Tech

I got my iPad Pro at the end of 2017. Before buying it, I had read many blog posts by various developers who were using iPad for programming and web development. But soon after I bought it, I realized that serious web development on iPad is hard. The biggest issue was debugging JavaScript and CSS without web tools. At first, I was having buyer’s remorse but I loved the form factor of iPad and loved drawing on it. I am used to reading on Kindle and iPad was just too heavy for long reading sessions but it was a very decent reading device for quick reading sessions. So I kept it. ...

Last week, I had decided to use Swift/Apple’s ecosystem for initial gamedev. But I wasn’t feeling 100% okay with getting locked into Apple’s ecosystem. So I spent last week doing more research on developing simple apps using Swift, Xamarin, Flutter, and React Native. Since I use JavaScript at work, React Native would be the easiest way for me to get started but it feels too much like work and I am kind of tired of js/npm dependencies and build tools. One nice thing about staying in Apple’s ecosystem is that everything has really good documentation and feels more polished. ...

One of the most common technologies that new professional developers struggle with is git. Many junior developers are eager to start using all of the powerful commands of git and usually end up getting more confused. Here are a few commands that I recommend to anyone learning git for the first time: clone This downloads the entire git repo from a remote server, usually. You will get all revision history and branches. ...

I use 13-inch MacBook Pro for personal projects and 15-inch for work. My personal MBP would be the last traditional laptop, hopefully. Since most of my work can easily be done on Linux VPS. I have been using a 10.5-inch iPad Pro with Blink shell for most of my side projects. I like the form factor of iPad Pro and I am getting better at Linux administration. Now I am also setting up Docker images so I can bring up new images as needed. ...

Occasionally, when people find out I am a programmer, they ask me if I will build them a website or an app on the side. As I spend all day programming at my work, I rarely have the motivation to continue programming after work. However, talking to most people, I realize they don’t need a programmer; most of their needs can be met by a simple SaaS solution. Recently, I directed a few friends to WordPress.com, SmugMug, Shopify, etc. They all were happy with the results and ease of use. Also I am glad they talked to me because one guy was ready to spend a few thousands on a developer for a WordPress-based site. ...

Managing WordPress can get time consuming. I have tried to move to static website several times but kept going back to WordPress. But there are several advantages of static site generators, so I finally moved for good. I am also advising a lot of my clients to use Hugo especially when they know that they will rarely ever update their sites. Here are some of the main advantages of Hugo (or other static site generators) vs WordPress and other CMS. ...

I finally bought a 10.5" iPad Pro (Affiliate Link). It was mostly an impulse purchase. When I first started to use iPad, it felt blah. It is hard to find good apps or what apps you might want to try out. My main goal with iPad was to have a really small laptop replacement. So I was hoping for a decent code editor. There are some code editing apps but there is no way to try them out before purchasing. So I am spending a lot of time reading reviews before I purchase any app. ...

Running unit tests in Laravel, I was getting this error: ReflectionException: Class Tests\Unit\Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\NotFoundHttpException does not exist The issue was a missing root backslash, make sure you have expected exception like: $this->expectException(\Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Exception\NotFoundHttpException::class);

I upgraded PHP to version 7.0 on an Ubuntu box. Running php -v on shell would show it as version 7.0. But Apache was still using PHP 5.6. I tried various methods to update settings for Apache but nothing worked until I issued the following commands: sudo a2dismod php5.6 sudo a2enmod php7.0 sudo service apache2 restart Source: PHP 7.0 (and 5.6) on Ubuntu | LornaJane

After 3 years, I am using Laravel again at work. Laravel has extensive documentation but sometimes it can be a bit verbose. Here are commands to get you started as soon as possible. This assumes pretty much a fresh install of MacOS. Install Homebrew Check the official site for the latest command /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" Install PHP 7.1 brew install homebrew/php/php7 Install MariaDB brew install mariadb Set MariaDB to start as a service at the end of installation. ...