DEV Community: Sahil Nare

Insomnia - an Open Source, Developer-Friendly API testing client

Sahil Nare — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 16:16:49 +0000

Hello devs!

Testing APIs is a huge pain in the ass. If you aren't careful then you can easily get lost in the 'API-jungle' of your back-end application. So, using a tool to document and test the APIs goes a long way to make the development process smoother.

Why use Insomnia?

Before you ask 'Why not Postman?', let me say that I have used Postman for a very long time. I recently shifted to Insomnia for testing my APIs and really love the experience so far. This post isn't meant to be a comparison between the two software. Each one has its own pros and cons. You should use the tool which you find to be the best to work with.

User friendly Interface

What I love the most about Insomnia is its simple and intuitive UI. You got the Method Tabs on the far left, the request and body part in the middle and the response preview on the right. Although you can't see as many options on the page like Postman, in this case less is more.

Crucial features for Development

Some cool features that I like about Insomnia:

Environment variables

You can load custom variables in the environment. This is helpful in cases like when you are creating routes and want to use the same base url. You can also have multiple environments (like for development or production).

Organizing requests

The requests are neatly organized on the left sidebar.

Timeline tab

You can check the timeline of the request by clicking on the timeline tab on the right side. This is very useful if you want to track the time of request, headers, what was the response, etc.

Use data from other responses

You can also use data from other responses. Insomnia suggests many options for the placeholder.

API Design and Sync with Git

When you are designing your API Document, you can use Sync with Git feature to set up a remote repository and commit changes to it.

Excellent themes and community plugins

Insomnia has a nice collection of themes to choose from. You can also install various community plugins to enhance your experience.

Kitty - a fast and sleek terminal emulator for Linux

Sahil Nare — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 08:55:39 +0000

If you are on a Linux system then there's a good chance that you will use the command line for a really long period. The Terminal (or the command line) is a huge part of the Linux experience (especially for developers). So it's important that your Linux terminal is convenient, customizable and fast.

The default terminal on various Linux distros are very neat but there are a lot of features that can make them more functional and effective. You can use terminal emulators for this purpose. Emulators basically provide additional functionalities on top of your classic terminal.

After spending a lot of time searching on the internet for quality terminal emulators, I came across Kitty. And oh boy, is it a hell of a terminal!

Why use Kitty?

Kitty (developed by Kovid Goyal) has got all the features that I really wanted when I was looking for emulators on the internet so I instantly fell in love with it. Here are some of them:

Highly customizable:

Kitty has a configuration file kitty.conf which you can edit and it's very easy to adjust various parameters like fonts, keyboard shortcuts, scrolling, tab preferences, colors, etc according to your needs.

It is highly customizable and you can look up all the details about it in the documentation: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf/

Tabs:

This is a very basic feature but a very big number of emulators don't support it. Kitty has shortcuts for creating tabs. You can also create a sub-tab which basically splits the terminal in half giving you two tabs one above the other. There are many layout options that you can choose from.

It's fast and scriptable

It uses the GPU for fast rendering so the terminal runs very smoothly. It also uses threaded rendering for low latency.

Kitty has a framework for easily creating terminal programs called kittens which is very handy. You can also control the terminal using scripts.

Themes:

You can customize the colors of the terminal easily by creating your own theme and editing it in the kitty.conf file.

If your want to use an existing theme then just run: kitty +kitten themes in the terminal. This will open an interactive program through which you can select a theme that you like. I personally like the Cyberpunk-Neon theme.

Website of Kitty emulator: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/

You can install Kitty from here: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/quickstart/

Github page: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty

Using ESLint to help find bugs in your JavaScript Projects

Sahil Nare — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 16:25:24 +0000

Ever had problems formatting your JS code? Of course you did, a lot of developers do. It is often difficult to keep a consistent style of code throughout an entire project. Well, ESLint is a tool that you can use to make the task of formatting code realy smooth.

I'm a web developer so JavaScript is the most common language I use. Hence, I'm gonna show you how to use ESLint in your JS project (ESLint can only be used with JS). But if you are using any other language then you should search for its own static analysis tools.

Before we start, make sure that you have the package.json file set up. If not then you can run the npm init command in your project directory.

Installing ESLint in your project

You can install ESLint via the npm package manager.

Just run: npm install --save-dev eslint

npm install --save-dev eslint

ESLint will be installed as a 'dev dependency'. This will be reflected in your package.json file.

Setting up ESLint

Once you have successfully installed the package, you will have to initialize ESLint in your project.

For that, you have run the command: npm init @eslint/config

npm init @eslint/config

The program will then ask you about your preferences, i.e. what options that you want to use or how you want to use the ESLint package. You just have to select the desired option using arrow keys and the program will automatically do the ESLint configuration for you.

For the first option, I would suggest to select enforcing code style.

Next, select the type of module. Select the option depending upon whether you are going to use import/export or require/exports.

Then, select the framework that you are using (if any).

Select whether you are using Typescript in your project.

Then, select whether you are going to the run the project on the Browser or in NodeJS.

After that, you can select a popular style guide. Either that or you can answer questions about your own style and ESLint will configure the project accordingly. Here, I'm going to select a popular style guide. (I often use the AirBnB style guide in my projects.)

Now, ESLint will create a configuration file in the project, in which all the options like rules, environment, etc will be stored. You can manually edit this file according to your preferences.

First you will have to select the format of the file: JavaScript, YAML or JSON. I prefer the JSON format.

After this, the program will ask your permission to install the required dependencies. Select Yes.

Select your package manager and the required dependencies will be installed.

ESLint Configuration File

Once ESLint has been initialized, the configuration file will appear your in your project. You can now edit this file and set up the code style that you require.

If you have selected the JSON format, then the file will be named as: .eslintrc.json

You can set up the rules in the rules block. All the ESLint rules are available here: https://eslint.org/docs/latest/rules/

Here's an example of the config file in one of my projects:

ESLint rules have three settings: error, warn or off. You can learn more about configuring rules here: https://eslint.org/docs/latest/user-guide/configuring/rules

Running ESLint

You can run ESLint on individual files. For eg, if I want to run it on index.js, I will use the command npx eslint index.js

But typically, ESLint is run on the entire project. So what I would suggest is adding this line in the scripts block of your package.json file:

"lint": "eslint ./"

Here's an example of a package.json file:

Then you can run npm run lint and it will run on your entire project.

Here's an example output:

ESLint Extension for VS Code

If you are using VS Code for your project then ESLint has a very handy extension that you can use. It will highlight the errors in your editor which makes formatting the code way more easier.

You can install the extension in VS Code by going to the Extensions tab in the Activity bar and searching for ESLint:

It will show an error in the editor itself if your code does not follow the configured format. Here's an example in which the semi-colon is missing from the line and I've added the "semi" rule in .eslintrc.json file.

The errors and warnings will also show up in the VS Code Panel.

For more reference, you can read the documentation for ESLint here: https://eslint.org/docs/latest/

Mind Jam Hackathon for students interested in Entrepreneurship

Sahil Nare — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 11:23:46 +0000

Cómo estás developers? We hope you are doing well in these times.
However, you continue to work and build, don't you? That is the entrepreneurial spirit we are looking forward to seeing in you.

Being a developer isn't just the technical work, there is much more to it. You need to be able to pitch your product, convince the investors why they must give a damn. The DSC club is aiming to help you elevate your future businesses or startups by organizing an open to all hackathon, Mind Jam. Get your creative ideas out in the open, build and pitch your products. This is an opportunity for your ideas to be implemented in the real world.

Mind Jam will commence from June 5th and last till June 10th. It is a 5-day online event and the applications have already begun. Just register at mind jam on devfolio and come up with a unique and mind-blown idea by June 5th.

Making it easy for you, click on the link and register now: https://mindjam.devfolio.co

The additional details related to the timeline of the event, and prizes worth hacking for are put up on the link as well.

Further more, join our channel on telegram:
https://t.me/mindjam