Simon's Blog

Better typescript fetch clients - 23-01-16

I recently started using fetch for API clients in the browser. I like my responses to remain objects, but coerce them to types. This is my solution.

Lit elements with Xstate - 23-01-14

Lit is a framework for building web components. Xstate is JavaScript and TypeScript finite state machines and statecharts for the modern web. This is an example of using the tools together to control the user journey.

Private Singleton for Scoping Sentry SDK - 22-10-30

Sentry is a great error tracking tool. Sentry browser defaults to using global this as a memoization tool. This blog explores singleton typescript patterns for scoping sentry down when using it on someone elses website. This will hopefully help you only capture your own errors, and also not annotate any existing sentry contexts with your embedded applications data.

Cypress component tests for Lit Elements (web components) - 22-10-13

Cypress component testing lets you flex your code in a real browser. While Lit is not officially supported I've found adding it is not complex. In this blog I will show you how.

Quick Tip: Hiding local files in Git, just for you - 22-07-08

If you have a local setup, just for you, and want it stored, here's how to do it, while leaving no footprints in the git repository.

Cloudwatch Real User Monitoring (RUM) end to end monitoring - 22-02-17

The AWS CDK implement Cloudformation specification v50.0.0 on 2022-02-09. This means RUM can now be configured with the cdk, making it more consistent to get started in all environments.

Paralleling Cypress with Sorry Cypress on Render - 22-02-09

Cypress is an integrated testing framework for web apps, and web components. It's popular due to it's easy of setup and visual browser. In this blog I discuss parallel test running with the open source tool sorry cypress.

Typescript with the OpenAPI specification - 22-01-23

This series will explore the many ways that OpenAPI specifications can interact with Typescript types. It includes a short review of the available tools in the space, that is hopefully useful for those seeking out solutions to documenting their RESTful APIs.

Build your own turborepo remote cache - 21-12-30

Turborepo is a new fast build tool that Vercel recently scooped up along with the lead maintainer. While they offer free hosting to a linked vercel account, there can be many reasons that your code needs to not be shared there.

Bootstrap the AWS CDK with GitHub Actions - 21-12-12

When shipping to AWS from a Continuous Integration tool long lived credentials are often used. In this article I walk through bootstrapping, and establishing a trust relationship with GitHub Open ID Connect.

Fullstack observability with AWS CDK V2 Canary's and Synthetics - 21-12-09

AWS launched some new services for monitoring application at Re:Invent. Existing services like AWS Canaries exist to work with API's and Front end applications. Lets see how to deploy these together, and look at fullstack observability

AWS CDK Utils - 21-11-16

Sharing a curated collection of useful CDK Utilities. First up, the Vercel secret forwarder, a custom resource that sends environment variables to your preview deploys, so you can iterate from front-to-back.

Fine Grained Access Control with Cognito Identity Pools - 21-11-15

Using AWS Cognito identity pools to restrict server and client side permissions with fine-grained access control.

Coding by voice with python - 21-11-13

In May of 2018 I got my first programming job, by July I was exclusively coding by voice. This blog shares my experiences.

cdktf compile optimization with swc - 21-08-25

SWC is a fast js/ts transpiler written in rust, how does it measure up to tsc and tsc --incremental?

Serverless Framework with Typescript and Source Maps - 21-07-06

A bootstrapping template for writing typescript serverless applications, using esbuild to transpile fast, and the Serverless Framework for deploys

Fast API with AWS-CDK - 21-06-17

Building self documenting, and schema validated APIs that scale horizontally on AWS Lambda

Part 2 - Building Realtime Multiplayer Games with React and Roomservice - 21-04-25

In part 2 we will add multiplayer to the game.

Part 1 - Building Realtime Multiplayer Games with React and Roomservice - 21-04-20

In part 1 we will build the board, the controls, and the player model for the game

Serverless search with Meilisearch and Google Cloud Run - 21-04-13

How to have a serverless search engine with, 2 million free searches per month, decent load handling, and globally high page performance.

DynamoDB Worx - 21-04-11

Building a DynamoDB GUI with Electron, React, Typescript and the AWS SDK V3 for Javascript.

Typescript patterns for third party dependencies - 21-03-28

Some patterns I found useful when working with the aws-sdk v3 for Javascript

Mozilla Observatory GitHub Action - 21-02-13

Incrementally monitor and improve security with GitHub actions and the Mozilla Observatory tool

VSCode, Markdown, and NextJS Blogging Stack - 21-01-23

This blog is about how I built this blog site. It is focussed on a fast flow for both writing and drawing/annotating using a single editor, VSCode.

Testing server side rendered (SSR) React with Cypress - 19-12-21

This tutorial provides a brief introduction to Cypress and how to simulate testing server side rendered (SSR) pages.

Go Kafka, Cloud Karafka and Heroku - 19-11-13

Have your cake and eat it too with a completely free Kafka and Docker container stack through heroku!

Docker Compose Cross App Networking - 19-04-11

This is an example of networking between Docker Compose files with Ruby's Karafka and Landoop Lenses Box.