As great as CSS is, there are some glaring holes within the specification. We can perform calculations using the calc function in CSS, but for some reason there is no list-style-type: dash but other strange values like lower-greek and plenty of other language specific values. The solution is quite simple and I decided to make this into a post for future reference and anyone else who finds themselves searching Google for the same thing.
I have been toying with an idea I have had for about 5 years now. The idea is rather simple: Airbnb meets yard advertising. The idea is to allow homeowners to rent their front yards to businesses who want to place a sign for a fee. The idea came about after seeing businesses who put their sign up while working on your house, building a pool or painting in exchange for a discount on the overall cost of the job.
As Youi’s advertisements say: At Youi, we get you. Spoken by a smug looking guy with a face you can’t help but want to punch (I’m sure he is a nice guy, maybe). After my recent experiences hunting down insurance for a brand new car, I have come to the conclusion that Youi are a bunch of scam artists who cannot compete with any other insurer out there. Considerably more expensive than any other insurer (even Suncorp) even though their ads claim they can save you hundreds.
I recently switched over to using Webpack in my Aurelia application that I have been building at my day job. One of the caveats I encountered as a result of ditching Jspm/System.js is the ability of being able to supply a URL to getViewStrategy because Webpack requires knowing all paths at bundle time, this approach goes out the window. But, I recently encountered something cool that allows you to request HTML from the server and then use it as a view within your current custom component or wherever using InlineViewStrategy. Essentially this gives you the ability to take arbitary HTML wrapped in tags and use it as a view.
I have been working with Aurelia for a year now and loving it. I also discovered Wallaby earlier this year and love that as well. I got it to work when I was still using Jspm and System.js in my Aurelia application, but since moved over to Webpack. Because I am also using TypeScript, it complicated matters a bit getting Wallaby.js to work with Webpack and TypeScript. However, thanks to the help of Artem of Wallaby.js, I got it to work in the end.
I am not the kind of developer who jumps on bandwagons and uses whatever new tool is released or replaces another. However, after using Aurelia for over a year now and putting up with the numerous breaking changes in Jspm and System.js causing issues with Aurelia, I have had enough. This will not be a guide telling you how to upgrade to Webpack from Jspm or System.js, just detailing my thoughts around switching over to Webpack and the benefits it brings.
I am stoked for the Playstation VR headset for the Playstation 4 console. Pricing was announced at $399 USD and the Australian price is $550. Sony did reveal that it would be priced as a new platform, so this falls directly inline with the cost of a PS4 console. Keep in mind this figure does not account for the cost of the Playstation Camera: $59 USD/$75 AUD and Playstation Move controllers: $49 USD/$46 AUD each.
This is a fun little plugin I wrote not long ago for being able to specify routes in JSON files and then load them into your Aurelia application. In my use-case recently I needed to define a bunch of routers and while I could have used child routers, at present child routers have limitations around things like triggering events and whatnot. I keep things simple by using top-level routes. As you can imagine, a simple application can grow into 10+ routes with ease, especially with an administration panel. This is why splitting routes into separate files can make your life easier, especially on a large team.
Support for Object.values(), Object.entries() and Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptors() has landed in the Google Chrome dev channel. These newly added methods are currently candidate proposals and at stage 3 for the ES2017 specification. Many of us were using Lodash for some of the aforementioned missing features from browsers like Object.values. So these are welcome additions. Keep in mind that these have not landed in the consumer release version of Google Chrome, maybe in a month or two we will see these released, perhaps even sooner. For the moment they are hidden behind a flag and only in the Canary version, enabled in options under “Experimental Javascript”. I did not realise these additions were so far along in the specification and hopefully provided there are no delays, we see them land in the finalised spec later next year.
Well here goes nothin’. I am publishing a book on LeanPub on working with Aurelia. Initially I was working with a publisher to write a book on Aurelia, but the pressures of a strict schedule with a child under and full time job meant it did not work out. However, I really want to get something out there. So I felt Leanpub would be the best fit. I can write when I find the time, I can publish new chapters as I complete them and get feedback from customers throughout the process of the book.