Project Euler is a great resource for anyone looking to brush up their programming and mathematics skills. They have over 700 problems of varying difficulty. I recently completed problem 1, which you can access here. Project Euler 1 To get set up with Project Euler, you'll want to make an account (it's optional, but you can't track progress without it). To do so, go to Project Euler's homepage and…
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Social cards are pretty cool when they work. But you're probably wondering: What on Earth is a social card? Social cards are the auto-generated website previews that you see when a URL is sent via Twitter, Slack, Discord, etc. I recently fixed the ones for my blog so that instead of looking like this: Bad Social Card They look like this: Good Social Card Here are the changes I made to my code…
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Imgbot can be added to any GitHub repository and essentially compresses the images in that repository as needed to increase performance. Each image compression (or set of image compressions) is submitted as a pull request, so you still have control of how your files are altered. This is especially helpful in repositories running websites (like the repository for this blog!). Installing Imgbot To…
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Scroll down to the bottom of this page, and you'll see a brand-new comments section! This comments section is powered by Disqus and allows (as you might expect) commenting on my blog posts. But how, you ask, did I get this set up? And how can you set it up on your own blog? How I Set Up Disqus There are two main steps to setting up Disqus. The first is to go to disqus.com, set up an account, and…
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The String Calculator Kata is a great kata for practicing test-driven development. In this kata, you spend 30 minutes trying to complete as many of the 9 sections as possible, but the idea is that you never read ahead - only read the step you're on. You can view the instructions here. This attempt, I got through only 3 sections, though I did spend a lot of time googleing C# syntax, since I'm used…
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I recently tried the FizzBuzz kata again, this time using the Pseudocode Programming Process described by Steve McConnell in Code Complete. The last time I tried this kata I used test-driven development instead. Open Terminal in VS Code, navigate to desired folder run to create project use to open that project Go to Ardalis's FizzBuzz Kata Instructions Create under the same namespace as the…
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I'm working my way through the second edition of Code Complete by Steve McConnell. Here are my notes from Part 2: Creating High-Quality Code. Part 2 includes chapters 5-9: Design in Construction, Working Classes, High-Quality Routines, Defensive Programming, and the Pseudocode Programming Process. 5. Design in Construction Design is inevitably a part of construction "Recognizing design as an…
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What is Gatsby? Gatsby is a framework that allows developers to build websites and apps from scratch or from open source templates. It is a very powerful tool, but you have to get past a lot of annoying quirks to see the benefits of Gatsby. More on these later. What is Netlify? Netlify builds websites from repositories and instantly rebuilds your site with each new git push. Netlify can easily be…
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Why do I want Google Analytics? Google Analytics will give you the ability to see how many users your site gets and which parts of your site they look at most. It's also pretty easy to connect to your Gatsby blog using it in combination with Google Tag Manager and the Gatsby plugin for Google Tag Manager. How to Connect your Blog First, you'll need both a Google Analytics and a Google Tag Manager…
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Here are my notes on how to do the FizzBuzz code kata, which is great for test-driven development, starting from just creating the file in the Command Prompt. To get the most out of this, do steps 1-4, do the rest of the kata on your own, then use these notes if you get stuck. Open Terminal in VS Code, navigate to desired folder. use "cd.." to navigate up a directory, use "cd " + folder name to…
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