How I went from physical therapist to front-end software engineer and developer advocate. — My Journey from Physical Therapy to Engineering You may be curious as to why a physical therapist, massage therapist, and strength coach is also an SEO & web performance expert. Having spent the last decade in sports medicine, including several years as a full-time physical therapist (and Airbnb SuperHost who got over 500 reviews in 3 years)…

A new prescription medication may be just what it takes to get obese and overweight individuals into the gym. (It’s not steroids.) — The Reality of Weight Loss: It’s ****ing Hard! While it can be easy to poke fun at fat people, the reality is that losing weight is hard, especially with traditional diets. The MATADOR intermittent diet has great research behind it for helping obese people lose weight effectively, but I’ve never heard of a physician actually prescribing it. Even…

If you care about common data types include Date objects and undefined getting deep copied correctly, watch out for this common mistake caused by quirks in the JSON specification. — If I asked you an interview question, to explain JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) to me, would you mention its specific limitations? What is JSON Used For in JavaScript Programming? JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a common file format used to store data instead of alternatives like XML or YAML…medium.com

Even senior developers need help getting through the dreaded phone screen and “getting to know you” portions of interviews for software engineering jobs. Try this one tip next time. — The Best Tip I’ve Ever Heard For Technical Interviews I’m lucky that I was able to land a senior developer position relatively early in my career, at least if you’re counting from when I started my Medium blog. Over the last 3 years, I went from consulting and freelancing over to a full-time position, so I’ve participated in dozens…

Are you still using require in your codebase? Let’s get you upgraded to modern JavaScript import syntax as soon as possible. Here’s what you need to know and why it matters. — Picture this scenario: you’re getting an ESLint warning about “no var requires” and start writing out a comment to disable it on the next line:

How do you hide an attribute of a React JSX element from the DOM, like when you’re using optional props or conditional rendering? It’s not in the React Docs, but here’s how you do it — I was recently implementing some code that used an optional isNewWindow prop to determine whether a link should open in a new window. The current solution worked, but every time I read the code, I thought there must be a bug. It was unnecessarily complicated.

Curious about how to make a Wikipedia-style “external link” icon that indicates when a link will open in a new tab? Check out this great React code sample that doesn’t even need an SVG icon. — As a sighted user, I get completely miffed when links don’t behave how they’re supposed to on the internet. Have you ever expected a link to open in a new window but then lost your place on the previous site when you had to hit the Back button?

Warning: These VS Code settings aren’t for beginners — but you’ll love these tips if you’re a senior dev. — How long is your VS Code settings.json file? Be honest. Mine is currently 109 lines, and that got me thinking — which of these settings do I actually use? And which settings would I recommend to other senior developers? If you aren’t sure whether you’re ready for advanced tips, let…