Christian Heilmann

A launch.json setting for end-to-end web development

January 26th, 2022

When I start a new project these days I create the following launch.json file and put in in a .vscode folder on the the root of my project. This turns Visual Studio Code into an environment that gives me everything I need to build a web product without ever leaving it. If you want to […]

Ever wondered what a Wordle social media update sounds to screenreader users?

January 19th, 2022

It’s not pretty. This isn’t a dig at Skoop, he was just first on my timeline with a result when I did some accessibility testing. Screenreaders read out the squares as “black large square”, “green square” and “yellow square”. As a saving grace, they cleverly do group them, so four yellow squares are announces as […]

Podcast recording: Development tools in the expert’s eye with Chris Heilmann

January 18th, 2022

Yesterday I was a guest on the JavaScript Master Podcast by Dariusz Kalbarczyk and we talked a bit more than an hour about my job as a Developer Tools PM, what annoys me the most about the toolintg situation and how the community can help. You can listen to the podcast on anchor.fm or Spotify […]

Turning a GitHub page into a Progressive Web App

January 13th, 2022

I just released my dice simulator app and in doing so learned about a few things about turning a GitHub Page into a PWA. To make this easier for subsequent projects, I put together a bare-bones template to turn any GitHub page into a PWA. Nothing in there is sophisticated and all it does is […]

Offline? No dice!

January 11th, 2022

A few days ago I was on vacation in a place that had terrible mobile connectivity and whilst it provided WiFi, nothing worked. I even brought my own cables and travel router, but to no avail. This was not only a good opportunity for some “digital detox”, but it also showed me once again that […]

Newsletter

Check out the Dev Digest Newsletter I write every week for WeAreDevelopers.

160: Graphs and RAGs explained and VS Code extension hacks Graphs and RAG explained, how AI is reshaping UI and work, how to efficiently use Cursor, VS Code extensions security issues.
159: AI pipelines, 10x faster TypeScript, How to interview How to use LLMs to help you write code and how much electricity does that use? Is your API secure? 10x faster TypeScript thanks to Go!
158: 🕹️ Super Mario AI 🔑 API keys in LLMs 🤙🏾 Vibe Coding Why is AI playing Super Mario? How is hallucinating the least of our worries and what are rules for developing Safety Critical Code?
157: CUDA in Python, Gemini Code Assist and back-dooring LLMs We met with a CUDA expert from NVIDIA about the future of hardware, we look at how AI fails and how to play pong on 140 browser tabs.
156: Enterprise dead, all about Bluesky and React moves on! Learn about Bluesky as a platform, how to build a React App and how to speed up SQL. And play an impossible game in the browser.

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