Mattie Behrens on Atomic Spin

My Long, Winding Journey to “Software Developer”

There's only one maker at Atomic without a college degree – me. It's been a long, strange road to where I am, but I'm thankful for the experience.

Developer Tools

Spawn Virtual Browsers Effortlessly with Firefox Containers

Firefox's container technology is extremely powerful. Learn how to use it to isolate websites, create virtual browsers at a click, and more.

Web Apps

A JavaScript Object that Dynamically Returns Unknown Properties

When our test fixture complexity was getting out of control, we went looking for a solution that could keep our tests running with less effort required on our part. The JavaScript

Web Apps

Setting Up Windows to Build and Run Node.js Applications

How we get our Windows command-line environments set up for the Node.js (actually, Electron) application my team is developing.

Culture

Feeling Pride at Atomic

What has touched me most has been the love and support I've received from several Atoms since coming out. These Atoms have made me feel more welcome as my real self than I know I w

Personal Optimization

Review: End-to-End Encrypted Notes with Standard Notes

My wishlist for note taking and journaling: multi-device, cloud-synced, end-to-end-encrypted, and open. Standard Notes feels like the kind of solution I'd engineer if I was calling

Growing as Makers

Why a No-moonlighting Guideline Benefits Employees

Moonlighting isn't just something that's in competition with my company; it's very much in competition with me being my best self.

Web Apps

Spreading the Spread and Rest Love

JavaScript's spread syntax has been an extremely useful tool while I've been working extensively with immutable data structures for a React/Redux project.

Developer Tools

Need to Install Tools on Windows? Use Scoop

Scoop feels like Homebrew for Windows. It can also fetch and install packages from the Internet to get you up and running with open-source tools.

UX/Design Techniques

Toggling Switches when the Server Says “No”

When the system was in a particular state, the user was allowed to toggle a switch. Our challenge: how to communicate that yes, we got your click, but we can't actually toggle the

TypeScript

Understanding and Embracing TypeScript’s “readonly”

Want to use JavaScript in a functional way? With TypeScript's readonly, you can rely on static analysis to enforce and flag mutation in your codebase.

Developer Tools

Can the macOS Disk Utility really erase an SSD?

I investigate whether a macOS Disk Utility erase leaves easy-to-read breadcrumbs behind, or whether it cleans up after itself.

Mattie Behrens

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