Web Development
There are 21 posts filed in Web Development (this is page 2 of 3).
I’m a fan of using WordPress to build custom websites. So I’ve decided to start a tutorial series and share how I go about building a theme from scratch. No frameworks or starter themes. The Sketch Sketch of the theme’s design The layout sketch
Before even setting up my development environment I…
Is good code boring?
- Make your code readable
- Keep your code predictable
- Your code is your documentation
If we take these as attributes of “boring code”, are these also attributes of “good code”? Let’s take a look.
Code readability (the ability to understand a source code function) is a good one. For most of my career, I have been working with existing code bases, and ability to understand what has been done before is very important. Working in the avionics industry, requirements and traceability go a long way towards helping understanding legacy software. If this is not available, avoiding the use of difficult-to-understand coding techniques can enhance readability.
In Juraj’s post, code predictability covers naming conventions for parameters/functions/files. For the projects I have worked on, coding standards help to define these conventions. Juraj mentioned a Python standard, there are many available.
Finally, code as documentation is a good goal. If there is no other project documentation, the source code should contain all the information necessary for another developer/engineer to pick up the code and add new features.
After this review, I would say these “boring” elements are also included in code that would be considered “good”. Is this everything needed? No (it is necessary, but not sufficent), but this is a good start.
How can we work together on the open web and on software development
- how the original developer doesn’t/shouldn’t have to do everything – others can contribute (to me, a key concept in open source)
- how interested/engaged users can be an important force in the direction in which a software application or tool goes forward
Dave Winer has written about this many times:
- The magic of working together
- Key concept of the open web: working together
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Working together means this: If someone else has a good-enough way to do something, rather than reinvent what they do, incorporate what they do into what you do.
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- Working together (SOTN 2018)
- Working together in 2019
I have tried to follow that second point in several ways:
- My blog uses WordPress, I did not develop my own blogging tool
- I use River5 as my RSS reader engine
- I use RiverBrowser to display my own rivers of news
- I document and evangelize how to create your own rivers of news
- I document how to use tools like River4 and 1999.io
- I help others set up these tools
I am getting ready to start working in the computer music area again after a long absence, and I am reviewing available tools to see if they fit the areas I am interested in. In that way, I am trying to practice the concepts of working together as I have outlined above.
Anyone want to work together with me? Let me know!
Read: jExcel v3: The javascript spreadsheet
Enabling reverse order display of posts in Hugo for Book theme
My next problem was that I wanted the blog post part of the Book theme to display the posts in reverse chronological order. However, it was displaying my post in the middle of the example posts, and I could not figure out what was driving the order. Jack Baty suggested looking at the template file in /layouts/posts/list.html. I looked at that file in the Book theme directory, and started looking at the lists page on the Hugo documentation site. After some reading, I found an example that showed how to display content in reverse order based on the date specified within the file. I changed the third line in the file from:
{{ range sort .Paginator.Pages }}
to
{{ range .Pages.ByDate.Reverse }}
I also edited the Date field in the posts to all have the same format:
date: “2019-06-03”
Once I did that, I got the results i was looking for – hurray! It would have been nice if the theme had done this “out of the box”, but at least I figured it out.
Read: Creating a decentralized web chat in 15 minutes
In this 15 minute tutorial we’re going to build a simple decentralized chat application which runs entirely in a web browser. All you will need is a text editor, a web browser, and a basic knowledge of how to save HTML files and open them in the browser. We’re going to use Bugout, a JavaScript library that takes care of …
Rendering a static site in Hugo
Read: Delivering WordPress in 7KB
Over the past six months, I’ve become increasingly interested in the topic of web sustainability. The carbon footprint of the Internet was not something I used to give much thought to, which is surprising considering my interest in environmental issues and the fact that my profession is web-based….
Read: Discussing Social Networks, Again
Another week, another discussion on the state of social networks on TWiT network. This time it took place on the latest episode of This week in Google . The discussion went on and on about how Google Plus was great. And how other social networks have ruined what made them the best in the first plac…