Dan Lew Codes
Thoughts on life, the universe and the mystery of it all; but actually mostly just code.
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Latest posts
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My life before & after automated testing
It’s hard for me to overstate how much my coding has improved since embracing automated testing. And yet, I used to think of it as a waste of time! This post is for my former self, demonstrating why I embrace the practice now. Allow me to demonstrate with
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Nitpicking in code reviews wastes time
I once wrote about how I've stopped nit-picking in code reviews , which improved the signal-to-noise ratio and helped everyone get along better. I’m back with a third reason to ditch the practice: nit-picking wastes time . By definition, nitpicks are about minor problems:
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There's more to software development than coding
Like many software developers, I’ve been considering the future of my profession in the face of AI. AI can write code. Our job is to write code. It seems natural that we’d be replaced by AI, no? But recently I've been considering the warning
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Obfuscated Rhythm Games
I’ve been a rhythm game fiend since my introduction to Dance Dance Revolution in the early 2000s. I spent years obsessed with DDR, took a detour into Beatmania, then played Guitar Hero / Rock Band nonstop for years. I haven’t gone deep on any rhythm games recently,
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How to use Jest mocks
For better or worse, my life has become infested by Jest mocks. I come from the land of dependency injection ( I even gave a talk once !), but whenever I talk about dependency injection to JavaScript developers I get this reaction: Instead, mocking is king. Unfortunately, I’ve…
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What the fuck are passkeys and why are they everywhere now?
This is a writeup of a talk I gave at Minnebar 20 . Originally, I threw in some Matrix references to make the talk more fun & engaging. Those jokes work better in person, so I’ve mostly omitted the Matrix from this writeup (though some vestiges remain). It seems
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Don't Cite Unsold eBay Listing Prices
Journalists, I beg of you: please stop confusing unsold eBay listings for actual sales. I’m ticked off after seeing this Patch post about NYC MetroCards selling for $5,000 and this WSJ article about Trader Joe’s totes going for $50,000 . Yes, someone listed
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Hacking Displate (For Fun!)
During the pandemic my weird vice/obsession became Displates (metal wall art hung up by magnets): Some of my Displates (along with other tchotchkes in my office) For me, part of the hobby was poking holes in their website. I’ve long stopped trying to give their devs heartburn,
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Balatro’s Least Erratic Decks
My most recent “just for fun” project was to find the least erratic of the Erratic decks in Balatro (a poker-ish roguelike deckbuilder game). Before each game, you pick a deck that has a special power. The Erratic deck completely randomizes the ranks/suits of the cards
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Fix Your Microphone
It’s likely that, at some point, you've had shitty audio during video meetings. Why? Because you don’t get immediate feedback for audio issues . With video, you can instantly see if your image is out of focus or if you’re not in the
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When Your Source of Truth is Reality
Let me tell you a story about why one should be cautious with databases that track the real world. I play trombone in a local community orchestra . For the past two years, I’ve been the board secretary; part of my duties is keeping a roster of who is
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Coding by Magic
Most of my programming ventures begin with a single line of code I’m curious about. Who is calling the code, and how does this code fit into the larger jigsaw puzzle? As a result, “find usages”, “go to declaration”, and “go to implementations&
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Programming Priorities
Software development (or, you know, life in general) is all about juggling priorities. For this post, I’m thinking specifically about code design priorities . You only have a limited amount of time to implement a feature, so you have to pick and choose which aspects of it to…
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Dan's Edina Sample Ballot Election (2024)
As a summary, here's what I'm voting this year on my Edina, MN ballot (along with links to research on why I'm voting that way): For all partisan races (president, senate, house/state reps) - the DFL candidate . Statewide constitutional amendment - Yes . County Commissioner…
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Edina City Council (2024)
Another post about local Edina politics, this time the city council race. There are three candidates for two open positions; you get to vote for two: Ryan Daye Carolyn Jackson (incumbent) James Pierce (incumbent) Carolyn Jackson Let’s get the easy one out of the way first.…