Interestings for Iterators (i4i) Vol I, #6
Test-Driving HTML Templates - Martin Fowler tooted about this article which shares a model for writing HTML rendering tests, including examples in Go and Java. I’ve leaned away from view tests for years and I tend to be very wary of parameterized tests. But I think this is worth a read to digest the techniques and see if/how they are worth applying in my own work.
How Structures Affect Outcomes: Insights from Software Engineering Leader Elisabeth Hendrickson - In my queue to listen to this week, because Elisabeth.
How I Saved 100GB of Space on My Mac - You thought you only needed a 512GB SSD on that new MacBook. Then iCloud synced 100GB of Messages and Photos. This is a good toolkit for finding a lot of developer cruft hiding on your system. I’ll add that Daisy Disk is a MacOS app I’ve used for years that’s similar to one of the tools mentioned in this post.
A few years ago, thanks to Mike Dalessio, I started using Excalidraw for all my vector graphic needs. About the same time, I found Mermaid, which is a set of DSLs to make common types of charts and diagrams. The universe has again given us two great tastes that taste great together1: Excalidraw now can import and render Mermaid charts. Now you can draft up a chart in Mermaid text, get to a “logically correct” diagram, then paste in Excalidraw to make it visually what you want (or just export it for inclusion elsewhere - h/t to RJ Zaworski ). Play with it here.
Squeezing the Feedback Loop - Speaking of RJ, it’s always great when folks outside of my direct Pivotal influence talk about shrinking feedback loops.
The Cloud Under the Sea - The Verge published this in April, but I finally got to reading it this past week. It’s an amazing story that merges the history of undersea cables with what crews are doing today for maintaining intercontinental fiber connectivity (make sure to read in-browser as it’s full of neat images and scrolling techniques). It reminded me of Mother Earth, Mother Board, Neal Stephenson’s epic article from 1996(!) tracing what was then the longest fiber cable project. These articles make a great pair.
Lastly, from the deep archives of the internet (check out the ~ in the URL), I stumbled across Donald Knuth telling the world he doesn’t have time for their email. Come for the etymology (dropping the hyphen from e-mail) and stick around for the reminder to claim your focus and attention from the world so you can do your chosen, important work.