Most people will default to bcrypt when choosing a hashing algorithm for storing sensitive information — but why? Are there other choices? Indeed! In this video we’ll take a look at scrypt, PBKDF2 and my favorite: argon2. If you’ve had to store sensitive user information in a database, you’ve probably…

When I started writing The Imposter’s Handbook, this was the question that was in my head from the start: what the f*** is Big O and why should I care? It took a while but I think I figured it out. Many people want to qualify the efficiency of an…

A remainder and a modulus look so very similar, but they are not the same thing and worse, are treated differently by different programming languages. Do you know how your language handles mod? Get ready, here comes some fringe pedantry that could very well be the difference in an interview…

Writing a full text index in PostgreSQL is an art form. You need to know what your users are looking so you can build the right index AND you need to understand how they write their search terms. Thankfully, Postgres is here to help. A few years ago I wrote…

Getting over imposter syndrome is no easy task, but it starts by recognizing a cold, hard truth: you’re being toxic to yourself and those around you. I’ll share with you some steps I took to get over it. — I’m committing the cardinal sin of online digital marketing wonks: I’m still editing, refining and tweaking a book I released almost 7 years ago! You would think that I would move on by now… but… nope.

I remember clearly filling the dropper and popping two squirts of the stuff into my tumbler of soda water. I thought it was bitters, some “gourmet Oregon” tincture I decided to spend way too much money on when I went to Market of Choice to buy pizza fixings. I was…

As programmers we tend to think of reports after the fact, often when it’s too late. I learned this the hard way over the last few days. — I’m on vacation for the next few weeks and one thing I have a hard time doing is sitting still. Yes, of course there’s family stuff to do but my kids are older and I’m on my own these days, so I find that I have a lot more time…

Writers often talk about “finding their voice”, but what does that even mean? There are ways to loosen the control your internal filters have on your ability to express yourself. — One thing that gets me into trouble constantly is when I write something challenging. The topic doesn’t matter, but if there are feathers to be ruffled I tend to think “well… here comes a breeze friendo”. Writing, to me, is all about truth. Not “The Truth”, but my truth. Things…

Nitro is an exciting web server created by the unjs team, who are also the people behind Nuxt. Nitro is a study in simplicity and a wonderful tool for your JS belt. — I’ve been writing a fun book over the last few months on Nuxt 3 and it’s based on my experience building out bigmachine.io as well as the individual course sites I have. I’ve been using Nuxt for years and love it — and Nuxt 3 is particularly exciting because it’s…