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The format for outlining what work needs to be done to achieve an outcome varies from company to company. It can be challenging to convey a sense of scope when writing what work needs to be completed, and the result can sometimes amount to ‘do X so a user can do Y’ with the hope that the developer doing the work understands what the writer is getting at or to have a sense of who to ask follow up questions to if they’re unsure....

This information is accurate as of RedwoodJS v1.3 and may have changed since this was first published. Simple static sites are sometimes all we need for our use case, in which case we don’t need an API layer or database for our site. Redwood’s file structure makes a clean separation between the frontend (located in the /web folder) and the backend (the /api folder), making it easy to remove the API layer and database when it’s not needed in the site by simply deleting the /api folder1....

When getting started with a project, there are some files and directories that we should not include in source control. Files that contain credentials that should be kept secret (such as a .env file), or directories that contain the output of a build are a couple of examples. Often, when we remember to include a .gitignore file in our project, there is a file or directory that we forget to add as we our project evolves....

Performance review cycles can be stressful for some, and there can be a fear that highly meaningful, impactful work will go unrecognized. The lack of full recognition for such work can translate into: delays in career advancement, commonly in the form of a promotion; a loss in potential earnings in the form of increased compensation or equity as part of a bonus structure; and missed project opportunities that could lead to further career development This fear is especially acute for folks that find themselves doing work that they know contribute to the success of the teams and projects that the individual is working on, but is known to be commonly unrecognized....

Keeping dependencies up to date has become significantly easier over the years with free tooling such as Dependabot and Renovate now widely available and having robust configuration for however you and your team want dependency updates to be handled within a given project. While these tools are easy to incorporate into your projects regardless of their size and complexity, getting all of your dependencies caught up to the latest versions can be quite the investment from a time and engineering resources perspective....

Supporting an RSS feed on your blog is an easy way of keeping those who follow you up to date on your latest posts. Hugo, a popular static site generator, comes with a default RSS 2.0 template which PaperMod, a popular Hugo theme maintained by adityatelange, builds upon further. In order to add an RSS feed that’s automatically generated as part of the build step of your website, you will need to potentially do the following steps in your Hugo configuration file:...

With the proliferation of design libraries in order to reduce bugs within the UI, create a more consistent user experience, and increase developer velocity in order to get features shipped faster, it’s common to have CSS stylesheets that are more generic in nature. However, like most things, there are times when exceptions to the general rules need to be made, and trying to keep those exceptions managable as the library evolves can be a challenge at times....