Jekyll doesn't do components? Liar!

09 Sep 2021 🔖 web development jamstack 💬 EN

Hot take: anyone who tells you that Jekyll doesn’t support component-based design, and that you need a React- or Vue-based static site generator, is wrong.

Naomi Kritzer will be blogging some Minnesota 2021 candidates again

08 Sep 2021 🔖 questions 💬 EN

Non-tech post: For anyone living in Minneapolis or St. Paul, Minnesota: Naomi Kritzer has announced that she intends to blog about canidates for 2021. It looks like there’s also some coverage of outstate Minnesota 2021 races on another site.

Learn static site generation with Stackbit

28 Aug 2021 🔖 web development jamstack 💬 EN

Stackbit does it again: their blog is kicking out articles that are amazing resources for web developers picking up new technologies. Their latest series is called the Jamstack Journey, and it’s a really great deep dive into the concepts I was trying to explain with “What is static web hosting?” and “What is a static site generator?.”

A dumb Python mistake

25 Aug 2021 🔖 python 💬 EN

Read on for how I went to bed angry over a mysterious API error that turned out to be a Python version error.

Next.js Minimum Viable Build

23 Aug 2021 🔖 architecture jamstack web development minimum viable build 💬 EN

Like with Gatsby for novices and dabblers, I need to work my way through Next.js, because I find it intimidating.

ETL QA is interpersonal communication

23 Aug 2021 🔖 architecture integration databases 💬 EN

I’ve spent a week writing e-mails and calling people after enabling a new primary-database-to-secondary-database feed.

I think one of the hardest parts about troubleshooting whether unexpected issues are “garbage in, garbage out” data-quality issues or whether they’re “I wrote bad code” issues is getting clarity about the input data quality from people who do the data entry without making them feel like I’m accusing them of failing to do their jobs.

Next.js for novices and dabblers

22 Aug 2021 🔖 architecture jamstack tips web development 💬 EN

Like I did with Gatsby, I want to make sure it’s easy for novice web developers to explore if Next.js is right for them.

I aim to lower the bar by bringing you along as I learn it myself.

I also hope to abstract core Next.js concepts away from the command-line tools often used to implement them so you can keep your computer clean while you dip a toe into Next.js’s waters.

Database fiscal year in review: 2020/2021

19 Jul 2021 💬 EN

Time for a performance check-in, and I realized I might as well brag publicly about some things I did in my database work this past year.

Random handy CumulusCI notes

13 Jul 2021 🔖 salesforce vscode 💬 EN

Below are some miscellaneous Salesforce scratch org / packaging / SFDX / CumulusCI / VSCode / Git notes I don’t want to forget.

Open a Salesforce scratch org in a different browser with CumulusCI

10 Jul 2021 🔖 salesforce 💬 EN

Using Salesforce’s CumulusCI to manage SFDX scratch orgs? I am. I was working from a machine where Firefox is the default web browser, and Firefox didn’t play nicely with Lightning-mode editing of custom metadata types (it wouldn’t ever render the main part of the page where I edit types). Nor would Firefox let me switch to Classic mode (it kept logging me out of the scratch org). This is how I managed to open the scratch org in Chrome.