Development

Generating a QR code using Node.js

Generating a QR code using Node.js

  • June 12, 2024

I was preparing a slide deck for a hackathon and decided to put in a QR code to allow people to connect with me. Naturally, I googled for a service and used it. It turns out that the code generated used a link that had an expiration time associated with...

How to clear the global npx cache

How to clear the global npx cache

  • June 2, 2024

I have been using npx a lot lately, especially whenever I want to use a CLI tool. It is an excellent alternative to installing packages globally since it installs them in a temporary cache instead. Even though it is installed in a temporary location, I figured it is a good...

Copy/Pasting output from the terminal

Copy/Pasting output from the terminal

  • May 15, 2024

Manually copy-pasting the output of a terminal command with a mouse/trackpad feels tedious. It is more convenient to use commands to do so. And we can save the effort by using the built-in commands. Mac We can use pbcopy and pbpaste to copy and paste from the Mac terminal. We can pipe the...

How To Get The Hash of A File In Node.js

How To Get The Hash of A File In Node.js

  • April 25, 2024

While working on a project, I wanted to do an integrity check of a file that I was referencing. So, I needed to know how to get the hash of a file in Node.js. And this post is about that. We will use the fs and crypto modules that are available in...

Native popover API in HTML

Native popover API in HTML

  • April 18, 2024

Popovers have been a problem that was typically solved by using a third-party solution. But that is no longer the case. We now have a native popover API in HTML supported by all browsers (Firefox added preview browser support on 16th April 2024 in version 125). Let us take a...

Node.js 20.6 adds built-in support for .env files

Node.js 20.6 adds built-in support for .env files

  • April 10, 2024

Node.js 20.6 added built-in support for the .env file. This is an excellent addition to the platform and gives us the ability to load environment variables from .env files directly without using third-party packages. While it is great to see first-class support, some caveats remain. Let us look at how it works. Assuming that...

Object destructuring in TypeScript

Object destructuring in TypeScript

  • March 28, 2024

Object destructuring is a powerful ES 6 feature that can help developers write cleaner code. It allows us to extract properties from a JavaScript object into variables. If you are unfamiliar with it, read our post about object destructuring to know more about what is possible using it. When it...

Improve git clone performance in a CI pipeline

Improve git clone performance in a CI pipeline

  • March 19, 2024

Have you felt particularly annoyed by the time it takes to clone a large repository, especially one with a huge commit history? This post will discuss a simple but powerful technique to significantly improve git clone performance. The solution is called shallow cloning, which uses the –depth=1 flag with git...