joepie91

When you're developing in Node.js, you're likely to run into these terms - "monolithic" and "modular". They're usually used to describe the different types of frameworks and libraries; not just HTTP frameworks, but modules in general.

At a glance

• Monolithic: "Batteries-included" and typically tightly coupled, it tries to include all the stuff that's needed for common usecases. An example of a monolithic web framework would be Sails.js.
• Modular: "Minimal" and loosely coupled. Only includes the bare minimum of functionality and structure, and the rest is a plugin. Fundamentally, it generally only has a single 'responsibility'. An example of a modular web framework would be Express.

Coupled?

In software development, the terms "tightly coupled" and "loosely coupled" are used to indicate how much components rely on each other; or more specifically, how many assumptions they make about each other. This directly translates to how easy it is to repla

domenic

Redirecting GitHub Pages after a repository move

The problem

You have a repository, call it alice/repo. You would like to transfer it to the user bob, so it will become bob/repo.

However, you make heavy use of the GitHub Pages feature, so that people are often accessing https://alice.github.io/repo/. GitHub will helpfully redirect all of your repository stuff hosted on github.com after the move, but will not redirect the GitHub Pages hosted on github.io.

The solution

joepie91

The One Secret Trick To Becoming A Genius Programmer

Okay, the title of this post is a bit of a lie. There's no one secret trick to becoming a genius programmer - there are two, and they're more habits than tricks. Nevertheless, these kind of 'secret tricks' seem to resonate with people, so I went for this title anyway.

Every once in a while, a somewhat strange thing happens to me. I'll be helping somebody out on IRC - usually a beginner - answering a number of their questions in rapid succession, about a variety of topics. Then after a while, they call me a "genius" for being able to answer everything they're asking; either directly, or while talking about me to somebody else.

Now, I don't really agree with this "genius" characterization, and it can make me feel a bit awkward, but it shows that a lot of developers have a somewhat idealistic and nebulous notion of the "genius programmer" - the programmer that knows everything, who can do everything, who's never stumped by a problem, and of which ther

joepie91

ES Modules are terrible, actually

This post was adapted from an earlier Twitter thread.

It's incredible how many collective developer hours have been wasted on pushing through the turd that is ES Modules (often mistakenly called "ES6 Modules"). Causing a big ecosystem divide and massive tooling support issues, for... well, no reason, really. There are no actual advantages to it. At all.

It looks shiny and new and some libraries use it in their documentation without any explanation, so people assume that it's the new thing that must be used. And then I end up having to explain to them why, unlike CommonJS, it doesn't actually work everywhere yet, and may never do so. For example, you can't import ESM modules from a CommonJS file! (Update: I've released a module that works around this issue.)

And then there's Rollup, which apparently requires ESM to be u

joepie91

No, your cryptocurrency cannot work

Whenever the topic of Bitcoin's energy usage comes up, there's always a flood of hastily-constructed comments by people claiming that their favourite cryptocurrency isn't like Bitcoin, that their favourite cryptocurrency is energy-efficient and scalable and whatnot.

They're wrong, and are quite possibly trying to scam you. Let's look at why.

What is a cryptocurrency anyway?

There are plenty of intricate and complex articles trying to convince you that cryptocurrencies are the future. They usually heavily use jargon and vague terms, make vague promises, and generally give you a sense that there must be something there, but you always come away from them more confused than you were before.