The Coding Life

  • Node Food


    A hearty welcome to anyone and everyone coming to Austin for Node Interactive. This will be my first technical conference as a developer, and as such, I figure I should share what I know best: Where to eat.

  • First First Steps


    As I’ve gotten into software development, people come up to me with surprising regularity expressing a desire to learn to code. Some of them already have a complementary skill like design, but others are just ready to jump in. This article is about the very first steps one should take to get set up, and then start creating.

  • A Cautious Beginning with React.js


    My exploration of React.js has officially begun, and I’ve learned some fundamental concepts that have helped me get started. Unfortunately, there’s no one-stop-shop for this kind of thing (see this article for an explanation of the problem) so I’ve had to muck around a bit.

  • Universal JavaScript with React


    As someone who is still wrapping my head around the wide, wide world of web development, it’s often hard to distinguish hype from meaningful changes in the industry. Recently, I think I found one of the latter, and it involves two of the most-hyped things around: Universal JavaScript and React.

  • Waffle.io & GitHub for Fun and Profit!


    Working on a coding project with a group has lots of challenges. Luckily there are tools to make it easy to get things done while keeping the chaos to a minimum.

  • Learning to Love Async


    Work with Node.js is just like working with JavaScript. Until it’s not. Recently, I was building a backend for accessing and manipulating data from APIs and ran right smack into one of the biggest stumbling blocks of that world: asyncronicity.

  • Firebase + Angular


    I’m only just learning Angluar, but when I had to do a quick project with it, I turned to Firebase for my back end.

  • Solo Project Lessons Learned


    Recently, I was tasked with building a piece of software by myself. The bottom line was simple: “Make something. Make anything.”

  • Hand Me the Remote (Work)


    Several years ago, I got my first automatic watch. AKA a mechanical watch, this timepiece operates without batteries, using internal machinery to keep the gears turning. In other words, it’s the way watches used to be made before quartz came into the picture. 

  • Hack Reactor - Week 1


    Week one is done. Hack Reactor was bound to be a trying experience, and after six days of coding and instruction, it certainly proved to be. The days were long, the material vast, and the coding was both challenging and rewarding.