source […]