Elixir Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

Elixir is a programming language that compiles into Erlang and I recently started using Phoenix which is Elixir's goto web framework.

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Splitting out Web App Health Check URLs for Basic and Database Checks

More specifically a bare bones health check and another separate check that connects to databases and other services you might have.

Customizing Topbar to Add a Delay Before Showing Page Loading Progress

We're going to look at a Phoenix LiveView app for this example but this applies to any web app using any web framework.

Using String Interpolation Inside of Phoenix HEEx Template Tags

This came up recently while updating an application to use Phoenix 1.6 and wanting to add a variable to a list of HTML classes.

Best Practices Around Production Ready Web Apps with Docker Compose

Here's a few patterns I've picked up based on using Docker since 2014. I've extracted these from doing a bunch of freelance work.

100+ Ways to Solve a Specific Programming Problem in 50+ Languages

José Valim and I asked developers how they would solve a specific problem in their language of choice. How would you do it?

Why Your Web Server Should Log to Stdout (Especially with Docker)

In this video, we'll go over both the why and how to set up a number of web app servers to log to stdout.

Create a Health Check URL in Your Web App and Monitor Its Uptime

In this video, we'll go over how to set up a health check endpoint in Flask and use the free UptimeRobot service to monitor your uptime.

Displaying Database Results across Multiple Columns with 1 Line of CSS

In this video, we'll loop over data coming in from the back-end and display it in a responsive multi-column layout.

Wait until Your Dockerized Database Is Ready before Continuing

In this video, we'll go over using a script to make sure your database is ready before running automated tests. Perfect for CI.

Improving Your Page Load Speeds on Any Site with Turbolinks

In this video, we'll add 1 line of JavaScript to drastically improve the speed of clicking between links on your site.

Evaluating and Improving the Quality of Your Code as a Solo Developer

Here's a number of questions you can ask yourself and tools you can use to help improve the quality of your code.

Formatting Seconds into HH:MM:SS with Elixir and Python

This ended up being a fun exercise to learn Elixir a little better and I also realized how easy it was to do in Python too.

Live Demo: How to Begin Writing Tests in an Untested Code Base

In this video I go over testing and documenting the features of an audio player but the steps taken could be applied to any code base.

It's Not a Waste of Time to Learn a Few Languages / Frameworks

Over the years I've learned a few languages / web frameworks and recently picked up Elixir / Phoenix. Here's what I've learned.

A Python CLI Tool to Help Diff Web Framework Versions

It currently supports Phoenix, Rails, Django and Laravel, and this is a 30 minute video demoing how it works and how it was built.

Design Your Web UIs Faster by Planning Out Each Different State

In this 15 minute video, we go over 1 way to quickly break down a UI feature which happens to double as a cheat code for writing tests.

Learning a New and Unfamiliar Code Base

When starting a new job or contributing to open source, learning a new code base can be intimidating. Here's how you can jump in quickly.

Live Demo of Planning a Real World Web Application from Scratch

Watch a 90 minute video where I take a new project idea and start breaking it down so you can see how to do it for your own apps.

Generating Fake Data in Development to Populate Your Database

Being able to create dozens or thousands of records to populate your database in development has a lot of advantages.

Refactoring Elixir Code: If, Cond and Pattern Matching

I'm no where near an Elixir veteran but I found myself refactoring some imperative code into more idiomatic Elixir and it made me happy.

Using Print Statements Are a Handy Way to Debug and Explore Code

There's lots of ways to debug code, but often times problems become amplified when you can't visualize what's happening.

Microservices Are Something You Grow into, Not Begin With

Let's talk about when it might be a good or bad idea to start using microservices. SPOILER ALERT: it's not the same for every project.

Dealing with Database Migrations in a Brand New Project

Most web frameworks come with a way to manage database migrations but they can be very tedious to use early on in a project.

Using Phoenix with Webpack and Docker

Phoenix 1.4 is set to use Webpack but Phoenix 1.3 currently uses Brunch. Here's how to get Webpack working with Phoenix 1.3.

Dealing with Lock Files When Using Ruby, Node and Elixir with Docker

You can use this method with any package manager that has the concept of a lock file to help with dependency management.