Our Latest Insights

Thoughts from our team on current events, new techniques and tools, trends we're seeing, and our culture.

14 results shown.
  • Calibrated Code Reviews

    December 10, 2020
    Approaching our code reviews from a place of intentionality can help us build better relationships with our teammates, inspire more thoughtful conversations, and improve the quality of the work we are putting out into the world.
    Becca Bailey
  • Conversion to TypeScript: Lessons Learned from an OSS Maintainer

    December 8, 2020
    Formidable's Emil Hartz recently undertook the conversion of his long-maintained OSS package to TypeScript. We asked a few questions related to the conversion to shine light on any learnings for others considering the same undertaking.
    Emil Hartz
  • Say Hello to Charlie

    October 30, 2020
    Charlie is a full-stack engineer with a broad range of experience leading large and small teams. Today he explains what he does at Formidable and why he stays.
  • Is the Future of Web Design Polymorphic?

    September 24, 2020
    In this article, we will be looking at how layout on the web went from fixed to fluid, and fluid to responsive, asking ourselves: What's next? We will examine if APIs like ResizeObserver can be used in combination with front-end frameworks to help us emulate the legendary element query. Finally, we will create some *self-aware* UI.
  • Best Practices for Making (super duper) Useful Dashboards

    September 3, 2020
    Dashboards are a tool to support decision making, monitoring, or solving a problem. Each component of the dashboard needs to have a clear reason why it’s there and how it helps the user perform a task or do a job. Here are some of our tips for making supremely useful dashboards.
    Paula Lavalle
  • How to urql, Part 3: The Normalized Cache

    August 11, 2020
    In our first blog post we talked about exchanges and how by default we're using a document-based cache. This is the cache that comes out of the box with urql and solves a lot of common cases, but what if this cache isn't sufficient for you?
    Jovi De Croock
  • Adapting Team Dynamics in Response to Change

    July 31, 2020
    Team dynamics are definitively more of an art than a science, however they are crucial to collaborative and organisational success. In this post I look at **adapting a team’s dynamic in a direct response to change**: specifically a change in personnel, or a change in working styles in light of the new remote-first lifestyles lots of us have undertaken.
    Will Golledge
  • Distributed Locking in DynamoDB

    June 30, 2020
    This article will discuss transactions in DynamoDB, their limitations, and a proposed solution involving distributing locking, replete with details.
  • An Open Source Maintainer's Guide to Publishing npm Packages

    June 18, 2020
    This how-to guide covers many pitfalls and gotchas people encounter when they want to publish npm packages.
    Kadi Kraman
  • Getting a Browser Extension Through Review

    June 16, 2020
    Whether you're publishing your first browser extension or already have one listed, it's worth making sure your submissions are prepared for a rigorous review. Here's a quick run-through for how you can lock down your browser extension and increase your chance of getting your extension approved swiftly.
    Andy Richardson
  • Introducing VictoryHistogram

    May 26, 2020
    We've recently released VictoryHistogram, a new charting component we've added to our Victory library, that allows you to create histogram charts in React.
  • Building a Feature-Rich CMS with Open Source Software

    May 20, 2020
    We recently created a feature-rich CMS that allows users to create new pages from scratch and preview their changes in real time using the same components that render our live site. Best of all, we did it with entirely free, open source software.
    Lauren Eastridge
  • Retail in the Time of Coronavirus: Today and Beyond Quarantine

    May 18, 2020
    Current pandemic conditions have rapidly accelerated the rate of adoption of digital products in the retail industry. What happens when the shops reopen? We have a few projections.
    Amy L. Dickson
  • Introducing the New Formidable Brand

    April 29, 2020
    Formidable has experienced extraordinary growth in the past few years. Yet, our overall brand was not able to keep up with the increasing burden of our growing footprint. So we set out to fix it.
    Joe Alterio
    Amy L. Dickson