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Use Database Connection Strings with Laravel 8
18 August 2021
Read moreI've been doing a lot of database stuff lately, and not much PHP, so when I returned to make my first Laravel project for a while, I had to check the docs to remind myself how some of this works. I noticed that the default approach to database credentials is still to use separate credentials for the host, port, and other variables. I'm using Aiven databases (because I work there and managed databases are great for demo apps as well as real ones!) which supply connection strings, but Laravel supports these too.
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Hold Attention on the Virtual Stage
08 August 2021
Read moreHow do I ensure that I keep my attendees' attention when I'm presenting virtually?
I don't.
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Define Navigation Structure in a Sphinx Project
13 June 2021
Read moreAs a newcomer to Sphinx, I found many things confusing, but the table of contents or "toc" configuration was the thing that almost made me change my mind and pick a different platform! I now have a setup that works pretty well, using Sphinx External TOC, so I thought I'd share my setup.
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Considering Developer Relations as a Career Move
24 May 2021
Read moreI think that Developer Relations is a fabulous career, and I'm often asked how I got started, or how someone else could get started. There are a lot of people hiring for Developer Relations roles just now (including me!) so here are my tips.
There are so many different Developer Relations roles (called "DevRel") that I am definitely going to fall short of covering them all in any sort of detail! My own background is in Software Engineering, and I've mostly worked as a Developer Advocate since making the move into DevRel, so that's my context here.
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Best Things About Developer Advocacy
26 April 2021
Read moreThere are some excellent articles around about what a Developer Advocate does, but have you ever wondered WHY we do what we do? I tried to articulate this when chatting with another developer lately, and I'm still thinking about it! So I thought I'd write it down to share a little more widely why I love this strange, misshapen career as much as I do.
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Measuring Repo Community Health with GitHub's API
14 April 2021
Read moreI'm on record saying that GitHub is your Landing Page and when I think about companies having open source profiles, I think about how many developers will have the first contact with them on GitHub. If it's a code example you're looking for then like it or not, GitHub is considered a search engine by many developers.
With that in mind, I wanted to look at GitHub's Community Health measure of the repositories I'm responsible for. You can view each repo's community page separately through the web interface (look under "Insights") but that's not especially scalable if you have a lot of projects to track.
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From Spreadsheet to Database with ddlgenerator
22 March 2021
Read moreI've been using some fun open data sets recently but I'm more familiar with databases than with traditional data science formats (this one is CSV). Importing CSV into Postgres is fairly well-established, but you need a table structure to import into ... and I was looking at a CSV with 50 columns (for my post about exoplanets on the Aiven blog). Enter this neat utility: ddlgenerator.
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Intro to RPi Pico with Mini Memory Game
08 February 2021
Read moreI am the proud owner of a Raspberry Pi Pico which is a dinky microcontroller from the lovely people at Raspberry Pi. I also have the RGB Pico Keypad Base, because my husband was buying something else from Pimoroni (3D printer filament, more on that another day) and we love them and ... here we are :)
I've tried to write down and link to the stuff I found useful along the way with this project, in case it helps you too. Well, no, really so I can come back to it next time I'm using one of these!
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Lab Book Meets Bullet Journal
31 January 2021
Read moreI enjoy a productivity hack as much as the next person, and I'm often asked about my setup. My background is in engineering (I hold an MEng in Electronic Engineering from York) and recognise the legacy of the lab book in much of what I do. If you're new to the lab book concept, check out this excellent article on how to maintain one properly. My practice breaks a LOT of the lab book rules and is also heavily influenced by the Bullet Journal trend (if you have time to spare, the instagram #bulletjournal hashtag gives a prettier introduction), which is a way to combine the benefits of productivity and processing information by writing it. Today's post gives a quick tour of my process.
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Digital Developer Relations: Past and Future
23 December 2020
Read moreI work in Developer Relations, or "DevRel", and 2020 was a strange year with travel restrictions that meant that the entire industry did everything online, or digitally. I see this as a very positive progression of the way we work as DevRel professionals, and I understand that might be controversial, but I'd like to back up my position so hear me out (and then let me know what you think!).
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What's New in OpenAPI 3.1
14 December 2020
Read moreWith OpenAPI 3.1 coming "soon", I gave a talk at APIDays Paris about what to expect. But I'm a great fan of the written word as reference so here's a written recap of what's in the next OpenAPI release.
Top features:- Compatible with JSON Schema 2020-12- Webhook support- Many other minor improvements -
Bystanders Guide to Repository Maintenance
04 December 2020
Read moreToday's post is about bystanders and open source. We sometimes have anxiety about doing things on "other people's" projects but the thing about open source is that those are not "their" projects, those are "our" projects, and they only exist because people other than their nominated gatekeepers chip in now and then.
