Technical
Power up SVGs with React and CSS
SVGs (scalable vector graphics) may be old news, but we use them in modern development stacks all of the time. Our device displays have increasingly more pixels, and SVGs can scale infinitely while staying crisp and clean. Similar to HTML, the SVG standard is based on XML and provides a way to describe shapes and…
Read MoreEnum Types in Postgres
This is another in the series “Yeah, Postgres can do that.” You can check out the first post about Postgres history tracking. The Rails framework, including Active Record, is built so that you can switch from one database platform to another. If you want to switch from Postgres to MySQL, in theory we only have…
Read MoreGnarly Learnings from November 2022
We love reading, watching, and listening in order to keep our skills sharp and our perspectives fresh. Here are some of the resources we learned from this month. Embedding with Sidekiq 7.0 Mike Perham, the creator of Sidekiq, wrote a blog post discussing one of the features of the newly released Sidekiq 7.0: embedding! Prior…
Read MoreGnarly Learnings from October 2022
We love reading, watching, and listening in order to keep our skills sharp and our perspectives fresh. Here are some of the resources we learned from this month. The Practical Effects on the GVL on Scaling in Ruby In “The Practical Effects of the GVL on Scaling in Ruby”, Nate Berkopec provides a great practical…
Read MoreGnarly News October 2022
The software development landscape is constantly changing. As a software consultancy, it’s our responsibility to keep our finger on the pulse of the industry. Here are some headlines that caught our attention recently. Heroku Introduces New Low-Cost Plans This past summer Heroku announced their “Next Chapter” which includes discontinuing free product plans, free dynos, and…
Read MoreWhat Is the Point of Free and Open Source Software? Part 2: Open Source
What is the point of free and open source software (FOSS)? Do we make it for the sake of freedom, or for the sake of expedience? (Or for the sake of our careers?) In Part 1, we suggested an answer might be found in how people assess the health of FOSS as a social institution.…
Read MoreHistory Tracking With Postgres
It’s no secret among my colleagues that I’m a huge fan of Postgres. I think the features of modern relational databases are a source of untapped potential in the Rails community. The Rails community tends to make websites where we can easily swap from one database platform to another, but if you’re okay with your…
Read MoreGnarly Learnings from September 2022
We love reading, watching, and listening in order to keep our skills sharp and our perspectives fresh. Here are some of the resources we learned from this month. An Introduction to Ractors in Ruby 🚨 Experimental feature alert! 🚨Ractors were introduced in Ruby 3 and represent an actor-model abstraction. Ractors provide true-blue parallelism and do…
Read MoreOur Code Review Process: More than Quality Assurance
Just like writers during the editing process, programmers review each other’s work, provide feedback, and work together to create a more refined, higher-quality end product. At a basic level, this process helps ensure code quality and brings potential defects to the surface. More than that, it helps developers transfer and grow knowledge, resulting in continuously…
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