All Posts (62)

• Generate SQLite table types for Typescript

  01/09/2025

  Bun has an sqlite interface built in. It makes for some great dev-ex. One thing that ircks me when dealing with sql and Typescript however, is that when I run queries I often have to model the db table that I am querying in Typescript. This usually involves a manual effort, but not anymore. I have written a short script to auto generate Typescript types for table definitions.

  Read more...

• Literal templates

  21/08/2025

  I introduce to you "literal-templates", a lightweight, flexible template engine for Node.js. Offering dynamic registration and rendering of template views, includes, and helpers.

  Read more...

• Template strings as a view engine - Part 2

  20/08/2025

  I've been thinking some more about using template strings as a view engine. This blog for example now uses the template engine shown below. It's quite simple to implement and it's usage in html files is super intuitive. You just need to remember that the html you are writing will be intepretted as a template string, and you already know how to use template strings, so there is no overhead.

  Read more...

• Template strings as a view engine

  17/08/2025

  Template strings in JS can be used to create a view engine without adding any extra libraries. So if you are creating a server side js app, think before you reach for handlebars, ejs, or god forbid pug. Not becuase those are bad, pug is, but becuase it's so easy to leverage template strings as a view engine.

  Read more...

• Object field validators in Typescript

  08/08/2025

  Before you pull in the next hot new validation library. Ask yourself this question. Do I need it? The answer is no, field validation is quite easy. Let me show you how to create an extensible object field validator.

  Read more...

• Feature flags db schema

  05/08/2025

  Feature flags are simple _on_ / _off_ flags that can be used to toggle application features without needing a production release.

  Read more...

• PostgresSQL full text search

  31/07/2025

  PostgresSQL provides a builtin full text search feature. Here is how I use it with examples.

  Read more...

• startswith and endswith

  27/07/2025

  Want to know if a file path ends with _.md_ or a message starts with _hello_? Well then I have just the methods for you.

  Read more...

• Stack Overflow is dieing, no wonder

  21/07/2025

  Below is a screenshot of what I see when I land on Stack Overflow. Bear in mind this is after I have to prove that I am a _human_. 

  Read more...

• Trimming strings in c

  18/07/2025

  Strings in C. They are wonderfully intuitive and easy to work with *cough*. No, strings in C are a nightmare. Doing simple things such as trimming the whitespace off the start or end of a string is complicated. Because a string is not a string it's a `char *`. Which means that if you want to do interesting things you are going to have to get used to managing memory. Which means thinking, and if there is one thing modern programmers hate, it's thinking. Anyway, below I have added `ltrim_string`, `rtrim_string`, and `trim_string` methods. I've made the code as readable as I can, and documented it with tests.

  Read more...

• Banned from lobste.rs and Hacker News

  15/07/2025

  For some reason the good people at Hacker News have shadow banned my blog. I can still post, but the post never appears to anyone else. I'm not sure why this is the case, as one of my posts has ~350 upvotes and spent time on the front page. What did I do wrong Hacker News?

  Read more...

• Making a StringBuffer in C

  15/07/2025

  I've been writing a lot of C. Whilst doing so I have been questioning my sanity. Am I an awful programmer? You know what, I think I might be. Kudos to all those devs that created monumental feats with C. Because it is not an easy tool to use. That said, I do enjoy writing C, just as long as I don't have a deadline or any business critical software to deliver. But when I say enjoy, I mean enjoyment in the sense of using a sycthe to cut a lawn, whilst my lawnmower watches on. It's lovely using the sycthe, but at the end of the day when I am exhausted and cut only a quarter of the grass that I could have cut with a mower in half the time, I do feel a great sense of achievement. I'm exhausted and broken, but happy.

  Read more...

• Use Codium not Code

  14/07/2025

  Most people I see coding these days use Visual Studio Code. But Visual Studio Code is a Microsoft project that tracks your usage and does all sorts of evil corporation stuff. But don't worry there is an actual open-source version called VSCodium. It works just as well as the Microsoft version, without stealing your soul.

  Read more...

• Get inode type in C

  10/07/2025

  Here is a string representation of a path. But tell me, is it a directory? is it a file? maybe it's a symlink? perhaps there is nothing there at all.

  Read more...

• Handle Spring form errors with JTE

  17/06/2025

  I've been working with JTE (Java Template Engine) templates in my latest Spring app. They are a joy to work with and feel like a more _modern_ alternative to Thymeleaf templates. With Spring however there are some integrations that a Thymeleaf user would expect, that are missing when using JTE. Automatic form error association being one. So I have documented how to pass form errors to your jte templates below.

  Read more...

• Add a CSRF token to HTML forms with JTE

  16/06/2025

  When submitting information via an HTML form, Spring Security requires the form to include a CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) token. This token is generated by the Spring app and tied to the user's session. Spring will use it to verify that the form submission is legitimate and not malicious. The token is required on POST, PUT, DELETE, and PATCH requests to protect against CSRF attacks. So when your user is submitting information, the form used to submit said information will need to contain a valid csrf token. This means adding a hidden field to the form that contains the token. In this post I'll demonstrate my reusable solution to this when using Spring and JTE.

  Read more...

• Spring database seeding

  29/05/2025

  I'm working on a website that functions as an index of trades people in Ireland. It allows users to register a trade profile detailing their services. This trade profile can then be reviewed by other users. I have this functionality pretty much built out. But until recently I had very little test data, which lead me on a journey into the world of database seeding. Which is the generation of test data that mimics real world data. Here's how I got on.

  Read more...

• New Lib: Blueprint Factory

  28/05/2025

  I'm working on an app that requires a large amount of seed data. In order to achieve this I created a factory pattern that mimics Laravel's approach. This allows objects to be generated with ease and uses Faker to supply test data. I have extracted it into a package and uploaded it to Maven Central. I plan to use this approach in future projects. Details of the library are below.

  Read more...

• New Lib: Placeholder Image Generator

  26/05/2025

  I've recently had the need to generate placeholder images for a webapp. User's of this app are not required to upload a profile image, even though they can. This means that a fallback or "placeholder" image is required for those that choose not to upload a profile image. To facilitate this I developed a neat little package that can be reused in any app. The details of which are below.

  Read more...

• Request cache in Spring

  19/05/2025

  Let's say we have a request that fetches a post stored in the database. That request may need to alter the fetched post in some way. Before the post is altered various checks may need to happen, such as an ownership check. But we want to avoid each check fetching the same post from the database. This is when a cache that is scoped to a request's life cycle comes in handy.

  Read more...

• Checking ownership in Spring

  12/05/2025

  Say a forum user creates a post. Only that user, the owner, should be allowed to alter said post.

  Read more...

• Slurp - A Java task runner

  09/04/2025

  Introducing Slurp 1.0. Slurp is a task runner for Java. It allows tasks, aka `Runnable` instances to be executed.

  Read more...

• Using CPU branch prediction in Java

  03/04/2025

  CPU branch prediction is when the CPU tries to guess the outcome of a conditional operation, eg: an `if` statement, before it is executed. If it guesses correct then the CPU can continue executing instructions without interuption.

  Read more...

• Install OpenJDK on Ubuntu

  02/04/2025

  Let's install OpenJDK 21 LTS on Ubuntu.

  Read more...

• Using Docker on Linux Mint

  02/04/2025

  Surely using Docker on Linux Mint is the same as Ubuntu? I can just follow the official Ubuntu install guide.

  Read more...

• Yoda Conditions

  01/04/2025

  When I write a comparison statement I nearly always write it variable first, value second.

  Read more...

• Tower of Hanoi in Java

  25/03/2025

  The Tower of Hanoi is a commonly used coding interview question. The solution requires the developer to write a recursive method.

  Read more...

• AxeRunner

  06/03/2025

  AxeRunner is used to run accessibility tests on web pages using the [axe-core](https://www.deque.com/axe/) library in Java.

  Read more...

• European Alternatives

  05/03/2025

  Where is the EU tech industry? Why do we use the software products of American giants like google, amazon, and facebook. When we could use "local" EU software.

  Read more...

• Using a virtual screen size in Raylib

  24/02/2025

  When working with pixel art it is common to create a virtual screen size. For example if my sprites are 16x16 pixels and my game world is 256x256. I would want to scale the size up to fit my computer's screen size. If the art was not scaled it would look really tiny, on a 1920x1080 monitor.

  Read more...

• Using astyle to format C code

  18/02/2025

  I've been writing C with a bare bones neovim install. But I miss code formatting.

  Read more...

• Creating a database dump with SQLite

  17/02/2025

  For one reason or another you may want to _dump_ your sqlite data into an sql file.

  Read more...

• Optimise SQLite for Laravel apps

  17/02/2025

  I love using SQLite, but it requires a bit of configuration to get optimal results.

  Read more...

• Backing up an SQLite database

  16/02/2025

  SQLite is a file based database. This makes common tasks like back-ups trivial.

  Read more...

• GameDev in C Part 4: A Snake Clone

  14/02/2025

  Happy Valentines Day!, I made a snake clone in C.

  Read more...

• I'm off social media

  01/02/2025

  It didn't last long, only a month.

  Read more...

• GameDev in C Part 3: Drawing a Slime

  31/01/2025

  It's part 3 and I am finally able to draw something meaningful on the screen.

  Read more...

• Linting is procrastination.

  31/01/2025

  Imagine this scenario. A developer has an opinion. They feel that it is vitally important that code adhere to an arbitrary style guide.

  Read more...

• GameDev in C Part 2: Raylib

  23/01/2025

  This installment mimics the previous, in that most of time is spent trying to get a fiile to build. Luckily though, this was much quicker.

  Read more...

• GameDev in C Part 1: Hello World

  21/01/2025

  This is the start of a new blog series. I will be documenting my journey into building a game in C using [Raylib](https://www.raylib.com/). This post details installing a C compiler and running a simple program.

  Read more...

• Homer's Drinking Bird

  20/01/2025

  Do you work for a large multinational? Do you have a minimal amount of work to do during the day? Have they set your screen to go to sleep after 5 minutes of no interaction? Well then, look no further.

  Read more...

• I joined social media

  04/01/2025

  Twitter to be exact. Please become an apostle of mine. My handle is [BrianDouglasIE](https://x.com/BrianDouglasIE).

  Read more...

• 2025 new year's resolutions

  02/01/2025

  In 2024 I started this blog. I was somewhat successful in that I churned out 21 posts in 6 months.

  Read more...

• Setting up PostgreSQL and Lua in Docker

  31/12/2024

  I did a quick exploration into Lua after seeing is used in the CS50 game dev course.

  Read more...

• Rust, the Cunning Wizard

  05/12/2024

  Oh wise ai of the gippity.

  Read more...

• Partial function implementation

  25/11/2024

  Partial function implementation is a functional programming technique that can be used to create many functions from one, by binding fixed arguments.

  Read more...

• Chicken Farmer, a Snake clone

  18/11/2024

  I set myself a goal, make a game in 3 hours. The results, a snake clone where you play a farmer collecting eggs that turn into chickens.

  Read more...

• Useful ImageData Methods

  16/11/2024

  When creating a 2d game on canvas I like to render the sprites on an offscreen canvas and access them via retrieving their ImageData.

  Read more...

• Using the form attribute on buttons

  31/10/2024

  HTML buttons have a form attribute that can be used with buttons of `type="submit"`. The form attribute is used to target a specific form.

  Read more...

• I wrote a test framework in Julia

  21/10/2024

  I didn't set out to write a test framework in Julia. But I ended up going down the rabbit hole, and learning a lot about the language on the way.

  Read more...

• Sensible SQLite defaults

  17/10/2024

  SQLite is cool now. DHH uses it, Laravel defaults to it. Here is a list of _sensible defaults_ when using sqlite.

  Read more...

• Prevent pixel art blur on canvas

  15/10/2024

  Nobody wants to see blurry pixel art rendered in a game. So let's investigate how to render crisp pixel art images on a canvas element.

  Read more...

• Add IF NOT EXISTS to your migrations

  09/10/2024

  When working on a codebase with a number of other developers migrations can cause database conflicts. One simple step to stop migrations failing when switching between development branches is to add `IF NOT EXISTS` when creating a table.

  Read more...

• Using a PostgreSQL enum for state

  06/10/2024

  There are lot's of occasions where I see SQL table definitions that contain various boolean properties to communicate state. Often in these instances it would be much more optimal to use an `enum`.

  Read more...

• Conway's Game of Life in Go

  01/10/2024

  Conway's _Game of Life_ is a relatively straight forward cellular automata. I created an interactive demo using the rules that exists for it, using Go and Raylib.

  Read more...

• Writing a DB migrator in Go

  30/09/2024

  A database migrator applies database migrations. These are usually SQL scripts that update the version of a database. They can be applied and reverted. Allowing for db versions to be rolled back and pushed forward.

  Read more...

• Creating a Pong clone using Raylib and Go

  22/09/2024

  As a fun exercise I implemented a rudimentary Pong clone using Raylib and Go.

  Read more...

• Bit shifting to increase performance

  15/09/2024

  I've been watching [@Vercidium](https://www.youtube.com/@Vercidium)'s awesome content on YouTube. His videos are all about performance optimization in regards to game development, and I learned a nifty performance optimization for my JS code as a result.

  Read more...

• Generate OG images for blog posts

  07/09/2024

  When sharing an article on social media you will see a preview. The preview uses the html `og:image` meta tag. In this article I will demonstrate how I generate a unique `og:image` for each of my blog posts.

  Read more...

• One assertion per test please

  17/08/2024

  Please! when you are writing tests try to limit each test case to one `expect`. Let's refactor the monstrosity below to understand why fewer expects and more tests are better.

  Read more...

• Slugs with an ID fallback in Laravel

  12/06/2024

  Slugs make a URL look legit. No one wants to click on a link that reads like `https://mysite.com/blog/1`. I'd definitely get hacked if I clicked that. But what if it read `https://mysite.com/blog/1/some-awesome-content`. Now that looks trustworthy. I'm definitely gonna see some awesome content if I click that link.

  Read more...

• Seeding a Laravel DB with Irish Counties

  06/06/2024

  This is a step-by-step guide on how to seed your database with Irish Counties grouped by their Province.

  Read more...