What happened last week - issue #22

This week: clever code, code brushes, refactoring and more.

What happened last week

Last week I finally live-streamed the first episode of the Code and Coffee show together with Christian. It really went very well, and I’m pleased with the results.

Also, I had some fun playing with Statamic to prepare the Code and Coffee show’s website.

Apart from this, I’m preparing for the upcoming trips to PHP UK and JS World. I really thrilled about those and can’t wait to learn something new and meet new people.

Next month, with my wife and kid, we are going to Spain for almost a month. I’m already thrilled about all the bike routes there. It will be an exciting start of the cycling season.

Interesting links

Clever Code Considered Harmful — Josh W Comeau

Josh writes about an essential aspect of coding - readability. We often write some smart-looking pieces of code, to realize a month later we don’t understand how it works anymore. I agree that sometimes it’s better to write a “dumb-looking” piece of code rather than a magical one.

Code Brushes — Amelia Wattenberger

Copilot itself is amazing, but I’m more amazed by all the GitHub Next projects. This time it’s Code Brushes. They help you “paint” your code with a certain brush to change the code style. For example, there is a “make more readable” or a “fix simple bugs” brush.

And while I have some concerns about some legal stuff behind Copilot, it doesn’t stop me from admiring what can be built on top of it.

Refactoring ugly JavaScript — Caleb Porzio

This great video shows how to refactor some parts of JavaScript code for better readability. Really worth watching as it may give you a few 💡moments.

Top Front-End Tools Of 2022 — Louis Lazaris

Louis picked some amazing tools on his list. It’s worth checking all of them because maybe you’ll find a hidden gem. My favorites? I really like the Scroll Btween, Text Cleaner, DevToys, and JSON Crack.

How we improved our documentation — Shahed Nasser

Medusa is an Open Source alternative to Spotify. Like every Open Source project, their documentation is one of the most important places all developers visit. In this article Shahed shares how they improved their documentation. It’s always interesting how others are handling this.

Learn how to cover your PHP application with tests 🧪 — Chrisitan Dangl

During our live-stream, Chrisitan showed how to refactor and add tests to a PHP application. I always love the natural process that pushes you to refactor your code to make it testable.

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And how was your week? Did you learn something interesting? Don’t hesitate to press the reply button or share your thoughts in the comment section.

Cheers,

Maciek