/* Code-Comments */

Git Cherry Pick

Yesterday, I wrote about [how to pull a specific files from another branch into your branch](../../2019-12-07/git-copy-files-between…

Easily Copy Files Between Branches

Frequently, I want to pull in just a single file from another git branch. I always need to look up the specifics, so I’m documenting it to…

Live Debugging Of Storybook In Chrome With VSCode

While Storybook is great for communicating the potential of different components, debugging issues with components can be more of a…

Harvey Balls And Visual Communication

If you're like me, you've likely never heard of a Harvey Ball - though you'd recognize them if you saw it. That's because Harvey Balls are…

Conditional Storybook Knobs: How To Keep Stories Clean

I'm a big fan of Storybook JS. It makes sharing what's possible with a React component trivial.¹ There is a potential problem…

Determine Which Shell Is Currently Running

If you [switch between shells](../../2019-09-02/change-default-shell-zsh), it might be handy to determine which one is currently running…

Package.Json Script Management Techniques

When you have a lot of scripts in your npm package, it can get overwhelming. Recently a colleague introduced a new pattern in one of our…

Email Templates In Anchor Tag HRef

I was looking to plan an event recently at [Beermiscuous](https://beermiscuous.com/), a beer cafe in Chicago that I really like. Their…

Postgres Interactive Shell, Start, Stop, And Docker

Recently I was working with a Docker image of a Postgres database. Everything was going great.  At one point, I…

HTML Symbols & ASCII Characters

Recently, I went on a search to find a new arrow to use on my website (I settled on `➥` which produces this: ➥). In my…

Postgres Return Types In Node - Parse Strings To Whatever You Want

By default the `node-postgres` returns everything from PostgreSQL as a string. Brian Carlson, the author of `pg`, provides a solution for…

Shell Scripts: How To Run Them

I am constantly striving to improve my understanding and comfort interacting with my terminal. I remember how excited I was when I first…

JSON Operators And Functions In Postgres

I wrote in the past about [Array Intersections in Postgres](../../2019-07-01/array-intersection-in-psql/), which alluded to operators and…

Postgres Tuples Only

If you’re just learning how to use Postgres from the terminal (as I am), sometimes you click the wrong button and don’t know what it does…

Getting Started With Postgres on OS X with Homebrew

Before you can [connect to a Postgres database](../../2018-08-19/access-psql-via-shell/) from the command line, it needs to be running. If…

Express Router’s Route Method

When it comes to RESTful APIs, there’s not a ton of availability to be creative - at least in terms of the names of the APIs. You’re going…

Express Routers

As apps grow, the number of routes can balloon. More than that, you may need custom middleware for certain routes and not others - whether…

Basic Middleware Concepts In Node

Middleware is software that sits between two other pieces of software and can augment, change, modify, or even respond to data it receives…

Rimraf To Clean Restart A Node Server

One of the challenges of using `nodemon` to monitor changes to a node server and restart is if some changes get cached. I came across…

Using the Node Inspector

If you’re running a node application and you want to debug, but don't want to use the debugger in your text editor, perhaps your text…

Converting Synchronous Code to Asynchronous

I often find myself looking up patterns for converting synchronous code into async variants in Javascript. Whether it’s remembering how…

Using Typescript Playground To Make Sense of Code

I came across the following function in a codebase today and struggled to see what was happening - the combination of classes with…

Analyzing Webpack Bundle Sizes

One of the best parts of the javascript ecosystem is the number of packages that are readily available to expedite development. If there’s…

Creating Symlinks

To create a symlink, you need only one command: ```shell $ sudo ln -s /path/to/original /path/to/destination ``` For example, on Ubuntu…

Logging Into User On Server: Permission Denied (publickey)

I recently spun up a Digital Ocean droplet and almost immediately ran into problems logging into it. For context - the steps I took were…

Repeat A Terminal Command In UNIX

The `!!` is a quick way to repeat a command in a UNIX environment. For example, here I’m looking at a directory’s contents, then invoking…

Initializing A Class

Continuing the trend of learning more about Javascript classes of late, I found the following recently and thought it was quite interesting…

Aha Moments With Classes - Part Deux

Recently I wrote about [my aha realization of what exactly we’re doing when we pass the props that a class constructor receives to super…

Setting Persistent Environment Variables

To make an environment variable available in Bash or Zsh, save the environment to `.bashrc` or `zshrc` respectively. To set the variable…

Aha Moments With Classes In Javascript

When we define a class component as a derivation of a base class, this gives us access to all of the base class’s public (and protected…

Routing Basics With Reach Router

Imagine you have a Single page application but you want to allow your users to navigate to different pages within the app. I wanted to…

Creating A Downloadable File

I thought this was pretty cool. Imagine you want to create a file programmatically and allow a user to download it. For the sake of this…

Property Accessors And Typescript

Came across an interesting example of a rarely used feature (at least for me) in Javascript creating unexpected results with Typescript…

React’s StrictMode

As React continues to upgrade its API, there are parts the team is working to deprecate. If you want to make sure your app stays up to…

UseEffect Basics

The `useEffect` hook in React is scheduled to run after render. There are three different categories of running it: 1. Without…

Global Node Package Management

When it comes to global node packages, there are typically three things I want to do: 1. See what’s installed (view globally installed node…

Stringifying Sets

In Javascript, Sets are Objects with a few special attributes. Notably, they’re _iterable_ collections of _unique_ elements. One of the…

Creating Subsets: Object.Entries, Object.fromEntries, and Sets

 I want to highlight one way to create a subset of data. To get us started, let’s think about a universe of…

Storybook Keybindings

Filing this under delightful surprises. I was working with `StorybookJS` today when I stumbled into a few keybindings that I didn't know…

Postgres: How To Query Column Labels For A Table

What if, instead of a table’s _data_, you wanted to see the table’s metadata? That is, instead of querying all of the rows within a table…

Creating Objects

The other day I came across a pattern for creating objects I couldn’t quite understand. The code looked a little like this: ```javascript…

Polymorphic Presentations With Styled-Components

Let’s say we’re building a simple web form with a twist: we want the submit to only appear if all of the fields are valid. In all other…

Setting State In React Components

There are three main types of React Components. There are also (with the introduction of hooks in 16.8) three different ways to define…

Conditionally Render Components in React

I still remember when I first learned how to conditionally render my React components. It was a light bulb moment. I began seeing new…

Intersection Observer and React-Intersection-Observer

I was reviewing a project recently that made use of the `react-intersection-observer` library and was fascinated by the simplicty of the…

Conventions For The Command Line

The goal of most writing is to communicate a point to the reader. This is where conventions and rules come in handy. They create a shared…

Git: Adding Remotes

When you pull a repository down (i.e. clone it) from a remote (like Github, Gitlab, or a private host), git will automatically add it as a…

NPM - Cannot read property "match" of undefined

When trying to run an `npm` command, you can’t install the packages, you may get the error: ```shell stephen  ~/_coding/remine…

UseReducer With Typescript

When does it make sense to use a reducer vs a simple state value with React’s Hooks? There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but the React team…

"regeneratorRuntime is not defined"

Deciding to not bootstrap my [React-Playground](https://github.com/stephencweiss/react-playground) app is the gift that keeps on giving…

NPM Install - Max Call Stack Exceed

I was recently trying to switch over from a private registry default to the default one. When I tried to reinstall my dependencies…

Typescript’s Omit: Pick’s Mirror

I’ve written in the past about the [benefits of `Pick` in writing better interfaces with Typescript](../../2019-06-25/typescript-pick…

Dealing With NPM Config Files

When things that used to work break, I want to understand why. That was the situation recently with `npm`, the reliable workhorse behind…

Gatsby & A (Simple) Publishing Embargo

Imagine you have a website, like this one, that aims to publish regularly. You’re not a big publication. You don’t have a full-time staff…

DRY And Styled Components

A quick optimization to keep an eye out for while styling components - particularly those where they share logic - whether between…

ESLint, Prettier, And VSCode - When They Stop Cooperating

A while ago I installed the Prettier extension in VSCode and configured a few defaults in my global settings. I like having a global…

Exporting A Named Function As Default

Back in February I wrote a [primer on exports and require](https://www.stephencharlesweiss.com/2019-02-11/js-modules-primer-export-and…

Default Enums And Fallbacks

Working on a component that receives a `status` prop where the status are defined by an enum (I’m working in Typescript). The problem…

Named Anchors & Markdown

When writing longer files in Markdown, it can be useful to create links _within_ the document to help readers navigate. This cross…

Gitlab Description Templates

We use templates to help write descriptive tickets or MRs on various projects at work. ^[1](#fn1)<a id="sup1"></a> Then I started…

Supporting Submit On Enter

When asking users for their input, it’s often a pleasant user experience to allow them to submit the form by pressing "Enter". In fact…

Bubbling Up Exceptions And Throwing Objects

Every time I’ve thrown an error, I’ve used the `Error` object. ```javascript try { // do something if (/* something bad happens…

Auto-Complete In HTML Forms

Starting around 2015, browsers started treating the attribute `autocomplete` on `<input>` fields differently. Instead of honoring what had…

Notes On _What Unites Us_

America has changed a lot since Dan Rather’s youth. Much of that change, though not all, has been positive - a transformation he chronicles…

Benedict Evans On AI (Or More Accurately ML)

I first came across Benedict Evans through a fascinating interview he did with Russ Roberts on EconTalk to discuss the future of cars.<sup…

Swapping Array Elements In Place, Destructuring, and Automatic Semicolon Insertion

About a year ago, I learned about [bitwise operators and using them to swap elements of a list](../../2018-10-21/swapping-and-bitwise…

Masking Inputs And More Ref Fun

In learning about [Auto-Complete In HTML Forms](../../2019-10-07/auto-complete-forms), I discovered that the `type` of an `<input>` makes…

Jakob’s Law of Internet User Experience

Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group, a consulting firm focused on user-experience, has what I think is a pretty profound observation…

Validating Social Security Numbers

I continue to be enamored with the power of regular expressions — a feeling that only grows the more I understand them. Today, for example…

Showing Up: The NYTimes Editorial Board

The most striking aspect of the New York Times’ Editorial Board’s recent opinion, “Why the Trump Impeachment Inquiry Is the Only Option…

An Unremarkable Achievement: Accomplishing Goals Through Steady Progress

Yesterday I accomplished a goal I’d been working toward for close to three months: I swam an uninterrupted 200m freestyle. It wasn’t…

Web-Safe Fonts and Font Fallbacks

Today, I had a colleague mention that the font we are using is “web-safe” in response to why it was so weird that it wasn’t showing up…

Inspect A Hoverable Event

Some effects only appear when you hover over them with your mouse. The problem is that in order to see the details and ensure they’re what…

Running VSCode On Linux: Hitting My Watcher Limit

I have been working on a Linux VM more recently, and one particularly annoying thing about it (there are a lot of little quirks that are…

Reusing CSS With Styled Components

Styled components are really nice in compartmentalizing styling and keeping it close to the components that use it. I wasn't around for…

Getting Refs To Sync With Container State

I was working on a project recently which was using Refs in order to integrate with a third-party library. My mental model for refs are…

An Even More Basic React App Tutorial

Recently, I walked through building a basic React App.¹ In retrospect, I could make it _even more_ basic by removing _any…

Leading Spaces & The Web

One of the more frustrating little quirks about HTML is its insistence on collapsing white space. This is actually often more useful than…

HTML Id Fields

Ids are everywhere. But what are the rules for them? Turns out, the rules in HTML5 are pretty permissive: unique, at least one character…

HTML: Name vs. Id

In looking into labels for web forms recently, I stumbled on a question I really didn’t know the answer to: What’s the difference between a…

Web Accessibility: Form Basics: Labels

For accessibility purposes all form inputs should be labelled. How do we apply a label though? There are multiple ways to add a label, but…

Score Dial

Given a score within a range, how could we visualize that on a dial? That was what I got to work on recently and it turned out to be a ton…

Undo And Redo In Vim

Sometimes Vim is simultaneously impossible opaque and extraordinarily intuitive. That’s the case with the undo and redo. To undo the last…

Display: None vs Visibility: Hidden

When hiding elements on the client, there are multiple options. Two of the most common are through the selective toggling ofCSS properties…

Compression Basics: Zip, Tar, Rar, and Gz

What are the differences between a `.zip`, `.tar`, `.gz`., and `.rar`? It turns out it’s both a lot and a little. Some basics: - `.zip…

REM vs EM

Jeremy Church put together a nice little side by side comparison of REM and Em (and PX).¹ Both REM and EM are relative units…

An Anniversary Of Sorts

This weekend was an anniversary of sorts for me. Exactly one year ago Saturday was my last day in a job and career I’d been building since…

Putting Humans At The Center

When I was in high school, I argued passionately in defense of determinism. It wasn’t that I didn’t _like_ the idea of free will or _want…

Roasted Cauliflower

I found this insanely easy way to roast an entire Caulflower head.¹ ~~If~~ When I do it again in the future, I'll experiment…

Getting a Basic React App Up And Running

> Update: I've now found an even more basic way to write a React app and I put together a tutorial in a post, [An Even More Basic React App…

Adding Prettier To A Project

The steps to adding Prettier to a project are very simple: 1. Install Prettier (`npm i --save-dev prettier`) 2. Create a `.prettierrc…

Simulating Slow Network Connections: Firefox vs. Chromium

Testing my app on a slower connection is a key part of my development cycle. That’s why when I recently found myself developing within…

Using Callbacks To Reverse Data Flow In React

React’s one way data flow makes it easy to reason through, but sometimes the controlling component needs to know what’s going on inside…

RegEx In Javascript Strings: Remove numeric or alphabetic characters

Built into Javascript’s `String` primitive are Regex methods such as `.match` and `.replace`.¹ We can use the latter to…

NPM Link

Unless you’re working on a mono-repo, it’s fairly common that in the process of making changes to a code base, you’ll actually need to…

Changing the default shell to zsh

By default, the shell on a Mac is `bash`. Changing this should be a simple three step process: 1. Make sure that `zsh` is installed and is…

Error Handling: App can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software

Recently upgraded an application and got this warning  In the past, I used to be able to "right" click on…

Passing Test Variables To GraphiQL

Previously, I wrote about writing a GraphQL query that takes variables. I was using this to programmatically create posts. In returning…

Import Aliases in Gatsby

I wanted to be able to import JSX elements I defined in a Gatsby project into markdown files. Very quickly I got tired of writing out the…

HEIC To JPG And The Cost Of Free

Apple’s Live Photos are a fun way to add a little twist to photos you snap on your phone. Empowering this feature is a file format called…

Harissa Grilled Eggplant

One of our family’s favorite recipes is a Harissa Grilled Eggplant from Goop.¹ It’s quick, full of flavor, and relatively…

RESTful APIs: Put Vs. Patch

I routinely find myself looking up the differences between the HTTP methods (aka verbs) `PUT` and `PATCH`. While there’s plenty of nuance…

Defining Idempotent

Idempotent is a word that gets thrown out a lot within computing but that I continually forget what it means. From Wordnik, the definition…

Server-Side Pagination With Limit/Offset

How do you limit the number of rows returned from a query? Let’s consider a basic example with a members table. You’re building a front…

Node Out Of Memory: Force Feeding Node More Memory

It’s not uncommon for larger apps to exceed the default memory allocated to Node. When this happens, you'll get an errory alerting you that…

Andrew Sullivan’s "My Addiction Sickness"

I read Andrew Sullivan’s 2016 piece for the New York Magazine this week and it's as relevant as ever. It’s a wonderful, thought-provoking…

Markdown Image Titles and Alt Text

I continue to be impressed by the simplicity and power of Markdown. Today, while exploring the API for Gatsby’s Remark Images, I noticed…

Dealing With Disappearing "Position: Fixed" On Overflow?

Have you ever tried to have an element overflow when one of its children is in a fixed positioned relative to it? Fun fact: It doesn’t…

Postgres: Getting The Owner Of Tables

I was trying to modify a table today when I hit an error: `SQL Error [42501]: ERROR: must be owner of table XXX`. To figure out _who_ the…

Reminder: Logging Into Postgres With Shell Commands

PGAdmin, Dbeaver, etc. are useful GUIs for managing and reviewing Postgres databases. Sometimes, however, there’s a desire to login via the…

Reminder: Logging Into Postgres With Shell Commands

PGAdmin, Dbeaver, etc. are useful GUIs for managing and reviewing Postgres databases. Sometimes, however, there’s a desire to login via the…

Adding Columns To Postgres Tables After Creation

If you already have a table created in Postgres, how can you modify it to add a new column? Similar to [adding constraints after a table…

Adding a Unique Constraint To Postgres Tables After Creation

How do you add a unique constraint to a table in Postgres if it’s already been created? Most of the time, we add unique constraints to a…

:hover Vs :focus

Most of the time, these two pseudo-selectors act in concert. In fact, they’re so frequently triggered together that my naive testing…

Regex Search in VSCode

Finding all instances of an imported module in a large app can be challenging. With the namespace for a module being restricted to the…

Replacing MouseEvents with PointerEvents

How can the necessity of handling different types of inputs (e.g., mouse, touch, and pen) by duplicating event handler logic? The Pointer…

Typescript Generics: A Basic Use Case

When does it make sense to use a Generic in a Typescript type? How do you create a type that takes a Generic? I’ve read through the…

Importing Modules While Reducing Clutter

I’ve developed a peculiar habit. I knew I’d developed it, but didn’t know it was peculiar until my lead asked me about it this morning…

MDX vs Remark

Both MDX and Remark are Markdown compilers that will convert valid Markdown into HTML to render on the web. The beauty of Remark is that it…

Working On The Wrong Problem

Working with code is an extraordinarily satisfying experience. Not in the minute-to-minute. At that scale, it can be infuriating. The code…

Superscript And Subscript With Markdown

Markdown doesn’t support for superscript or subscript directly. However, there are multiple strategies to adding superscript and subscript…

Error: "Field "image" must not have a selection since type "String" has no subfields."

I was trying to query an image I’d placed in the frontmatter of a post, when I got the error: > Field ‘image’ must not have a selection…

VSCode - Reenable Settings When "Exclude Settings And Ignore Files Are Disabled"

Filing this one under annoying bugs that shouldn’t be an issue but end up taking up way more of your time than you’d like. VSCode offers…

Multiple Post Types With Gatsby

When I set up my `gatsby-filesystem` previously, I noted that if there were multiple file systems that I wanted access to, all I need to do…

Programmatic Page Generation

Alright, I’ve been building to this point! Time to generate new pages for a blog programmatically using Gatsby! Previously I wrote about…

Trials In CSS: Fit Content To Window

One of my ongoing challenges with layouts on the web is the fact that a website does not naturally have an end. Unlike an 8.5"x11" sheet of…

Git Push New

Every time I cut a new branch in Git and am ready to submit a PR for review, I get an annoying error reminding me that I need to set the…

Learning Vim With VimTutor

If you have `vim` already installed, you can get an interactive walk-through using the `vimtutor`. To launch `vimtutor`, open your shell…

State, Reducers, And useReducer In React

To date, I’ve struggled to understand reducers. Terms like reducers, actions, dispatch, all blurred together and even though I could use…

Using isValidElement To Ensure A Node Is An Element In React

I am trying to reduce an array of React Nodes to an array of React _Elements_. Specifically, I’m trying to extract the title prop from those…

Reminders And Suggestions

Every week I sit down and write what I want to stop, start, and continue. That habit, it would seem, should insulate me to some degree both…

useRef Vs. useState And Unnecessary Renders

Today, I found a wonderful side-effect of `useRef`: it doesn’t re-render components when it changes. This was ideal for my situation…

Git Branch Naming Conventions

I have a habit of making longer git branch names. I use the branch name as a way to communicate what and why I’m working on something. For…

How To Use Variables GraphQL Queries

My dive into [Gatsby](../../2019-07-20/gatsby-source-filesystem) continues. Today, I wanted to better understand how dynamic queries worked…

Using Lodash Reduce And Some To Accomplish Complex Filtering

I came across a situation where I had a collection of collections. Some of the internal collections, however, I didn’t want to keep around…

Reframing No

The past few weeks I’ve felt like I’ve been saying "no" to more things. Specifically, I’ve said "no" to caffeine. "No" to bagels and muffins…

Getting Started With Gatsby-Source-Filesystem

Continuing my learnings in Gatsby and today I found out a few new pieces about the filesystem plugin, `gatsby-source-filesystem`.<sup>…

Sequences in Postgres

The `SEQUENCE` in Postgres is a number generator.¹ Once created, they can be managed with sequence operators.² So…

The Seed Of Imagination Is Others

My mind races a lot. I can’t help it. Whenever I talk to someone, read something, observe an interaction, etc. I immediately start thinking…

Check For Duplicates - COUNT, CASE, and EXIST In Postgres

Before I write to a database, I want to make sure that I don’t create a duplicate record based on the name and parent record id. To…

Using COALESCE And Dynamic Updates To Multiple Records In Postgres

I wanted to update multiple fields on multiple records and handle the case that _not all_ of the information is present in the update for…

Gatsby Config Plugin Syntax

I often struggle with the syntax of config files. What are resolvers? How do options work? etc. As a result, while making my way through…

What Is `require.resolve` And How Does It Work?

In order to understand `require.resolve`, part of the Node API, we must first understand its context. Namely, the `require` module and how…

Postgres Constraints And Arrays

I wrote in the past about using [constraints in the context of array operators in Postgres](../../2019-07-01/array-intersection-in-psql…

Inserting Values Into A Table - Postgres

How do you insert _multiple_ values? I always find myself looking this up. I decided I’d jot it down here for future reference. Hopefully it…

SQL Tricks: Querying The Same Table Twice

I recently came across a creative solution to finding the relationships between different values within a table using SQL. This may be…

Don’t Let Facts Get In The Way Of A Good Story

# Don’t Let Facts Get In The Way Of A Good Story The first time I heard about Jerry Seinfeld’s "Productivity System" was 2013.<sup>1</sup…

Variables in Postman

I’ve written in the past about why I like testing my [APIs with Postman](../../2019-04-13/testing-api-with-curl-and-postman). Today, I…

Array Lengths In Postgres

Yesterday, I wrote about the [intersecting of Arrays in Postgres](../../2019-07-01/array-intersection-in-psql). Today, I wanted to go a…

Array Intersection In Postgres

Recently, I was building an API to modify the data in a database. The field I was modifying happened to be an array, and I wanted to make…

The One About Quotes In Postgres - Single, Double, And Handling `non_snake_case` Fields

Imagine the following situation - you’re trying to select columns from a Postgres table ```sql create table if not exists media…

Entity Relationship Diagrams - What The Lines Mean

Yesterday, in talking about [Postgres and Subqueries](../../2019-06-28/postgres-subquery-basics) I was trying to represent a relationship…

Select And Calculate With Postgres Using Subqueries

I wanted to be able to retrieve a set of records from a database along with specific details from a related table. I knew SQL could…

Errors, Loading, And Happiness: A Pattern In React

If I’m working on a React application that is trying to render data based on an asynchronous call, there are three common cases I should…

Error Handling: SSH & Git Remotes

Starting this morning, I was suddenly unable to update my repositories on Github. As I’d written about in the past, I [prefer using SSH…

Using Typescript’s Pick To Improve Communication And Decrease Maintenance

Instead of documenting an interface that is redundant, but only a partial, we can use `Pick` to allow the interface to automatically be…

`Type[]` vs `Array<Type>`: What’s the Difference?

The short answer: there is _no_ difference. When investigating, I was steered to the Typescript Handbook¹ which notes: > The…

Details Tags And Choosing Your Own Adventure On The Web

Recently I heard about Julian.com and specifically about the design of the manuals the owner, Julian Shapiro writes. One of the things…

Using `_.pick` To Extract Relevant Details From Objects

Building on lessons from yesterday's dive into `groupBy`, I found an opportunity to explore `pick`. This time it was because I wanted to…

More Uses Of `_.groupBy`

As I [wrote previously](../../2019-05-03/lodash-groupby-vs-custom-helpers), the `_.groupBy` method of Lodash can be really useful. My…

In Defense Of Pen & Paper

I seem incapable of reading without a pen in hand. If I am not in a place where I can underline or jot a note in the margins — I don’t read…

Handling Empty Arrays With Postgres

A few days ago, I wrote about handling arrays from [Javascript to SQL](../../2019-06-15/array-handling-javascript-sql). Turns out, I…

Testing - Chai Tests And Database Connection Pools

I’m writing some integration tests for an app that is confirming database queries are working the way I’m expecting. In order to prep the…

Array Handling: JavaScript to SQL

Yesterday we updated a Postgres record’s details based on the `id` and returned the update in a [single query](../../2019-06-14/psql-return…

Postgres `RETURNING` Statement

Often, after making a change to a database, we want to verify that the change was made and use the updated rows. A naïve approach would be…

Optional Params With JSON Stringify

I've gotten in the habit recently of printing my variables as object literals. For example, if I have a variable, `myVar`, that I want to…

Adding Comments To A SQL Statement

There are two ways to add a comment to a SQL query - using `/* */` and `--`. The differences are as follows: With a comment surrounded by…

Marathon Pace And Stumbling Forward

The topic of life as a journey has been on my mind lately - evidenced by my last two essays [Defense of Detours](https://www…

Postgres Data Types: Array

When looking around a table in Postgres today, I noticed a curious looking field. `groups_reso` _looked_ like a collection, but when I…

Git Stash With A Message

Adding a message to a stash is a great way to easily identify _what’s_ included in a stash. This can be particularly helpful if you’re…

Git Stash A Specific File

Sometimes you only want to stash a few files at a time. Maybe in the course of your work, the files you were changing revealed a bigger…

Lessons In Typescript: Extending 3rd Party Libraries And Reading Type Definitions

Using third party libraries is great when they do exactly what you want them to do. When it comes to extending them, however, it can get…

Debugging Transpiled Code

I was investigating a situation _where_ my application was deviating from my expectations during runtime — aka bug fixing. Opening up my…

Buttons Without Style

When it comes to accessibility (a11y) on the web, one of the best / easiest things you can do is to use _semantic_ HTML. > Structural…

In Defense Of Detours

Detours are slow. They add time and distance to our route. Particularly when we have a plan and know where we’re going, this delay can be…

Incrementing State In Functional Components

I was recently trying to understand Material UI's `<Stepper>` component. In looking through their implementation of the Horizontal Linear…

Storybook.js And Static Image Files

[Storybook supports static files](https://storybook.js.org/docs/configurations/default-config/#image-and-static-file-support), like images…

Keep Homebrew Formulae Up To Date

In the same vein as [cleaning up my git branches](../../2019-05-26/local-git-stale-branch-cleanup), today I recalled that I can easily…

Printing The Directory Tree

I wanted to be able to print cool trees of my directories to help show my folder structure. At first, I thought it was simply using…

Using Variables To Make Interchangeable React Components

# Using Variables To Make Interchangeable React Components I’m still making tweaks to the Stepper project I wrote about previously ([here…

Github Branch Protection Rules

I use Netlify to manage the deployment of my site. One of the things I love about Netlify are the checks they run against each branch to…

Higher Order Components In Javascript / Typescript

Imagine you have a prop that you want to be passed all the way through to the DOM. If you try and pass through a prop that isn’t…

Arrive Safely And Avoid (Avoidable) Accidents

No matter the mode of transportation, the faster you go, the less control you have. If you’ve ever tried to turn on a dime when sprinting…

Adding Words To The MacOS Dictionary

When writing about Javascript (or past lives writing about health care), I would often type words that don’t appear in Webster’s or Oxford…

Cleaning Up Your Local Git Repository: AKA How To Remove Stale Branches

Unless your git workflow is pushing straight to master (because YOLO), it’s likely that your local repository will grow unwieldy in time…

Simple Way To Swap Variables Using Javascript

I’ve been learning about some of the ways you can use destructuring to make my Javascript more declarative and communicate my intent more…

Create A Spinner & Add A Loader In React

Using two libraries, `styled-components` and `react-image`, I learned a new simple way to create a `Loader` component (i.e. a spinner) to…

Unzipping A File From The Command Line

I should start with the observation that I hate using my mouse. Yet, that was exactly what I was about to do today to unzip a file. The…

Make Space To Revisit Problems

> Make it work. > Make it right. > Make it fast.¹ This maxim screams pragmatism. Don’t optimize too early. Get something…

Hooks, Async, And The Joy Of New Problems

> When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When approaching new problems, it’s easy to fall into old ways of doing…

Rivers Of Knowledge

Describing each individual as unique has become cliche. And yet, isn’t it the case? Our lives are our own - no other person has the same…

Hover Events & Different Cursors With CSS

More CSS fun today! One way to visually indicate that an element is clickable is by changing the cursor to a If a data element is…

Z-Index: Geometry, Not Magic

It was one of those light bulb moments when things finally clicked. My colleague was describing how to ensure that my elements weren’t…

Scroll Events And Invoking Lodash’s `_.throttle` Or `_.debounce`

Recently, I was working on a project where I wanted the scroll event to invoke a function that would affect other elements on the page. For…

Git Merge Strategies - Recursive - Theirs (and Ours)

Often when I get a merge conflict, what I really want to do is defer to the master branch, so, if I’m on a branch and I want to merge in the…

Lodash `_groupBy` Vs. Custom Helper Functions

Yesterday, I wrote about using [Lodash’s `pickBy`](https://www.stephencharlesweiss.com/2019-05-02/objects-undefined-values-and-lodash…

Objects, Undefined values, and Lodash’s `_.pickBy` and `_.identity`

Let’s start with the basics. I was in an oh-so-common situation recently where I was building a component that would visualize the details…

Git - Renaming A Branch: Locally & Remotely

To rename the name of a branch, there are four potential steps: 1. Checkout the existing branch (the one you want to rename): `git…

Ps and Qs: The Overlooked Final Piece

When I was younger, I learned to "mind my Ps and Qs." I’m glad I did. It’s a relatively straightforward behavior that has paid dividends…

How To Find Your Notes Quickly (In Bear)

I use Bear as my digital note keeper and place where I write. As I continue to add more notes to it (6k and counting), being able to find my…

Using The Emoji Keyboard And Keyboard Shortcuts

On Macs there is a Emoji & Symbols keyboard. You’ve probably seen it on your phone, but desktops and laptops have it too. To launch it, go…

Git - Checking Out Remote Branches

Earlier this week, I pulled down a colleague's work to test it locally. Unfortunately, the steps I followed ended up merging the new…

Minimizing bundle sizes by restructuring your imports

Using the example of importing the `material ui` into a file, we can see how this works. ```javascript import * as materialUI from…

The Purposeful Pause Practice

The world is busier than it used to be. We’re bombarded by constantly with work emails, Instagram notifications, and Slack messages. My…

Error Handling: Address In Use

Running my node server, I got an error indicating that my port was already in use (`Error: listen EADDRINUSE :::5001`). I knew that…

Writing Is Just The Beginning: The Tradeoff Between Clarity And Exploration With Writing And Conversing

> But you’re never going to achieve what you want to, Mr. Caro, if you don’t stop thinking with your fingers. > > - R.P. Blackmur via…

Learning (@ Work)

I think the psychology of learning at work is interesting. On the one hand, an employer should _want_ employees to ask questions and learn…

When Tracking Makes Sense

Before my recent efforts to be more mindful of how I used technology, I was quite proud of the streak I had with meditating daily. I had…

Pomodori and Deep Work

I brought pomodori back this week after listening to the podcast episode with [Productivity with Mani Vaya](https://overcast.fm/+B1THOPAVc…

Currying - An Introduction With Function Declarations & Expressions

For a long time, I hated seeing functions like this: `const someFn = a => b => a + b;`. I thought this was just "code golf" (the idea of…

How To Test Your API Using cURL & Postman

The other day, I found myself making some changes to a network request for our application. By navigating to a specific page, I knew I’d…

Bash Functions & Git - How to wipe out changes made to a specific file

I find myself writing the following command multiple times daily. ```bash git stash push pacakage-lock.json git stash drop 0 ``` I had…

Default Prop Values In React

What value does a prop get if no value is assigned? To think about this more tangibly, imagine you have a higher order component…

Closure & Lexical Scope

When we say that JS is lexically scoped, what we mean is that a function will have access to the variables in the context of which it was…

React Lifecycle Methods - A primer with React 16

One of the things that I didn’t appreciate when I first started using React was how helpful the different lifecycle methods were. I got…

Rename Variable While Destructuring In Javascript

I recently came across a situation where I had two different props in a component that had the same name (they were in different parts of…

Copying Data From One Column To Another With SQL

If you need to copy all data from one column to another column in SQL, use the `UPDATE` method. If it’s a simple copy for copy, without…

`.d.ts` Files And Typescript Interfaces

The `.d` file is a declaration file. In this case, it’s a declaration file for Typescript files. What does that actually mean though? The…

The Limits of Habits

Are there areas of life where the costs of efficiency gained outweigh the costs? Of course. It’s just not a question that I ask that…

Object Oriented Javascript: Class Instantiation Patterns

What are classes anyway? A class is an entity that is capable of producing objects (instances) that share common attributes, features, and…

React Key Props And Why You Shouldn’t Be Using Index

If you’ve ever mapped over an array in React, you’ve likely seen this warning: `Warning: Each child in a list should have a unique "key…

Looking Up Shell Functions In Zsh

I recently figured out how to write a shell function. The problem is that pretty quickly I’d forgotten *which* functions I’d written, or fi…

Next Level Shell: Aliases And Functions

# Imagination Time Imagine a situation where you want to be able to navigate to a specific directory then open that directory with your text…

MacOS Spotlight Nonsense & Reindexing

Recently, Spotlight had been acting up. For example: When I search for Spotify (an app I use every day), it wouldn’t show up. Instead I’d…

JS Modules Primer: Export & Require

# Import/Export vs. Require in JS On more than one occasion I’ve found myself looking up the MDN page on imports and exports for modules in…

Reasons To Share

There are plenty of reasons to write this blog and share your perspective. Recently, however, I had a few experiences that really…

Difference Arrays: What Are They And How Do They Work?

# Difference Arrays Imagine you’re given a problem that says for each "query" in the format `[a,b,k]` add `k` to all elements of an array…

Heroic Consistency, Wu Wei, And The Middle Way

I recently found the following tweet about heroic consistency. > Don’t aim for consistently heroic efforts. Aim for being heroic at…

Rotating Arrays: Two Ways

How would you rotate an array's elements if you were given an array and a number of left rotations? (A left rotation is defined as moving…

Exploring GET Requests: Multiple Values And Parameters

The ease of writing GET requests varies with the clarity of the supporting documentation. With that in mind, I recently explored an API…

Better Form Submissions with Event.preventDefault() and HTMLFormElement.reset()

Two tools to keep in your tool belt when adding forms to your website should be: 1. `Event.preventDefault()` 2. `HTMLFormElement.reset…

Write Your Own Javascript Contracts and Docstrings

My very first introduction to code was with [~Introduction To Computational and Programming Using Python~](https://www.amazon.com…

VSCode: Adding Ligatures To A Font That Doesn't Have THem

A few months ago, I found a font, `fira code` that introduced me to ligatures and how they could be useful in writing code. | ![](./fira…

Lessons In querySelector And The Importance Of Understanding Mechanism

**NB:** The below illustrations are inspired / adapted from MDN’s great page on [QuerySelector](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs…

Postman, URI Encoding, and Occam's Razor

Occam was a 14th century theologian-philosopher who is perhaps best known now for his relentless insistence on using the law of parsimony…

Debugging: Dev.To RSS-To-Draft Only Displaying Post Summaries (Wordpress Solution)

# Preamable I’m filing this under the category of: "Issues that I created for myself and don’t want to forget how I solved." Also, I don’t…

Oh-My-Zsh and Persistent Aliases

**NB: If you want the quick steps to add aliases to your `zsh`, jump down to the section, "[Adding Aliases: The Better Way](#adding-an…

Charts, Colors, and Complements: Oh my!

> Charts are the black hole of programming. I was warned, but I wanted to tackle charts anyway. That was my first mistake. Humans tend to…

Node Environmental Variables: A Simple Example

This is not going to be a deep dive into Node's environmental variables, but rather a quick look at how you may use environmental variables…

Error Handling: Jest with Babel

Trying to run tests with Jest, I got the following error: `Requires Babel "^7.0.0-0", but was loaded with "6.26.3"...` Looking at the…

Custom Sort Functions with Javascript

Javascript’s built-in sort is powerful and fast. However, there are many times when you will want to sort in a custom fashion. Whenever I…

Error Handling: Uncaught TypeError: this.searchDB is not a function

While working on a React project, I came across the following error: `Uncaught TypeError: this.searchDB is not a function` `searchDB` is a…

Customizing webpack

I've looked up how to customize my Webpack a number of times, so I'm documenting here to serve as a reference and template for future…

Adding Indexes To Mongo + A Case Study

I've been working on projects with larger data sets recently and have begun to notice that not _all_ queries resolve in one or two…

Experience, exposure, and the building of knowledge

A few weeks back I went from an absolute novice to being invited to present on a topic in the span of five days. The experience was…

Axios And Routing With baseURLs

I was unifying multiple micro services into a single front-end. To do this efficiently, I wanted to create a single proxy that sat in front…

Indexing Databases - A Postgres Example

A short review of when and how to index a Postgres database. # Common Commands ```sql CREATE INDEX <index_name> ON <table_name> (<field(s…

Learning To Savor The Moment

> Savor the moment I love that phrase. It’s a reminder that there is something genuinely special about this moment in time. The…

Error Handling: permission denied for sequence _id_seq…

Recently, I was using NodeJS to write directly to a Postgres database when I got an error beginning with: `{ error: permission denied for…

A Beginner's Guide to Feature Branch Workflows with Git

The Feature Branch Workflow for git is a graduation from the Centralized workflow where all changes are made directly to the master branch…

Debugging Create-React-App

In an effort to learn React, I pulled up [React’s introductory tutorial](https://reactjs.org/tutorial/tutorial.html). Almost immediately I…

Printing Articles and Blogs in 2018

There are more free resources out there today than ever before. For a student, it’s a glorious time. Despite the rise of great annotating…

Swapping and Bitwise Operators

One of the simplest ways to swap two variables in programming is to create a temporary variable that holds a value while you iterate…

Growing up

Greg Lukianoff was recently on the Cato Daily Podcast to discuss his new book with Jonathan Haidt, the "[The Coddling of the American Mind…

Leadership vs Management

Cal Turner Jr., CEO of Dollar General, was on the [A16Z podcast](https://a16z.com/2018/09/05/dollar-store-retail/) this week. In a wonderful…

Shady email practices

Want to make sure that your customers unsubscribe _even less_ than they would otherwise? Make your email long enough so that only the footer…

Aggregators and what they're hiding

The thing about aggregators is: in an era of abundant supply, it’s almost impossible to know when things aren’t there. When you need a…

Dear Donald

Dear Donald, Four years ago, you told me to "[Learn To Code](https://www.thehunt.com/the-hunt/XWvoQ4-childish-gambino-learn-to-code…

Aliases and the .bash_profile

# .gitconfig follow-up with .bash_profille In my previous Git posts ([here](https://wp.me/p6u9oI-eG) and [here](https://wp.me/p6u9oI-eK…

Chia seed pudding

At brunch with my cousin, I tried Chia Seed Pudding for the first time. It was awesome. To me it was a pleasant combination of Oatmeal and a…

Improvements in cable management

Spend enough time looking at pictures of [desks](www.reddit.com/r/battlestations) and you'll realize that despite all of the electronics…

Git clone, pull, and push

# Git Clone, Pull, and Push Continuing my learnings re: [Git](../../2018-08-22/learning-git-from-the-ground-up-another-git-tutorial). I…

Curbing my natural tendencies

This spring I read the Jason Zweig updated version of Benjamin Graham’s [*The Intelligent Investor*](https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent…

Time in the kitchen

I've been trying to pick up more of the cooking duties in our home and I've noticed that recipes often make a distinction between prep time…

Deciphering the terminal

My goal is to be a competent command line programmer. I knew that in order to make that happen, I would have to get very comfortable…

How to quickly / safely keep my project up to date with branches (and avoid avoidable problems)

I got into a bit of a mess earlier today when I accidentally checked out an old state of my current branch _without_ creating a new branch…

Learning Git from the ground up - another Git tutorial

I've been trying to learn more about Git recently. I thought I'd write up some of the lessons I've learned to create a basic primer on Git…

Deep and shallow copying - A tale of two friends

I was recently using the slice method to copy an array and I ran into a few difficulties understanding why my copy was not shallow. From…

Giraffes and Elephants

The simplest endeavor toward diversity focus on hiring practices. Making sure that candidates are not systematically excluded and that…

Confucianism’s marketing problem

I’m currently reading *[The Path](https://smile.amazon.com/Path-Chinese-Philosophers-Teach-About/dp/1476777845?sa-no-redirect=1)* by…

The best time to get started was yesterday

The next best time is now. I’ve been dying to get back to this blog for months but this week two things gave me the push I needed:…

Measurement overload

Measurements are getting cheaper, but the amount getting done is not keeping pace. Why is that? Nearly 150 years ago, William Thomson, the…

A Healthy Skepticism

"For best results, mattresses should be replaced every 8 years" -- I recently saw an ad with this copy in a window of a mattress store near…

A small tweak but a big difference

Last night, I made a small change that made a big difference. It didn't feel significant when I made it. It felt like a thing you do when…

Meetings with yourself

> I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o clock sharp. > > \- W. Somerset Maugham It's not…

Sending a signal - Meetings at AndreesonHorowitz

In his brilliant book on management and leadership, [The Hard Thing About Hard Things](https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things…

The hat tip

The hat tip is "[a cultural expression of recognition, respect, gratitude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat_tip)." It's more modern…

Showing up and the Daffodil Principle

There are days when I don't want to show up. Days when I wish I could just jump ahead to the part where I have accomplished my goal, won…

You're doing it wrong

Ryan Holiday recently weighed in on the phenomenon of 'ultra hardcore readers' - people who spent nearly every spare minute of their day…

The hidden cost of habit creep

Habits are a way to automate certain decisions to make space for the bigger ones. They are not, however, a panacea - a lesson which became…

The allure of banned materials

A few days ago, I got to talking with a friend about the Berkeley students' recent protests and threatened protests in advance of speeches…

Why write?

In his annual letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos answered a question that had been following him around for twenty years: what does Day…

Optimizing for the experience

Think about the last time you were in an elevator. Did you pull out your phone to check your email or get an update on the score of the game…

Where do you live?

When we meet people for the first time, we are filling in gaps with all of the information we can gather about a person. No matter how good…

This too shall pass and thoughts on (im)permanence

Permanence is beautiful. I would argue that one reason we gravitate toward immortal divine beings is that there's comfort and solace in…

Acknowledge then correct; skip the judgment

I had wanted to write something smart tonight. The topic was all picked out, I had researched it, and I'd even thought of an anecdote about…

Drowning out thoughts

> "An artist must have downtime, time to do nothing." -- Julia Cameron A few months back, I was talking to a friend who confided that he…

City of Big Shoulders

> Hog Butcher for the World, > > Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, > > Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; > > Stormy, husky…

Looking at the keys to successful (email) communication

In my first corporate orientation class, I participated in a professional writing seminar lad by Curry Young Consultants. In terms of…

Alleviating the pressure to be right

> "If they don't know your dreams, then they can't shoot 'em down" - J.Cole Most kids learn to share at an early age. It's a lesson that…

Graveyard of Good Intentions

Commitments are easy to accumulate and much harder to extricate from. One of the reasons why I've felt this week to be particularly…

Media diet

These past few weeks have been a lot for me. I've felt overwhelmed and underwhelmed, isolated and crowded, confident and unsure. The roller…

Yesterday is not like today

 This morning I woke up for the first time in nearly three years without something that had become a core part of my…

Sneezes, meetings, and Kitty Genovese

The room was quiet and the music soothing. After 50 minutes of flowing from pose to pose in a room approaching 95°F, the class collectively…

Learning to "GTD"

I have a friend who likes to say that people complain all the time about not having enough time to do what they find important, but when he…

Brief thoughts on reading and note taking

Coming into 2015, I promised myself that I would read more than I did the year before. I was achieved this goal, but I finished was no where…

Yesterday's Coffee - tastes like you made it today!

`youtube: JgMiS81jFyE` > "For the rest of our lives, we will always be one pot of coffee ahead." > > "Until that day when I make a pot of…

Blue Origin's historic rocket landing

`youtube: 9pillaOxGCo` Because who doesn't want to go to space? Also, props to the creative team who had the video chopped and edited in…

Who Would Buy A Car Programmed To Sacrifice The Owner?

"Who would buy a car programmed to sacrifice the owner?" ¹ What I love about this question is that it gets at two conflicting…

Reaction: The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?

Graham Allison's article "The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China headed for War?" published in this month's Atlantic reviews the rise…

Reaction: When Housing Prices Rise, So Do Retail Prices

|| |:---:| | *The left panel of Figure 1 shows that retail-price inflation was highest in locations with high…

Musings in the beer aisle

# Preamble I love beer. Thanks in part to a stint in Prague and living with a beer nerd for a year, it’s a real treat to stand in front of…

Shirt patterns and memory

|  | |:---:| | via The Old Design Shop | Yesterday, I sat down at my friend Grant’s…

Should education be subsidized?

Beyond my health, education is probably the single greatest gift I have ever received. I am eternally grateful to my parents, my teachers…

Starting with a question

This site starts with a question. It's a question about purpose, about direction, and about value - "Is this worth reading? Is it useful or…

Thanks for reading! My name's Stephen Weiss. I live in Chicago with my wife, Kate, and dog, Finn.
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