/Tips

Developer Tools Secrets That Shouldn’t Be Secrets

- Christian Heilmann tl;dr: (1) Console is more than log() - it's console.log(width), console.error(), console.trace(), etc... (2) You can log without source access. (3) You can log outside the browser i.e. in the VS Code debugger. (4) You can inject code into any site. And more.

featured in #274

Do-nothing Scripting: The Key To Gradual Automation

- Dan Slimmon tl;dr: There are often procedures that need automating. They are focus-intensive yet require little thought. These are a "slog" and can be turned into a "do-nothing script" that "encodes the instructions of a slog, encapsulating each step (that needs to happen) in a function." Dan provides an example and believes the value is immense - (1) it's easier to power through the slog. (2) It's requires less activation energy. (3) It makes future automation easier.

featured in #273

When Costs Are Nonlinear, Keep It Small

- Jessica Kerr tl;dr: "Do the easy boring job regularly, instead of the hard scary job in a panic." Jessica highlights the increasing, non-linear costs incurred when we don't repair something often and frequently.

featured in #224

Hard To Discover Tips And Apps For Making MacOS Pleasant

- Tristan Hume tl;dr: "Inspired by a few different conversations with friends who’ve switched to macOS where I give them a whole bunch of tips and recommendations..." Tristan also provides suggestions for iOS and productivity apps.

featured in #205

80-characters-per-line Limits Should Be Terminal, Says Linux Kernel Chief Linus Torvalds

- Simon Sharwood tl;dr: "Linus Torvalds has railed against 80-character-lines as a de facto programming standard and has moved to make reminders to keep things short a thing of the past."

featured in #184

GitHub Protips: Tips, Tricks, Hacks, And Secrets From Lee Reilly

- Lee Reilly tl;dr: Make your @mentions stand out, using dark theme, markdown formatting tips and more.

featured in #181

Words Are Hard - An Essay on Communicating With Non-Programmers

- Michael Bryan tl;dr: Communicating engineering to non-programmers can be an important part of the job and, often, programmers shy away. Michael explains strategies and techniques he uses. 

featured in #171

Goodbye, Clean Code

- Dan Abramov tl;dr: Developers strive for cleaner code. There's an inflection point when a developer starts writing code in abstraction, this feels like a "super power." Dan learnt this comes with its own trade-offs. "Clean code is not a goal."

featured in #169

Notes On Technical Writing

- Marcus Kazmierczak tl;dr: Marcus frequently writes documentation for Wordpress. Here, he guides us through some of his learnings, including the concept of Minimalist Instruction.

featured in #169

Database Design Standards

- Curtis Poe tl;dr: Curtis runs through some tips on database design - whether to go with camel case names or underscore\_names, plural or singular tables, column naming, and more.

featured in #169