Using Mind Maps for Technical Planning and Writing

One of the tools that I’ve added to my development and writing workflows since starting at Atomic is mind mapping software. I’ve found that creating a mind map is a great starting point for both technical development and writing things like blog posts. There are lots of different mind mapping apps, spanning all different computing […]

Creating Type-Safe Paths for Formik Forms

Formik is a great React form library; it takes in, validates, and submits user input in a way that’s fairly flexible and reusable. Unfortunately, Formik uses field names to tie a field into its form. These field names are typed only as strings and use a dotted path notation to dig into nested fields. This […]

Ergonomic Struct Updates in Swift

Lately, I’ve been working on a project that employs a Redux-inspired state management architecture built using Swift and SwiftUI. Of course, because of the Redux pattern we employ, we have lots of reducers with the signature (state, action) -> state. All of our states and sub-states are held in Swift structs. The out-of-the-box, value-type semantics […]

Changing Constraints: Thoughts on Postponing a Wedding

On March 11, 2020, Atomic Object made the decision to have employees work from home due to the coronavirus. That was about two months from my upcoming wedding, planned for May 16. Our plan was to invite around 175 friends and family for a beautiful ceremony, followed by a night of barbecue, toasts, and dancing. […]

Supercharge Your Caps Lock: Remapping with Karabiner Elements

Lately, I’ve been trying to learn and use Vim keybindings whenever possible. I don’t have any hard stats to prove that my productivity has increased, but I feel like I spend less time bumbling around editors and more time putting the cursor where I want it. Vim is a great tool in my professional tool belt. […]

Command Line Fuzzy Find with fzf

My first project at Atomic Object indoctrinated me into the magic of VS Code’s fuzzy find feature. It was mind-blowing to jump directly to a file by typing a rough approximation of its full name. Then, my next project found me working in Android Studio and Xcode, both of which implement similarly excellent fuzzy finders. […]

Pay No Attention: Behind the Magic of Ruby DSLs

Recently, I rolled onto a mobile project with a web back end written in Ruby on Rails. This was my first experience with both Ruby and Rails. The first feature work I did in the back end involved adding an administrative portal using Active Admin. I found myself negotiating the learning curve of not only […]

Straight to the Source (Code): Getting up to Speed on New Libraries

I started my career at Atomic Object about four months ago. During that time, I’ve needed to get up to speed on a tech stack where I only had bits and pieces of experience. I had to learn to navigate a far bigger project than anything I had worked on during my time in college. […]

A Case for Props Drilling in React with TypeScript

I recently worked on a story to replace a dynamic, clever use of React’s useContext hook with a technique called props drilling. For some developers, this might seem like a step backward. In our case, however, the combination of props drilling and TypeScript’s safety and editor support allowed for a simpler, more bug-proof development experience.

Atomic Spin

Atomic Object’s blog on everything we find fascinating.

By: Nick Keuning

Author: Nick Keuning