DEV Community: Quentin Sonrel

My manager made a quite stupid mistake

Quentin Sonrel — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 07:46:46 +0000

And I'm upset about it.

Long story short: I'm a consultant and my company is looking to get me on a great mission but the client asked for a specific price limit and my manager just told me he mistakenly made them an offer that is just above that limit...

The price limit was a pretty obvious and well stated requirement and he still missed it and that could make the client refuse the offer and I'd miss a great opportunity.

I'm pretty pissed off. I've yet to see how this pans out but still...

That's all, I just needed to get that off my chest, sorry for the whining.

How do you cope with bad code?

Quentin Sonrel — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 13:25:19 +0000

I don't really know how to put it without sounding like a crybaby but let's say I currently need to work on some really bad code (both in quality and structure) and I don't have to time (deadline) to fix/change/refactor anything. I end up implementing some things by writing really dirty code (because it needs to be adapted to the already existing code) and I absolutely hate it and feel bad about it.

Anyway, not asking for a solution or anything, I know I'll just have to make do, it's part of the job, but for those of you who are/were in a similar situation: how do you cope with this? How do you stop caring too much about quality and just do what must be done?

Error when serving React app from sub-folder

Quentin Sonrel — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 07:58:19 +0000

Hello there!

I'm trying to serve a React application from a sub-folder. It's currently a very simple SPA running on the root URL (e.g. http://myserver:3000) and I'd like to serve it from a sub-folder (e.g. http://myserver:3000/newroot).

I've spent the day trying many things, most of them revolving around the use of a "homepage" variable in my package.json:



{
  "name": "cra_test",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true,
  "homepage": "/newroot",
...

I've found many people (and docs) reporting this as a (part of a) solution but when I do so and rebuild then rerun my app (npm run build and serve -s build) it yields nothing but a blank page with the following error in the browser console:

Pardon the literal french on the first two warnings, it reads:

The script at [...] was loaded while it's MIME type (text/html) isn't a valid JavaScript MIME type

These two errors exclusively appear when I use "homepage" in my package.json. For testing purposes, I've reproduced all those steps on a freshly created (with create-react-app) app, the issue is the same, so it's most likely not due to coding errors.

After hours of trial and error, I'm basically clueless as to how to solve this.

I'd be grateful for any insight on the issue or for any alternative solution to the initial problem (serving the app from a sub-folder), thanks in advance!

Firefox 64 drops RSS support, thoughts?

Quentin Sonrel — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 14:13:48 +0000

Bonus question: do you (still) use RSS? For those of you who do, what client do you use?

Freelancing in addition of a day job

Quentin Sonrel — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 12:11:09 +0000

While I know it's most likely naive and utopic, I'd like to seriously consider how I can make side money with development.

What are your thoughts on this?

How many email addresses do you use?

Quentin Sonrel — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 09:42:16 +0000

I've always had multiple email addresses, right now I have 6:

One "private": let's say it's the main one, used for everything except for the things I use the other ones for.
One "dev": for my dev related accounts: GitHub, Dev.to, DigitalOcean, Namecheap, that kind of things.
Two for work: as a consultant I have an address at my company and one at the client's premises.
A Gmail address: for Google stuff only.
A "dirty" address: I don't really use it, but when I need to create an account I'm not sure to keep, I use this address, it allows me to keep the main one clean.

... and I'll probably have a 7th one soon enough (for freelancing, my dev one wont do and I'd like to keep work-related stuff outside the private one).

But I'm starting to think it's too much... hence the question:

How many email addresses do you use? What for?

Usefulness of a personal website/page

Quentin Sonrel — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 08:57:14 +0000

I recently acquired sonrel.me thinking it could finally be the occasion to build a personal page, although I'm still not convinced of how useful it is.

To those of you who have a personal website/page: would you say it's useful? Whether or not, how so?

Additional questions:

What kind of site do you have? A simple page about you? CV-like? Portfolio? Other?
What techs/stack do you use?

Bonus points for links! 😉

P.S.: I don't consider blogs "personal pages", it is for me a different kind of site with a totally different kind of purpose.

What are your thoughts on multiples package managers?

Quentin Sonrel — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 09:24:43 +0000

I just came to realize: I once loved Linux for one (of many) thing: the fact that everything was installed using a centralized package manager. Compared to Windows with it's many dirty .exe it seemed like paradise when I discovered Linux back in 2009.

And today I realized quite the opposite: I now use many different package managers to install softwares I use daily. Some examples:

I use Glances, installed with PIP
I use Rubocop, installed with Gem
I use TLDR, installed with NPM
I just started to use exa and bat (thanks to this awesome post), both installed with Cargo

Not only many packages I use are installed via an external package managers, but these package managers are themselves not even installed via my distribution's packages manager! For example, Rubocop is installed via Gem... installed via RVM... installed via a script. Same for NPM (installed via NVM) and Cargo (installed via a script). The only package manager installed with my distribution's package manager is PIP.

Another thing I noticed: many "modern" softwares does not even provide real Linux packages (deb or yum for example) anymore. Some of them provide only an AppImage (e.g. BitWarden) or simply a .tar.gz (e.g. Postman).

I'm not especially bothered by this, except maybe for the fact that I have to manage multiple "software lists" (if I want to list them all before a reinstall for example) and that I can't just update all my packages in one command. Also it feels like all the softwares I use are scattered all over the place... good thing I'm not OCD 😀

What are your thoughts on this? Do you use many package managers? Why or why not? If you are, do you see it as a good or bad thing?

Explain the difference between PATCH and PUT Like I'm Five

Quentin Sonrel — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 12:57:27 +0000

Secondary question: is the difference (if any) still relevant? (Asking because Ruby on Rails seems to treat both the exact same way)

Average daily coding time of a developer

Quentin Sonrel — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 15:21:28 +0000

I know the definition of "coding time" can vary but let's be reasonable and human here, of course coding time is more than the time spent typing actual characters in your editor. Taking a few minutes to read some doc, search the web for a function or to type a few VCS commands count as "coding". On the other hand, spending 30 minutes reading a manual does not. You get the idea.

That being said, let's take a developer working 7 to 8 hours a day (regular day job for example). What would be your estimation of his daily actual coding time? On average, of course.

P.S.: This is not a question related to productivity measuring or anything, just plain curiosity.

How do you get started with new habits?

Quentin Sonrel — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 13:32:39 +0000

I have been quite inspired by this post lately, and it's good to see that we all are trying to adopt some new habits and be better!

But on a practical point of view, how do you get started with a new habit? How do you keep up with it until it becomes normal? What's the most difficult thing for you when trying to adopt a new habit?

Speaking for myself I usually try to prioritize the habits I'd like to adopt, I start with the most important one. Also I try to take on habits one at a time to avoid being too overwhelmed.
That being said, the main issue for me is time and energy. It's not rare that the habits I try to adopt start feeling like chores and feel more daunting and exhausting than beneficial. In that case I try not to be too hard on myself and keep up until I can see positive result for habit!

How about you?

Advices for starting and maintaining a blog

Quentin Sonrel — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 14:51:44 +0000

Context

Since a few years now I want to start writing a blog. These few past months I even started putting down some ideas for articles and I feel now is the time to get started, but the truth is: I don't quite know how!

Before asking any questions, here is a (not so) small description of what I'm considering for my blog.

Topic

The blog aims to be a personal blog on which I can write about things I care about.

This blog isn't meant to be about one specific topic or area but most articles will most likely be tech-related (dev stuff mostly). Other topics will draw in my hobbies (cinema, video games, music) or anything else I'd like to write about.

In short: 70% tech stuff, 20% hobbies, 10% others.

Articles/writing

I'm considering writting different kind of articles. Some articles will just be my two cents on a subject, some others will be more like news posts (conveying specific information to the readers), and some will be more like how-tos.

The length of articles will vary depending on their type and their subject. Articles will be written in english and sorted in different categories (most likely articles will be tagged and sortable by tag).

Layout and design

The idea is to keep things simple and stupid: fixed header and footer and any page will either be a list of articles or an article. Navigation will be in the header, footer will contain miscellaneous informations (bio, external links, social media, etc...).

The goal is to keep the layout and design minimalist to focus on the content of the articles. The text width will be fixed to facilitate reading and the blog should be mobile-friendly (responsive).

Also, a classical comment section will be available on each and every article.

Backend/technical stuff

This blog project isn't meant to be a technical project, meaning that once the blog is launched, it should require very little technical maintenance, 90% of the work put in the blog should go into writing articles.

That being said, the tech stack should be chosen accordingly. The current favorite candidates are static sites generators like Jekyll or equivalent.

Ideally, articles should be written in Markdown, to keep both the redaction and the articles layout simple.

Question(s)

Now, here are the two things I'd like to ask:

Your thoughts on what I just described! Anything, really.
Answers or advice for these questions:
- Is it a good idea to have various topics or should the blog be focused on one domain?
- How to find, gain and keep readership? That's not an absolute goal (meaning: I don't want to blog to gain fame), but a blog is meant to be read after all!
- What about social media presence? (any advices and thoughts are welcome)
- How to make the blog interesting? (kinda broad question, I know)
- What short and long term goals should I set for the blog?
- How to monitor traffic and readership? How to see how things are going?

Of course, if you have any other recommendation, it's more than welcome!