On Substack
Communication, relationships, and everything else I learned from paper plants in the 90's
January 19th, 2023
Community resilience is not a wellness app
November 15th, 2022
The "ideas guy" and the mental load of tech leadership
November 1st, 2022
Elsewhere
Adventures with Victory and Canvas
Formidable Blog - November 4th, 2021
Data Visualizations and the Main Thread: A (Sometimes) Love Story
Formidable Blog - October 27th, 2021
Calibrated Code Reviews
Formidable Blog - December 10th, 2020
On Here
Building a Developer-Friendly Interface With Custom Hooks
May 04, 2020We can treat our code as a user interface by creating readable hooks and tests. Here is some advice for using custom hooks to be a little kinder to yourself or your teammates.
Using React Hooks to Build Single Responsibility Components
May 04, 2020Why do we need to use React hooks? One reason we might find them useful is to separate our rendering from the more complex logic in our application. In this post, I'm using Conway's Game of Life to demonstrate that separation of concerns.
Why I Write Tests
August 20, 2019As an apprentice at 8th Light, I learned a lot about test-driven development. I learned about the red/green/refactor cycle where you write a…
Design Patterns for State Management in React and Typescript
July 15, 2019In any interactive web application, we have state. Menus open and close, forms keep track of values, modals appear and disappear. But as our…
JavaScript Survival Skills
December 28, 2018This post is based on talks given at RVA JavaScript Conf and Chicago JS Camp. As a consultant, I have heard a lot about the pain points of…
A New Approach to State Management with the React Context API
November 20, 2018Selecting a state management tool for your team is critical to their success, and there are a lot of important factors to consider. 8th Light’s Becca Nelson shares her experience using React Context API to drive her team’s efficiency.
Dependency Inversion in React with Render Props
August 30, 2018For front-end development using React, it's important to pay attention to the architecture of your application. If you don’t organize your components well, you can create problems as your application grows. Learn how render props can simplify your state management and keep your code organized.
A Conversation with Jessi Chartier from App Camp for Girls
July 18, 2017Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jessi Chartier, who is the camp coordinator from App Camp for Girls in Chicago, which we will…
Two Design Patterns You're Probably Already Using
May 22, 2017When programming, it helps to tackle some of the more difficult aspects of software development by learning design patterns. Becca Nelson, 8th Light Software Crafter, speaks to how to use these patterns on your path towards building better, and more maintainable, software solutions.