I Didn’t Realize How Much I Rely on GitHub Codespaces Until This week

Posted on by Rob Larsen

How much do I rely on GitHub Codespaces for open source development? Super double-plus much. I can illustrate exactly how much with one short anecdote.

Gulp 5 was recently released and I created several PRs across repos in the H5BP organization to update Gulp across the board. I missed one issue with the encoding of images in the HTML5-Boilerplate repo and had to create a patch PR to address that one issue. Christian Oliff found an issue with failing tests with the PR on a Windows 11 machine.

This morning I decided to take a look at the issue. While, as I mentioned, I mostly use Codepsaces these days; I still have a local clone of HTML5 Boilerplate. So, I pulled down 44 commits and got to work.

As you do with an npm-based project, I ran `npm install` to make sure the dependencies were up to date.

PS C:\Users\rob\code\html5-boilerplate> npm install
npm : The term 'npm' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was 
included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ npm install
+ ~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (npm:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException
 
PS C:\Users\rob\code\html5-boilerplate>

Oops? Yes, oops.

What’s going on there? Node/npm is my bread-and-butter environment, right? Absolutely. So? Huh?

Here’s the deal- I have a new Surface Studio 2 that I bought in December and I, apparently, never had any need to install Node/npm on this laptop. As my GitHub profile shows I’ve actually done a fair bit of open source work this year so it’s not down to the fact that I’ve been dormant. I just have done everything in Codepsaces. They’re so convenient I never even think about working locally. It took a specific Windows 11 bug to get me working locally on this laptop.

So, yeah, Codepsaces rock.

If you’re wondering, I did fix the issue with the tests and will be releasing v9.0.1 of H5BP tomorrow or Friday.

Transformation Stories #4 A New Podcast Interview With Me (Rob Larsen)

Posted on by Rob Larsen

Check out yours truly on an episode of Atlas Systems’ Transformation Stories.

A hands-on leader and change-maker with 20 years of experience, Rob Larsen remains at the forefront of software-led innovation – in financial services and the larger enterprise world. In this all-new conversation with Atlas Systems, Larsen offers insights into finding the right pace for transformation, keeping stakeholders on board without promising too much, and rethinking his own personal approaches to getting things done and interacting with the world.

Tune in for this great conversation with an industry-leading author, tech champion, and all-around thought leader!

In it I talk about the web in 2005, in 2011 and share general thoughts on digital transformations of all types.

If you run a web/tech podcast and want to talk to me- let me know. I really enjoy the process and love talking about this stuff, still.

HTML5 Boilerplate v9.0.0 Released

Posted on by Rob Larsen

That took a while! This release features a ton of changes. We removed Modernizr, Normalize.css, Babel, Internat Explorer support, Google Analytics and the server configs. We also swapped out Parcel for Webpack.

Here’s the full Changelog:

  • Removing tile images #3023
  • Add Prettier #3011
  • Remove Modernizr #3002
  • Drop Normalize.css #2960
  • Create WebPack build to ship with the project #2650
  • Sets package to private by default #2888
  • Removes Babel and upgrades our gulpfile to use ES Modules #2831
  • Farewell Internet Explorer! #2773
  • Remove apache-server-configs/.htaccess #2779
  • Moving docs out of src and dist #2655
  • Replace Parcel with Webpack #2641
  • Add SVG Favicon #2554
  • Remove Google Analytics #2547
  • Rename master branch to main #2583
  • Remove humans.txt #2584
  • Add a template repository #2391
  • Remove plugins js #2346
  • Rename CSS file #2342 and JS file #2341

Want to Contribute to a 57,000+ Star GitHub Repo? You Can Help Translate Front End Developer Interview Questions

Posted on by Rob Larsen

Are you interested in getting some open source experience? Maybe it’s a goal for you at your job this year or maybe you just want to give back to the community. Whatever your reason, the Front End Developer Interview Questions repo is looking for help updating the translation of the interview questions into 33 different languages.

I’ve created 33 separate issues for each of our supported languages. Some of those languages are extremely out of date. Others have been updated regularly. Whatever the state, I’d like to get them all in sync with the current list of questions and then figure out a method for keeping them updated going forward.

If you’re a native speaker or are fluent in any of the languages we support please consider helping out. The only technical skills you need are markdown editing, although you will need to be aware of technical terms in order to properly translate the text.

Thanks in advance.