Blog

I'm sure many of us have been told at some point in our careers that "magic strings are bad" but why exactly is that and what could go wrong? And what alternatives are there to improve our code?

I'm sure many of us have been told at some point in our careers that "magic strings are bad" but why exactly is that and what could go wrong? And what alternatives are there to improve our code?

My favourite method of merging feature branches has to be "rebase and merge" (that's a "semi-linear merge" if you're using DevOps) - it allows us to avoid losing data while keeping the tree clean and tidy.

But what is a rebase and how do they work?

Linting commit messages can be useful to enforce a standard of git commit messages - but how can we run these as checks on a GitHub pull request?

Are your git repos a dumping ground for code? I'm really fussy about how people use git - and that's a good thing. We'll take a look at branching strategies, the importance of commit messages and how often should you commit, anyway? Let's investigate how, with 5 simple tips, we can turn a code dump into a glorious archive of software and how this can save time, frustration and money.

It’s a dark and stormy night and you wake up with a start: is that the looming feeling of .NET 5 and Umbraco 9 on the horizon?! Upskilling yourself (and your team) can be a daunting prospect for developers, but I’ll guide you through which skills and processes need to change and which you can put on the back-burner. From development environments and .NET 5 concepts to configuration, deployment and hosting - it’s not as big a change as it might sound!

Accessibility is a fairly new concept in the world of the web. The web itself is only in its early 30's (not much older than myself!) and I think it's fair to say that accessibility wasn't a priority in Web 2.0. To catch up, it makes a lot of sense to stand on the shoulders of giants - what can we learn about accessibility from the real world that we can apply to the web?

One weekend. One website. One rebuild.

GitKraken allows you to open the current repository in the terminal by hitting Alt + T but by default, this won't be the new Windows Terminal.

Umbraco is "The Friendly CMS" and, as a community, we aim to be warm and welcoming, greeting everyone we encounter with a Friendly high-five. But how can we inject some of this Friendliness into our work and make the websites we craft as Friendly as possible?

uSync Sync-Pack files (with the .uSync extension) are simply ZIP files and can be viewed in any ZIP viewer, including the one built into Windows.

It wasn’t long ago that every agency and freelancer had their own custom CMS they’d use for client projects. We decided that was a bad idea. But we’ll often be seen writing custom code within that standardised CMS. Are we making the same mistakes again?