Once Again

Seven Days makes a week. Unless things have gone very wrong... which is always a possibility!

I am coming up on the Difficult™️ part of my Trimester, whereupon I need to perfect my Japanese; Get ready to be a Teaching Assistant for Testing for Good, complete a new talk (more on those later); and sundry other responsibilities.

Such fun.

The GentleHacker At Large

Testing for Good

Perhaps this is your first time hearing of Testing for Good. It is a free up-skilling workshop for all testers, SDETs and Developers, run by industry leaders, with hands-on exercises and immediately applicable knowledge. While free, you may make donations in thanks, with the entire sum going towards Charitable Works. For October, the funds are going towards the Environmental Working Group.

QConf

QConf is a Product-Pitch-Free conference for technology leaders, helping them stay on top of emerging trends. I am fortunate enough to be speaking in October, upon the topic of whether Programming languages are actually languages.

This talk grew out of my observations as a Linguistics student, that while complicated tooling and languages probably don't meet the full requirements to count as a human language, they do share many similarities. As such, research on Second Language Acquisition should have much to tell us about how we can learn new tools and techniques. I intend to review the contemporary research, demonstrate the similarities and differences, and discuss what this means for a modern team.

It is a brand new talk and to be quite honest feels a bit like I've invented myself a Thesis, except one without marks, or an ensuring qualification. Nevertheless! I am most keen to deliver it. Should you be interested, please grab a ticket, or invite me to your own conference!

Items of Interest

For Developers

Writing an Emulator

A fun little read by Ravidev Pandey on writing your own emulator. Of an emulator. A meta-emulator, if you will.

Conditionally Spreading an Object in JavaScript

Object spreading allows you to populate one object with the properties of another:

let raven = { notes: "flat", letters: "aberruu" }
let writing_desk = { ...raven, bills: "outstanding" }

console.log(writing_desk)
// { notes: "flat", letters: "aberruu", bills: "outstanding" }

But supposing you only wish to spread an object under certain circumstances? Well, Amir Merchant has a solution for you.

Is Your Memory Poor?

Mine certainly is, which is why I like using Dash for documentation. (Although, ironically, I often forget to do so).

This is why Hynek Schlawack's article on the Dash Ecosystem was a must-read.

Search

I stumbled across Meilisearch, a configurable search solution with a free Open Source version and low-cost hosted edition. I've not used it yet but it remains in my mind, pending.

For Designers

React and all it's Options

Part of the love for React stems from the ability to create composable, separate components, allowing teams to easily mix-and-match elements as needed. This all sounds very good in theory but can prove something of a stumbling block for new players.

Which is why Brent Jackson's list of Style Composition Patterns is an excellent resource.

For Managers

Are The Teams Alright?

Atlassian has recently published a "State of Teams" report, looking at whether teams are healthy, and what that even means.

Of sad interest is that only 20% of teams are "Healthy". This is not due to location (although nearly 2/3rds of the healthy teams are Remote or Hybrid-Remote); Instead, it reflects a lack of alignment and psychological safety.

The GentleHacker finds it miserable and dolorous that over half of the notional adults in our workplaces are unable to conduct themselves in a way that re-enforces psychological safety. Proper Workplace Conduct should be paramount. Is your own team healthy? What are the most effective measures for ensuring it is thus? Please leave a Comment!

Note Taking App of the Month : Joplin

Joplin is an Open Source, Privacy and (ironically) Open-ness focused app for note taking. It features end-to-end encryption, a plugin architecture, and the project works with security researchers to enhance and improve functionality.

Over at Opensource.com, Richard Chambers interviewed the developer behind Joplin, Laurent Cozic, and it is Worth a Read

With Thanks

Should you have enjoyed this edition of The Week That Was, I would greatly appreciate you sharing with your fellows, or a Subscription or Follow over on My Web Log.

Should you wish to find previous entries, you shall find them all collected here.