Today I Learned

TIL, it’s pretty easy to stack elements in CSS, without having to use positioning! It’s a litle bit more verbose to do it in tailwind, but it’s the same idea.

.parent {
  display: grid;
}

.child {
  grid-area 1 / 1
}

TIL about feed, an npm package that allows you to quickly generate an RSS feed for your website!

I used it to generate an RSS feed for my blog and my TIL feeds! It’s pretty simple and super easy to plug into your existing project.

Check it out

TIL about coolors.co — a superfast color palette generator. If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably use it whenever you need to generate a color palette for your side projects, you know, those side projects that you’re totally working on and not abandoning for a while.

Check it out

I learned this hard lesson today. Optional chaining is for uncertain values — not uncertain existence.

If I’m not sure if a global object exists, I can’t rely on optional chaining to access it. I have to check for existence first.

// 👇 this is a valid expression in node
// we check to see if window exists
if (typeof window !== 'undefined') {
	window.localStorage.setItem('key', 'value')
}

// 👇 this is not a valid expression in node
// window is undefined (its existence is uncertain)
window?.localStorage.setItem('key', 'value')

TIL about the node-modules-inspector — a package that allows you to visualize your node_modules folder, inspect your dependencies, and so much more 🤯! I’m a big fan of the visualizations, since I’m more of a visual kinda person. You can use it in your own project with this simple command: npx node-modules-inspector.

Check it out

TypeScript’s compiler is being reimagined. Currently at version 5.8, TypeScript is still written in TypeScript itself, but there are plans to port it to Go for version 7.

This change promises to improve compilation times—by up to 10 times faster! True, the speed boost is something we probably won’t see for a few months or years, but I’m super excited to see Go get some much needed love and attention, since you know, it’s my secondary language of choice.

TIL about Magnesium Glycinate, a supplement that helps promote better sleep! I’ve been having a tough time falling asleep lately, especially after a tough Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practice, or an intense workout. One of my friends recommended Magnesium Glycinate as a way to help me sleep better. Let’s see how it works… I just ordered some today 😆!

TIL about Fontsource, a free Vercel resource that provides you with information on how to easily install and self-host web fonts. They support all Google Fonts, as well as open source ones!

Check it out

TIL: Tanner Linsley, the creator of TanStack Query, Router, and Start, just dropped TanStack Form!

True to form, it’s framework-agnostic, headless, and has zero dependencies. It also handles deeply nested objects out of the box, making it a powerful alternative to traditional form libraries.

Check it out

TIL about a growing movement on the web where people are choosing to use system fonts instead of loading custom fonts. Over the years, the default system fonts included with operating systems have become quite robust and visually appealing. If you’re concerned about performance or don’t require a fancy web font, this could be a great solution for you.

Check it out

This one’s pretty sweet and I’ve been reaching for it a lot lately at work! Rather than having multiple className conditions, you can use a data-attribute to manage your state.

This is not only a great way to keep your component clean but also allows you to target any state pertinent to your component without JavaScript! Mind you, I’m assuming you’re using something like Tailwind for your styling.

// no reliance on utility functions like `twMerge`
<div
	data-state-can-scroll={canScroll}
	className="data-[state-can-scroll=false]:hidden"
>
	Hidden when canScroll is false!
</div>

TIL about wxt! It’s like Nuxt but for web extensions.

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TIL about a local first tool for image compression called sqoosh. No more sending images to random servers just to compress them! 😆.

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TIL about bolt.new, an AI-powered web agent that lets you deploy apps via Stackblitz. It’s a pretty sick way to throw up a demo of a new app to illustrate a concept.

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TIL about the following…

    /* top, left, right, button, are all set to to the same value */
    .box {
      inset: 0;
    }

1. The inset property is a shorthand for top, right, bottom, and left properties.
2. Absolute elements can only be contained by other elements using Positioned layout.
3. Positioned elements will always render on top of non-positioned ones
4. Stacking context is the stacking order of elements that are positioned.
   • We can create a stacking context by combining a non-static position with a z-index. So position absolute and z-index will create a stacking context.
   • We can also create one by setting opacity to less than 1.
   • Check out the link above for more info.
5. The isolation property allows you to create a stacking context. We can add this to a parent element and then we can forget about having to add a position: relative and z-index to the children. It is the lightest weight way to create a stacking context.
6. The z-index property can be used in a flexbox the same way as it can be used with a positioned element.

TIL about the stacking context inspector. It’s a tool that allows you to inspect the stacking context of an element.

Check it out

More of a public service announcement and a reminder to myself (especially for my personal projects), to leave comments on any funky things you’re doing in code. I wasted an hour battling a bug in my blog because I didn’t leave a comment regarding a @ts-ignore directive.

Leave. Comments. Please.

Kent showed me a great way to have a stable id for my react components, between server and client renders.

Ideally, you would be reaching for useId from react but if you’re using an older version of react, like 17 or 16, then you can use auto-id from reach.tech instead.

Check it out

Til about zoxide which is a faster and more robust cd alternative; it lets you navigate your filesystem faster and more reliably.

 z ~/Documents/new-blog
 z ~/Documents/rehype-code-titles

# Go back to the last directory (new-blog)
z -

# Go to the `new-blog` directory
z rehype-code-titles

# Go back to your home directory
z

# open a fzf menu of possible entries that begin with `re`
zi re<SPACE><TAB>

Check it out

TIL about the Standard Schema! It’s an effort to standardize the interface of TypeScript validation libraries.

To pull directly from the docs, The goal is to make it easier for ecosystem tools to accept user-defined type validators, without needing to write custom logic or adapters for each supported library.