Artificial Intelligence
Visual Regression Testing with BackstopJS
Fun fact: The creator of BackstopJS has referenced this blog post as the recommended tutorial for BackstopJS v2!
TOPIC
Database (3)
Agile
Big Data for the Hopelessly Relational
I've been working with relational databases for a long time.
AngularJS
Angular 2: Using the HTTP Service to Write Data to an API
Update, November 27, 2017: This post explains the Http service used in Angular 2. This is now deprecated in favor of the newer HttpClient released in...
Artificial Intelligence
Search by Content Type in Drupal 8 - a custom module tutorial
At the time of this writing, the Search API module is still in alpha phase. A note from the module maintainers warn that it is unstable. This blog...
Artificial Intelligence
Upgrading Drupal Media module to 7.x-2.x
I recently spent some time fighting against the Drupal Media and
Drupal
Anatomy of a Drupalgeddon attack
Before working at Metal Toad, I saw an email from Acquia. A strange email. It went something like this:
Education
The Open Source Apprenticeship Model
The software industry is facing a workforce shortage of unprecedented proportions.
Agile
Teams Make Their Sprint Commitment
One cornerstone of scrum is the team sprint commitment. A team must make their sprint commitment in order for the business to have faith in the team...
Database
WordPress Deployments: Example of Database Changes in Code
How do you update the database of a WordPress site that's already in production without a lengthy content freeze or losing your client's data?
The Cloud
The Launch of Swift 2.0
Ever since Grace Hopper came up with the A language programmers have been trying to create new languages and processes that make it easier to do work...
AngularJS
AngularJS Query String handling using $location.search()
Note: This article refers to AngularJS v1.x only.
Database
Autocomplete Using ActiveAdmin and Rails 3
I love how easy ActiveAdmin is to use out of the box, but it can force you into using a panoply of workarounds for forms with any significant level...
Drupal
Drupal 7 Views Preview Shows Different Results
OK, so you are a site builder or a privileged role building a view.
The Cloud
Full Stack Basics for the Non-Developer
Let's visualize and talk about the "full stack" of web development.
Drupal
Drupal 8 Migrations, part 4: Migrating Nodes from Drupal 7
Drupal 8 provides a flexible, plugin-based architecture for migrating data into a site. In Part 3 of this series, we explored how to migrate...
Drupal
Drupal 8 Migrations, part 3: Migrating Taxonomies from Drupal 7
Drupal 8 provides a flexible, plugin-based architecture for migrating data into a site. In Part 2 of this series, we explored how to migrate users...
Drupal
Drupal 8 Migrations, part 2: Migrating users from a Drupal 7 site
In this article, we will be building a custom migration which will import users from a Drupal 7 site into a Drupal 8 site. The migration will include...
Artificial Intelligence
Migrating Content into Drupal 8
Drupal 8 includes a powerful built-in migration system for importing content into your site. It is designed to handle data from Drupal 6 or 7, and...
Artificial Intelligence
Drupal 8: First Impressions for the Back-End Developer
Drupal 8 is in beta now, and recently I’ve had a chance to start working with it. While much of the admin interface is comparable to Drupal 7, there...
AWS
Capistrano Deploy to dynamic AWS EC2
At Metal Toad we use Capistrano to deploy our projects to their respective servers.
Agile
10 Months as a Junior Developer
I am now within a couple days of having survived as a Junior Developer at Metal Toad for 10 whole months.
Career Advice
Stack Overflow Careers 2.0
I hesitate to review Stack Overflow Careers 2.0, but I'm so excited I just can't hide it. I imagine that this is what the early adopters of LinkedIn...
Drupal
Git: Always Be Branching (ABB)
In this week's episode, we'll be revisiting the Git workflow in greater detail. I was originally going to discuss Capistrano too but quickly realized...