I have yet to meet a serious frontend programmer who hasn't used file system watcher tasks to recompile/rebuild/redeploy code and enjoy the instant feedback. In Javascript land all build tools/bundlers/packers and whatnot provide watch​ flags to make them watch for changes forever.  This sounds a good idea at first, but when you have to use more...

It is quite common to have separate users for different git repos. For example having a public account for all your open-source GitHub stuff, and a work account for your employer’s private git remote. If you regularly have to clone new repos in each ‘role’, defaulting to one and changing the local repository config in all others quickly becomes...

Recently I’ve been writing a graph query engine at Fault Tolerant System Research Group at uni. The frontend is Cypher, a language popularized by Neo Technology shipped OOTB with their graph database Neo4j. Recently Cypher is getting standardized in an open source and open government initiative under the name openCypher; and other DB vendors, s...

Abstract: Blogpost summarizing the challenges of creating a flexible and customizable MIDI controller mapping for Mixxx targeting multiple Novation Launchpad grid controllers. Keywords: JavaScript, MIDI, Mixxx, ES6 modules, Babel, Flow I own two Novation Launchpads. The most iconic use-cases of this cool grid controller is launching samples. L...

With this article we are starting a series of blogposts targeting developers who want to learn or refresh their knowledge about writing concurrent applications in general. The series will focus on well-known and widely adopted concurrency patterns in different programming languages, platforms and runtimes. With this, we are diverting from our us...

As you write more functional programs, you’ll sometimes encounter situations like this where the functional way of expressing a program feels awkward or tedious. Does this imply that purity is the equivalent of trying to write an entire novel without using the letter E? Of course not. Awkwardness like this is almost always a sign of some missing...

We all know about the Fibonacci sequence. Some of us also know a song that uses it to achieve a spiraling feeling (yes, Tool fans!). In Haskell: fib 1 = 0 fib 2 = 1 fib x = fib (x - 1) (x - 2) 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 … That’s it. Story ended. Well not quite. Let’s see a language where we can reason about the execution, because I can’t in Haskell. Sc...