Collection

Articles

Essays, technical writing, and personal reflections.

Subscribe to this collection

  1. Article

    I Used Stacked PRs and Liked It

    Stacked pull requests helped me organize and merge a set of dependent changes to this website—and gave me a little faith in GitHub as a platform again.

  2. Article

    From 11ty to Wordpress and Back Again

    I stepped away from blogging thinking that the problem was that my Eleventy (11ty) setup and continually tinkering with it was keeping me away from blogging. So, to make it "easier" I spent a couple of months worth of my B-time moving my website over to Wordpress site. Once it was done, I had a fancy editor, a bunch of plugins, and all the tooling I could ever want. I didn't write a single post. This is post is my experience (not) blogging with Wordpress and returning to 11ty.

  3. Article

    Defining the Problem before the Solution

    Before you create a solution, you need to understand the problem. It sounds obvious enough, yet I see developers (including myself) getting into the code and design phase before they really understand the problem they are trying to fix. These are the steps I take a properly understand a problem I am trying to solve, prior to coding or solution-ing anything.

  5. Article

    Highlight Reel for 2022

    When a new year arrives, it is a great opportunity to take a moment to reflect on where you started at the beginning of the year, and where you ended. When I look back on 2022, I noticed events reflected in my GitHub contribution graph that highlight some common cycles in my own behaviour. I want to take a moment to document this, and hopefully you can use this an example to examine your own progress and behaviour patterns that might be aiding (or impeding) your own personal and professional growth.

  7. Article

    Docker Desktop for Linux is not the same as Docker Engine

    With Docker for Desktop available for Linux (which I like), I managed to get myself confused regarding its role on my Linux-based development machine. This post clarifies a few things I discovered while triaging an issue I had trying to test my GitHub Workflows locally.

  8. Article

    Prairie Dev Con 2022 Takeaways

    The talented speakers that come together for Prairie Dev Con always bring fresh ideas to my mind and give me pause to think about my own efforts and how I can learn from their experience. Although not a complete list, these ideas the ones that stood out the most from Prairie Dev Con 2022.

  10. Article

    Does GDPR Apply to Personal Websites?

    While rebuilding my personal website in 2022, I wanted to know how or if GDPR applied to my little side project. My internet sleuthing did not bring up any clear and cut answers, but I put together some thoughts that might help others answer it for themselves.

  11. Article

    How much is enough documentation?

    Documentation is important, but it takes a lot of time and if you are a solo developer, what documentation to you really need? Still, good docs can provide the context I forget after putting a project on the shelf, or explains how to fix something in older code I use, but haven't touched in a long time. So how much is 'enough' documentation and what types of documentation do I need to invest in give my future self the the best value for the effort I put in?

  12. Article

    How to fork (a repo) like a boss!

    Everyone thinks about forking. It is a natural thing, yet how do get the job done and fork? I used to ask myself the same thing, until I learned these pro-tips and forked like a boss.

  13. Article

    Azure Static Web Apps (SWA) are fine, just not great

    Azure Static Web Apps feel like a good idea, but in practice I struggled with understanding what the product is trying to be. This post documents my experience working with SWAs on a few projects, namely this website, along with the problems and workarounds/solutions I found to those problems.

  16. Article

    Personal and Professional Fulfillment through Cake and Ice Cream

    I made a cake and two kinds of ice cream, from scratch, for my daughter's birthday. The process of making a plan, adapting, executing, delivering, and being validated highlighted how important it is to feel fulfilled, both personally and professionally.

  17. Article

    Advent of Code 2021: Day 1

    My initial thoughts after completing the first day of my first journey into the Advent of Code

  18. Article

    I am NOT trying to be a Game Developer

    It's time for me to come clean about something: I am not trying to become a game developer. BUT...I am still trying to make video games.

  21. Article

    I Can Teach Your Dog Quantum Physics

    It's true! I read a book about it and everything. Let me breakdown the highlights of this book that does a pretty good job of explaining the physics behind quantum computing.

  23. Article

    Should you bother with a Website?

    It's 2021. Websites are sooooooo....2006. With social media dominating the way people consume content these days, what is the point of having a website today? I asked myself this question as I put the effort into reviving my dead website and I stand by the idea that having a website for yourself, project, or business is a need rather than a nice-to-have.

  24. Article

    My Secret Addiction to Likes

    I decided to take a month off of contributing to social media. More specifically Twitter and YouTube, but Facebook and Instagram as well. That single month has turned into just over three months now, and I learned a few things about myself and how I think my return to some social media will be a good thing.

  25. Article

    Lucky Number v7

    I fixed up my blog-website-thingy again. I'm calling this v7, although I'm pretty sure there are a few incarnations of the site that were lost early on in my years, but v7 seems about right for the content I'm sharing here. In any case-- I thought I'd share the "why" around the new website revamp and how I think a project like this is just what I need.

  26. Article

    From Travis CI to GitHub Actions (and GitHub Pages)

    We recently migrated the continuous integration and deployment workflow for the Western Devs website from Travis CI to GitHub Actions. These are the steps I followed to get it done.

  29. Article

    Game Portfolio Self Evaluation (in prep for Ludum Dare 47)

    Ludum Dare 47, a weekend long global gamejam, is coming up in a few weeks. In order to prep for the event, I decided to take the time for review and reflect on my game portfolio to see what I learning objective and goals I can set for myself.

  33. Article

    Jan 2020 Devlog

    A vlog post where I review the progress I've made on the game Car Scientist.

  36. Article

    GitHub Game Off 2019 Game Jam featuring DW

    For the past month I have been participating in the GameOff 2019 Gamejam hosted by GitHub over on Itch.io and I've been devlogging about it over on my YouTube channel.

  42. Article

    Sonar, the Linter I Never Knew I Wanted

    Meet Nellie the Narwhal, the official mascot for Sonar, the linting tool for the web. Nellie represents a tool that is long-overdue. It provides any web application the ability to verify they are meeting a high level of quality when it comes to their web applications, and not miss any common mistakes.

  43. Article

    Service Workers and PWAs are Super Cool

    One of the core items highlighted by the Microsoft Edge team, along with many others who were just web professionals, was the importance of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). I started out thinking they were something that could be interesting one day, but left the conference convinced that this will change the way we think of the web.

  48. Article

    IstanbulJS Code Coverage Reports in VSTS

    Here's another dev thing I use: IstanbulJS in Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) builds and display the test reports as part of the build reports.

  49. Article

    Mocha Test Reports in VSTS

    Here's another dev thing I do: Display my MochaJS test report in the Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) build report.

  53. Article

    Initial Thoughts on Using Phaser

    As a side project, I started making another JavaScript-based video game and decided to go with Phaser as my framework of choice. Here are my initial thoughts about Phaser after using it on my project for the past two months.

  54. Article

    How to Blog with VSTS (Part 4)

    I wanted to understand how to use Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) for a "real" project. Being a noob, I decided to move my blog to VSTS to understand how _any_ project can benefit from ALM practices using VSTS. In part 4 of 5, we setup a _Build_ script.

  55. Article

    How to Blog with VSTS (Part 3)

    I wanted to understand how to use Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) for a "real" project. Being a noob, I decided to move my blog to VSTS to understand how _any_ project can benefit from ALM practices using VSTS. In part 3 of 5, we start to make plans and _Work_ on our blog.

  56. Article

    How to Blog with VSTS (Part 2)

    I wanted to understand how to use Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) for a "real" project. Being a noob, I decided to move my blog to VSTS to understand how _any_ project can benefit from ALM practices using VSTS. In part 2 of 5, we get our blog into source control.

  57. Article

    How to Blog with VSTS (Part 1)

    I wanted to understand how to use Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) for a "real" project. Being a noob, I decided to move my blog to VSTS to understand how _any_ project can benefit from ALM practices using VSTS. In part 1 of 5, we get things setup.

  58. Article

    How to Use Global NPM Packages on a VSTS Self-Hosted Build Agent

    I setup a self-hosted build agent in Visual Studio Team Services. My build installed global NPM packages, but the tasks that used them later on in the script would fail because they were unable to use them. This post describes what I did to get them working.

  59. Article

    Windows Not Required - The New Microsoft Development Story (Video)

    I delivered a presentation at the Winnipeg .NET User Group last week, where I recorded it and posted it on YouTube. I go over a number of Microsoft development tools and technologies that don't require Windows and deliver the demos on my Linux machine.

  60. Article

    How to Fix node-gyp Error on Windows

    Whenever I get a new machine, I pull down a new project using the `npm install command and get an error related to python and node-gyp. This post will remember the fix for this problem that I always forget.

  61. Article

    How to Build ReactJS with Gulp

    I started to tinker with React last week and needed to do some digging on how to transpile the React JSX files using Gulp. In this post, we walkthrough my newly updated Gulp task that transpiles JSX and JavaScript files.

  63. Article

    How to Use Highlight.Js with Bower and Gulp

    One of the best libraries I've seen for syntax highlighting on the web is highlight.js, IMHO. The catch to using the library is that it takes a bit more effort to setup than just adding a script tag and being done with it. In this post, I'll walk you through the steps I took to get this up and running with Bower and Gulp.

  64. Article

    Mobile First Design Tips

    When redesigning my personal website and blog, I started from scratch and attempted to apply a mobile-first design approach. Here are a few tips that I picked up along the way while creating and implementing my new design that might prevent some mistakes on your own sites.

  65. Article

    Keeping Your Edge on an Extended Break

    A few quick tips on how I kept up-to-date in the professional world while taking a four month hiatus for parental leave _without_ giving up time with my daughter.

  66. Article

    Measuring in CSS is Cool

    I've been on this CSS kick for the past while, and I had forgotten how much CSS can do now. More specifically how things have changed when it comes to measuring height and width.

  67. Article

    Using text-overflow:ellipsis with Inline Flex

    Two out of three Dave's hit this obscure CSS problem that turned out to be expected behaviour. David Wesst walks us through the reason why and how to fix it.

  71. Article

    Why ChakraCore OSS is Important

    It's pretty cool that Microsoft has released the source code of their JavaScript engine Chakra. But, why it is important and how do developers actually benefit from this?

  72. Article

    Highlight Reel for 2015

    David Wesst takes a moment to look back at his personal and professional development throughout 2015.

  73. Article

    Looking Forward into 2016

    DW documents and shares his planning session for 2016 based on what he's learned from 2015.

  74. Article

    Code - The Visual Studio for Everybody

    Last week I delivered three presentations: one at the Winnipeg .NET User Group and the other two at Winnipeg Code Camp. Being as awesome as we are, the user group presentation was recorded and has been published on the YouTube page.

  86. Article

    Why Networking is Critical

    With my new gig as an Application Developer, I started back into technology podcasts. I'm not sure how I came across MSDevShow, but I did notice that Lori Lalonde, the wizard of mobile development in Microsoft-land, was in an episode and decided: Why not?.

  90. Article

    MSDevShow...A Dev Podcast Review

    I like podcasts. Especially the technical kind, but I find it's challenging to find quality dev podcasts in the sea of options out there. MSDevShow is one that a discovered, and it did not disappoint.

  91. Article

    Zany Video Game Quotes - Live and in the Cloud

    I've been working on a side project for roughly 5 years now, and this past week I managed to finally launch it. Zany Video Game Quotes, is a site worked on acquired by a very close friend of mine. He worked on the content and enlisted me as the lead developer.

  92. Article

    Traf-O-Data and Windows NT on LGR Tech Tales

    In recent days, a specific YouTube channel has my caught my attention. It's called Lazy Game Reviews, and last night I came across a great playlist of only four episoded called: LGR Tech Tales where LGR, the host, goes through a specific event in computer history.

  99. Article

    Highlight Reel for 2014

    This past year has been a rough one for me personally, but professionally, not so bad.

  104. Article

    Can ASP.NET Become the Next Node.JS?

    I realize how crazy that sounds, but after yesterday's keynote from Microsoft at the VS Connect event in New York, I'm wondering if my goal to find a true cross-platform technology is sitting back at base camp just...leveling up.

  109. Article

    Installing Games JavaScript Style

    I bought the Humble Mozilla Bundle earlier this week and I wanted to take a moment to show people what it looks like to install a JavaScript game in the browser.

  112. Article

    What is Bower?

    I mentioned Bower last time when talking about npm.

  113. Article

    Always Use Node (Even on Non-Node Projects)

    That's right. I said it: Always use Node, no matter what! Even if your server isn't going to be a Node server, just have it installed because you'll use it.

  114. Article

    Why do you RequireJS?

    Get it? RequireJS is a dependency management framework I use in JavaScript to manage...well my dependencies. But, the title is a play on words cause...of course you require JS...cause...JavaScript is required to...

  116. Article

    Why do you CoffeeScript your JavaScript?

    I was asked this the other day: Why don't you just write your code in JavaScript directly? As in, why would you use a langugage that abstracts JavaScript, which doesn't require compiliation?

  117. Article

    Why do I JavaScript?

    The answer is simple: I don't want to limit about my platform options on day one.

  118. Article

    The MVP Network is Awesome

    Over the weekend I hit a Windows Azure issue in my side project that totally blocked me. Yesterday, I reached out on Twitter, and the Canadian MVP network picked it up and helped me solve it in 30 minutes.

  120. Article

    Whatcha doin' DW?

    Lot's of stuff really, but here's the big ones at 50,000 feet.

  124. Article

    Microsoft IE MVP - Year Four

    That's right everyone, I've been awarded the the Microsoft MVP award in the area of Internet Explorer again for 2014.

  126. Article

    BUILD 2014 Cool Stuff - Day 1

    I haven't been to BUILD, but I always follow it as Microsoft makes a bunch of really cool announcements throughout that pump me up.

  128. Article

    DW on Tour

    That's right, I'm heading out on a small tour out west in November and December to do some talking about HTML and JavaScript. I suggest you find your way to DevTeach in Vancouver or Saskatoon in November to learn some awesome tricks.

  131. Article

    HTML Gaming for Core Gamers

    This is part of a blog series discussing my afterthought on attending PAX Dev and Prime 2013 in Seattle.

  132. Article

    Instant Eyedropper: The Colour Picker Tool I've Been Missing

    I came across this today, and I wanted to share it as this is the first time I've found a simple, minimalistic eyedropper tool that allows me to get the HEX value (or another variety of colur value) of any colour that is on my screen.

  135. Article

    Excited about WebGL because of Grandia II

    Last week, I was asking my partner for some advice on what game I should play. This is a regular occurrence for both of us, as we are both video game lovers and tend to lean towards single player games, and only have one television to share between us. Ultimately, we enjoy watching each other play through video games, but want to make sure that the non-player is at least going to enjoy themselves to a certain degree as we go through some kind of virtual adventure over the next few days.

  136. Article

    Time for a Real Change

    I know I seem to change my blog once a year saying 'this time it's different'. The message this time around isn't different than that, except the change is leading to a completely different direction.