Jesse Warden articles - 140 total
Node.js' config Library Shouldn't Be Used in TypeScript
Coming back to typed 100% AWS Lambda API’s, I’m convinced the config module is an anti-pattern if you’re using TypeScript.
Not a Middy Fan
I feel like those using Middy, and enjoying it, missed the whole “Promises were invented” thing. Nowadays you can just chain functions together. There is no need for all of this side-effects everywhere, global variables like process.env being passed around, and bizarre “thing piece | void” return values. Just have your handler being a Promise […]
Asking Copilot About Writing a New Programming Language
Jesse: "Yo Copilot, if you were going to write a soundly typed language with managed effects that compiles to JavaScript, which language would you choose to write the compiler in?"
3 Options to Avoid Side-Effects in Web Dev
Side-effects (aka I/O) can make your code hard to test, understand, and change. In web dev, you have 3 options:
Avoid Optional Chaining and Optional Properties
Functional Programmers learn pretty early that Maybe/Optional should be avoided if possible.
Jason Gorman's Mock Abuse
Dave Farley calls it the Mockery. Jason Gorman has a video calling it Mock Abuse and Mock Hell. Both are true. I’m dealing with it at work and trying to gather various resources to help teach why this is a bad thing. I think Jason'ss video has the best summary I've ever seen on it.
Read the Book Domain Modelling Made Functional
Finally got around to reading Domain Modeling Made Functional, Tackle Software Complexity with Domain-Driven Design and F#, by Scott Wlaschin. Book basically covers:
Commentary on the ThoughtWorks Radar 2025
Quick commentary on the ThoughtWorks 2025 Tech Radar; they’re yearly report on things to try, adopt, and avoid (they call it “hold”, meaning proceed with caution whereas I’m like “yeah, no, avoid the noid”). I only cover the ones I find interesting, so if you want to read the whole thing, PDF is downloadable here: […]
TypeScript Types Lie & How to Improve Them
The following covers the unique aspects of TypeScript’s gradual typing, and how this can lead to types that are not accurate and can lead to bugs and runtime exceptions. We also cover ways to utilize the gradual feature of TypeScript to improve those types in an iterative fashion.
Front-End Staff+ Career Paths
Good video on front-end career path. These guys have done some bangers on the nuance around AI for coders. Yes, their titles are click baity, but they have the intelligence, experience, communication skills to produce good content. Three things I want to point out they don’t cover in this video.
Error Handling for fetch in TypeScript
Error Handling for fetch in TypeScript The following post describes why and how you do error handling for fetch. Why Care? When you write code that does not handle errors, the code may break at runtime and when deployed to production. Getting PagerDuty calls at 3am are not fun, and are hard to debug because […]
Encoders and Decoders in TypeScript
Encoding Encoding in our context means converting a type to a string so we can save it to the web browser’s local storage. In soundly typed languages, this operation will never fail, but that is not true in JavaScript which TypeScript compiles to.
First UI Story in Angular as a Functional Dev
After 11 months, I got my 1st UI story. I've been doing Back-End for the Front-End stories since...
10 Months of Elm to Angular
It's been 10 months since I went from Elm to TypeScript Angular, and I still struggle with the...
Finding Energy to Learn & Build When Burnt Out
Reminder to be nice to yourself right now if you're trying and failing to learn new things after work...
YAGNI For Types
Noticed a disturbing trend the past 3 years that I’ll often end up with too many/overly verbose types. TDD has helped remove them, but I wonder if there is a TDD you can apply to Type Driven Development?
Python Has Types, They Help
Seeing these Python projects being worked on by junior devs with decent test coverage, but zero types amongst code that’s doing a lot of data transformation is… disappointing. I worry for those teams. If you’re tech lead has not told you, Python has optional, gradual types.
Thoughts on ThoughtWorks Radar 2024
The ThoughtWorks 2024 Radar was released (you can download the PDF with 1 click, no annoying sign up required). Below are 2 things: If you just wanna learn about the cool new stuff to look at, skip my component testing rant.
TypeScript's Lack of Naming Types and Type Conversion in Angular
Random thoughts on TypeScript. I've noticed 2 things working on a larger Angular project
Mocks vs No Mocks Debate Confusion
In the mocks vs. no mocks debate, I’ve seen a complete ignoring of nuance which I think causes...
Four Things I've Learned From 6 Months of PRs in a Large Angular Codebase
I've learned 4 things this past 6 months doing peer reviews on many teams'; code in a large Angular code base.
Six Alternatives to Using any in TypeScript
There are a few options, and strategies. We've listed from easiest to most thorough.
RxJS Observables That Can't Fail
A habit I made in JavaScript, and later TypeScript, was to have Promises never fail, and instead...
Dissecting Anti-TDD Statements
I dissect these 3 statements and hopefully give you insight as to where devs are coming from that say that, a different perspective on using tests to design, and what you can do if you hate updating tests.
Continuous Delivery
I gave a talk last Tuesday at the local JavaScript user group, RVA.js, about Continuous Delivery. I recorded the talk and put online for those who couldn't make it. Description and supporting links below the video.
My Past 1 Year+ with AWS Cognito
tl;dr; AWS Cognito, highly recommend to UI folks. I’ve heard some people complain about AWS...
GitHub Copilot Research Finds "Downward Pressure on Code Quality"
Choice quotes from this Copilot research on GitHub: using Copilot is strongly correlated with...
Refactoring vs Refuctoring Whitepaper
CodeScene’s latest whitepaper, Refactoring vs Refuctoring, has some interesting findings, quotes, and improvements for AI / LLM assisted coding.
Refactor All The Time Instead of "Tech Debt Day"
You don't negotiate with Product Owners on time on technical debt vs. time on features. You refactor...
Quality Coding Manifesto
Interesting points here about Scrum assumed you had good software engineering practices, the perhaps the guide should be updated to have that point. Also neat to see the definitions of things be extremes and why they were originally called “Extreme Programming”. An article I wished I had access to 12 years ago.