It seems it’s impossible to make a website these days without using some kind of package manager, whether its npm for your frontend dependencies or something like composer for your php dependencies. If you need to do something a bit tricky then, chances are, someone else had the same problem and created a package to solve that problem so you can just add it to your dependencies, install it and away you go. But does this mean web development is just copying and pasting other people’s work into your website?
Is web development just copying and pasting?
Where is the best place to put your project documentation?
Making a project, library or package sometimes seems like the hard part, but if you want someone else to use it you probably want to spend a decent amount of time on the documentation to help others get started using your package. People won’t know how to use a feature if you don’t even take the time to write about it as they won’t even know it is there.
Getting started with Bulma Clean Theme for Jekyll
I have made a theme for Jekyll which is based on the Bulma frontend framework. It might look familiar, because I am also using it for this site. If you like the look of this theme then I thought I would write a little blog post about how to use it for your own site and how you can use it with GitHub Pages.
Why use a static site generator
There are many ways to make a website and many different CMS platforms you can use, such as WordPress and Joomla, as well as site builder tools that offer you drag and drop interfaces, but what about static site generators?
Why do I always use Laravel?
I often get asked why I use Laravel for a lot of projects. I get comments such as its too big for this project, its overkill, you can write something better yourself that’s simpler and easier to use.
Making multiple post types in Jekyll
Recently I decided to make a new section of my website for short stories. This presented my with a dilemma about how best to make multiple post types using Jekyll and GitHub Pages. I found a few different ways people have done it in the past, but I found Collections were the best way of doing it so I thought I would share how I did it.
Latest Posts
Creating multi-worksheet Excel files with Simple Excel
Recently I had to create a large data export for a project. I like using Spatie’s Simple Excel package to do this as it is very simple to use and works well when exporting large amounts of data to a CSV or Excel file with the ability to stream a download to the browser. This particular project had an additional requirement though, exporting multiple worksheet’s of data at once. Luckily, this package allows you to do this too.
The PHP foreach loop
An alternative to the for loop, the foreach loop is used to iterate or loop over an array. The foreach loop allows you to loop through the items in the array without setting a limit for it to stop like you do in a for loop.
The PHP for loop
If you have something you want to repeat then consider using a PHP for loop, saving you from copying and pasting the same code multiple times. Adding the code into a loop means you only have to write it once, and you also only have to maintain the code in one place in future.
