Konstantin Grushetsky grushetsky

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It's now here, in The Programmer's Compendium. The content is the same as before, but being part of the compendium means that it's actively maintained.

Don't use VPN services.

No, seriously, don't. You're probably reading this because you've asked what VPN service to use, and this is the answer.

Note: The content in this post does not apply to using VPN for their intended purpose; that is, as a virtual private (internal) network. It only applies to using it as a glorified proxy, which is what every third-party "VPN provider" does.

A Russian translation of this article can be found here, contributed by Timur Demin.
A Turkish translation can be found here, contributed by agyild.
There's also this article about VPN services, which is honestly better written (and has more cat pictures!) than my article.

How to show migration guides in GitHub Markdown

Use the diff code highlighting tag.

  ```diff
  - foo
  + bar

Example:

What forces layout / reflow

All of the below properties or methods, when requested/called in JavaScript, will trigger the browser to synchronously calculate the style and layout*. This is also called reflow or layout thrashing, and is common performance bottleneck.

Generally, all APIs that synchronously provide layout metrics will trigger forced reflow / layout. Read on for additional cases and details.

Element APIs

Getting box metrics

elem.offsetLeft, elem.offsetTop, elem.offsetWidth, elem.offsetHeight, elem.offsetParent

Hi Nicholas,

I saw you tweet about JSX yesterday. It seemed like the discussion devolved pretty quickly but I wanted to share our experience over the last year. I understand your concerns. I've made similar remarks about JSX. When we started using it Planning Center, I led the charge to write React without it. I don't imagine I'd have much to say that you haven't considered but, if it's helpful, here's a pattern that changed my opinion:

The idea that "React is the V in MVC" is disingenuous. It's a good pitch but, for many of us, it feels like in invitation to repeat our history of coupled views. In practice, React is the V and the C. Dan Abramov describes the division as Smart and Dumb Components. At our office, we call them stateless and container components (view-controllers if we're Flux). The idea is pretty simple: components can't

Styling native elements

Native HTML controls are a challenge to style. You can style any element in the web platform that uses Shadow DOM with a pseudo element ::pseudo-element or the /deep/ path selector.

video::webkit-media-controls-timeline {
  background-color: lime;
}

video /deep/ input[type=range] {

The introduction to Reactive Programming you've been missing

(by @andrestaltz)

This tutorial as a series of videos

If you prefer to watch video tutorials with live-coding, then check out this series I recorded with the same contents as in this article: Egghead.io - Introduction to Reactive Programming.

	#!/usr/bin/env bash
	# Generic macOS workstation setup
	#
	# A pragmatic, public bootstrap for developer / technical-productivity Macs.
	# It installs Homebrew, common CLI utilities, runtimes, terminal/editor/agentic
	# coding apps, viewers, media tools, and a curated font set.
	#
	# Philosophy:
	# - Open-source / cross-platform first.
	# - Commercial apps only when explicitly useful/common for this workflow.

	/* bling.js */
	window.$ = document.querySelector.bind(document);
	window.$$ = document.querySelectorAll.bind(document);
	Node.prototype.on = window.on = function(name, fn) { this.addEventListener(name, fn); };
	NodeList.prototype.__proto__ = Array.prototype;
	NodeList.prototype.on = function(name, fn) { this.forEach((elem) => elem.on(name, fn)); };

	#!/usr/bin/env bash
	#
	# Bootstrap script for setting up a new OSX machine
	#
	# This should be idempotent so it can be run multiple times.
	#
	# Some apps don't have a cask and so still need to be installed by hand. These
	# include:
	#
	# - Twitter (app store)