Sometimes, I write.
I find joy in building things. Then, I find joy in writing about what I've learned in the process. I suspect I learn new things just for the sake of having catchy stories to write later on. This blog is where I gather my technical entries, from newest to oldest.
Don't fancy getting updates through capricious algorithms? Subscribe to my newsletter or grab the RSS feed.
More Minitest::Spec shenanigans
While I already covered the basics of `Minitest::Spec`, I forgot to discuss a few aspects of the spec flavor. This post serves as a complement to the previous one and digs a bit deeper into some extra `Minitest::Spec` shenanigans.
Read this essay →What is Minitest::Spec?
In my previous post, I talked a lot about how Minitest comes in various syntax flavors. One flavor I did not cover much is Minitest's spec extension.
Read this essay →Marketing Haikus
Just a list of haikus, mostly written when I was working (and being bored out of my wits) in marketing. Making fun as a tool to push through.
Read this essay →Lost in Minitest? Start here!
I have a confession to make: I have never used Minitest in the seven years I've been a professional programmer. Lured by the promise of speed and wide adoption, I decided to try Minitest. Then I hit an unexpected roadblock.
Read this essay →Finally learning a new language
For years, people around me have been telling me to learn new programming languages—that I shouldn’t corner myself with Ruby (and Rails). And for years, I couldn’t muster the mental energy to do it.
Read this essay →Build a minimal decorator with Ruby in 30 minutes
A while ago, I needed to add some view-related instance methods to a model. Decorators are my go-to pattern to handle this kind of logic. So, I built a minimal decorator from scratch, added a bunch of extra behaviors, only to end up abstracting all of that away. Follow along!
Read this essay →Speed up RSpec tests: understand lifecycle and execution
One of RSpec's strengths is the legibility of its behavior-based DSL. The other side of this coin is that the proliferation of small example blocks introduces a performance overhead.
Read this essay →How I use git add --patch for reviewing my work
When working on features, I strive to preserve my flow, which means, that after a few hours, I'll have a bunch of untracked files waiting for me in git. I use `git add --patch` to effectively bundling my work into separate commits.
Read this essay →Poking around PostgreSQL full-text search: a beginners primer
Today, I want to share a different type of post. Nothing polished. Just me goofing around with PostgreSQL's full-text search capabilities.
Read this essay →Interfacing with external APIs: the facade pattern in Ruby
Interacting with third-party APIs is common practice in applications. This is where the structural design pattern called facade comes into play.
Read this essay →What if your private method was a public method? A practical tip to identify bad design
Where I share a badly designed piece of code, think about what process I can use to reveal its flaws, and how to make it better.
Read this essay →Add comments to your tables columns
Add extra documentation to your columns attributes with this one weird trick.
Read this essay →Delegated types in Rails: a real-life application
Delegated types are a modelization pattern introduced in Rails in 2020. And developers have mostly been scratching their head for a few years trying to use them in their applications. Today, I want to share a real-world use case. I'll walk you through my pre-existing domain architecture, my initial requirements, my mistakes, how I eventually used delegated types, what I learned and my open questions.
Read this essay →Pick a standard and move on
Why would you spend your cognitive capacity on useless choices?
Read this essay →Domain complexity vs applicative complexity
For years, code would fall into two categories: easy (good!) and hard (bad!). Recently, I've realized that not every piece of _hard_ code is created equal. Complex code often encompasses two kinds of complexity: domain complexity and applicative complexity. And I often failed to identify which is which.
Read this essay →Growing old as a programmer
I’ll be turning 40 this year, and I’ve started to wonder about my professional life in the next two decades. Not a lot of 60-year-old developers, hey?
Read this essay →Refactoring in practice: moving toward convention
A few months ago, I had to write a Rails micro-service that synchronizes data between two versions of an application. I'll show you the successive steps I used to refactor this piece of code, from shameless-green to convention.
Read this essay →Technical tests in 2023: were they any good?
As I'm reaching the end of this recruiting cycle, I wanted to reflect on the recruiting processes I've completed. Some were good, some not so much.
Read this essay →Algorithms are fun... I guess?
Something happened to me last week I didn't expect: I enjoyed working my way through algorithms. You may find me overly dramatic, but remember, I'm from the art world. Algorithm is a fancy term to describe the act of painting rectangles of colour in a specific pattern.
Read this essay →Looking for a job: handling fatigue and loneliness
Today, I would like to try something different. No polished new entries, just me sharing my day-to-day looking for a new job.
Read this essay →