Second steps in React

Posted on Fri 10 June 2016 in misc • 1 min read

For some time I've been using React JS stack in my professional projects at X-Team and I decided to share some knowledge. React is just one piece piece of puzzle, requiring Redux, React-Router, Webpack and Babel to create truly interesting architecture. I've met many people having problems with grasping that, struggling to go beyond simple component state of their application. Since I had similar problems learning this modular approach, I decided to give a short presentation on the topic.

Initially given on April 27th in a wonderful Noisebridge hackerspace, I updated it a little after React Europe 2016 and presented again at MeetJS Warsaw on the 7th of June 2016.

The presented application of React + Redux is just a simple view authentication method, which nicely highlights the simplicity of the architecture. All links - including "by then you should know" are clickable, so feel free to browse sources recommended by me. All code itself is either runnable or has a pseudocode warning on the slide.

Slides are available in an iframe below or at my slides …


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SurviveJS - a guide to modern web development with React and Webpack

Posted on Sun 31 January 2016 in misc • 3 min read

This time I wish to share a recommendation. For two years I've been developing in JavaScript in Angular, using various in-house habits and techniques of my respective employers. I have tried vanilla JS and CoffeeScript, Grunt and Gulp, Jasmine and Mocha, various deployment models. I have been learning various tools on my own, but I always seemed to lack the understanding of what is their specific place and strength in a project.

I never really got what's so good in React and Webpack, even though I've completed the tutorials before. I got myself to understand ES6 and BabelJS, but never intuitively realized the potential of const and modules, even though my taxBrackets project uses a lot of their functions.

There are lots of great tutorials and showcases of various tools, showing how each of them can simplify and speed up the development. Still - nothing can replace seeing an experienced professional make most of his toolbox and guide you through their work process.

Recently I've seen such a guide, creating a simple yet representative app in …


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TaxBrackets - visualizing tax systems in d3.js

Posted on Fri 15 January 2016 in misc • 3 min read

Hah, my first technical post on the blog, even if very lame :)

During the last year's elections in Poland a truly leftist party surfaced for the first time in decades, proposing to raise the taxes with a progressive tax system. It turned out that a lot of Poles didn't know how such a system works and became terrified by the thought of a 75% tax for the richest.

That convinced me to create some kind of visualization of various tax systems - be in flat or progressive. This is an early stage effect of my works: TaxBrackets 0.1, available at my Github.

I've been meaning to sit down and work it out for months, and starting wasn't easy - the most important factor was a clear and simple design. It had to present an average person how the tax brackets are distributed in their gross salary. Iterating between versions with varying level of details I finally settled on relative simple one, which shouldn't feel crowded.

I wanted to create two view modes: 'general', showcasing the sum …


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