CODING

• Found a nice Ruby gem (actually it was recommended to me in this Xitter thread) - procore-oss/blueprinter which seems to be a very nice serializer (JSON Object Presenter) for Ruby. As I was implementing API for Humadroid recently with Time-To-Market in mind, I’ve actually settled on Grape & Grape Entity, but when we’ll be creating v2 of it in bigger team, we’ll most likely look for alternatives and blueprinter looks like a solid contender.

• Claude.ai really surprised me while working on the API. It understood what I wanted with Grape, created good structure, and generated solid tests. I know AI assistance is normal now, but the quality of generated code still amazes me sometimes. You still need a human to guide it, but each iteration gets better.

HUMADROID

We’ve added Slack integration - managers now get time off and reimbursement requests directly in Slack where they can approve or reject them. Pretty proud of this one since it’s exactly what we missed in Prograils when we first started working on humadroid.

NEWS

MacOS Sequoia 15.1 is making it difficult to run Open Source / FOSS applications by enforcing code signing. Hope Apple won’t continue down this path - it would make Macs much harder to use for development. Maybe DHH was right by turning his back on Apple? I still prefer macOS, but my Apple loyalty is fading. Recently set up Manjaro Linux on an old Thinkpad and I’m eyeing those frame.work laptops - just waiting for them to release models with the new AMD AI 300 processors.

PERSONAL

Anxiety hits me sometimes. Journaling and meditation help, but I never stick with them - I stop once things get better. Watched this video from Matt Ragland about simple daily logging and it clicked. Going to try logging my Humadroid coding days - there are times when I do lots of necessary but indirect work that makes me feel unproductive. Maybe tracking it will help.

SIDE PROJECTS

3D Printing Got into 3D printing during early COVID (2020) to help print medical visors. Used it mainly for D&D and Gloomhaven minis until now. Finally tried designing my own models - what a different experience from coding! The feedback loop is way longer - you need to think everything through because each print takes hours.

My latest project came from productive procrastination - wanted Analog from Ugmonk but the total cost with shipping and taxes was too much. Made my own simple version - not as pretty, but works for me. Total cost: $3 for 350 cards plus $1 in printing materials.

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Photo Management Started working on a headless photo management system for hosting and referencing photos on static websites. Building it for a photo-a-day project I’m planning to start soon. The above photo is also served via it - idea is to detect ❴❴pixgeist:PHOTO_ID❵❵ on website and replace it with photo.