finiteloop

On being productive

Our day is bombarded with inputs, things to be done and to be done on time: the more our lives become dynamic, the less can we rely on routine to remember what we

Contracting

IT contracting: how to get started

Incorporating an LTD company, getting insured, finding an accountant and opening the first bank account.

Docker

🐳 Dockerize your tests to run everywhere - Part II

In the first part of this series, I presented a simple solution to run selenium based tests from inside a container, using Docker and Docker Compose. While this solution serves the cause of

JavaScript

Snapshot testing and why it makes sense

The JavaScript world is ever changing: every day new libraries come out and, as developers, we're lucky enough to get to try all these new ideas in our every day job. Using the

Docker

🐳 Dockerize your tests to run everywhere

With integration tests being an integral part of a webapp workflow, we should always try to find ways to make them run smoother and make our lives easier. Note: This post was updated

React

Use proxyquire to mock your React components

Testing React components has become trivial as more and more of them are now stateless functions. The new shallow renderer and tools like Enzyme make it possible to render a component "one

cors

Chrome: Allow Cross-domain requests [OSX and Win]

Problem During the development process of an application, we are often required to call services from domains different to the one our application is being served from, using AJAX requests. This is not

JavaScript

git: rename a branch [locally and remotely]

It happens to me quite a lot: I create a branch and then want to rename it to a more specific/correct name. If that branch has already been pushed to a remote,

RaspberryPi

Get yourself a headless Raspberry Pi with Node.js

This small article is meant to be an easy, step by step guide to installing a headless Raspberry Pi with Node.js. What's covered: Install Raspbian Lite Find your Pi Go wireless Upgrade

Node.js

Save the exact version of a module with npm

npm is definitely a very useful tool, but its default behaviour is more tailored for module development than for applications. What I'd like it to do every time I install a dependency is:

Bower

Custom build Zepto with Grunt and Bower

Workflow: I think it's the most important thing for a frontend developer. I like tweaking, improving and fixing my workflow: it makes me feel safe. It makes my life easier, my job quickly

Bower

Bower and Grunt - A practical workflow

Bower & Grunt - A practical workflow on my slideshare Bower is a great tool: it searches, downloads and tracks all our front end dependencies. But it is not enough: we get all

JavaScript

Jasmine: mock an endpoint using $.ajax and Promises for Backbone

The aim of this post is to write a mock version of the $.ajax that will let your code use promises and Backbone perform its stuff. It is often required to test how

shell

OS X/Linux: Check who is listening on a port

If you ever experienced errors like Fatal error: Port xxxxx is already in use by another process you may be interested in finding out who is actually using that port. A simple one-liner

JavaScript

How to fix 'npm install' errors on OS X

I've had this problem for a while: fresh nodejs and npm installation, I try to run npm install or npm install -g and get all kind of errors. Errors when running npm install