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This is the place where I publish articles about my findings and progress in the awesome world of technology and beyond! Also, check out my projects or get in touch.
My latest articles //
PlantUML layout and styles tutorial
With PlantUML you can create diagrams as plain text code. PlantUML takes off the burden so that you don’t need to worry about the looks and layout of your diagram’s elements, by applying opinionated defaults. This article is both a PlantUML layout tutorial, which explains how you can customize the layout, and also explains how you can customize the styles,…
PlantUML tutorial to create diagrams as code
PlantUML is one of the most feature-complete tools that lets you create diagrams as code, using plain text. It supports UML diagrams and beyond, and has a large ecosystem. In this basic PlantUML tutorial I present an introduction on what PlantUML is and how to learn it. I go into detail about the very useful PlantUML standard library, approaches to…
Plain text diagrams – the best diagrams as code tools
Storing documentation as plain text in version control has numerous advantages, such as the ability to understand changes by diffing, or having documentation next to your code. Since documentation contains text and images, this article explains how diagrams can also be written as plain text, which a generator then converts to graphics. I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this…
Plain text documentation in version control – the 3 best markup languages
Writing technical project documentation using proprietary formats like Word, Google Docs or Confluence has numerous disadvantages. Plain text documentation, committed to a VCS like Git, can overcome these disadvantages. This article presents the markup languages Markdown, Asciidoc and reStructured Text used for plain text documentation files, how they compare, and which tools exist to render plain text documentation to visually…
Create a build runner VM with vagrant for Windows and macOS – Part 2
Build runners, which compile and package your software, are often implemented using Docker containers. However, you cannot use Docker if you need a Windows or macOS build runner. This article presents how to create a build runner VM with Vagrant, for Windows and macOS. While the instantiation of a build VM is fully automated, it is challenging to create the…
Create a build runner VM with vagrant for Windows and macOS – Part 1
Build runners, which compile and package your software, are often implemented using Docker containers. However, you cannot use Docker if you need a Windows or macOS build runner. This article presents how to create Windows and macOS build runners as virtual machines using Vagrant. While the instantiation of a build VM is fully automated, it is challenging to create the…
marshmallow vs. pydantic – Python’s 2 best libraries for data serialization and validation
Data (de-) serialization is about converting between raw data items and instances of your Python classes, in order to transmit or store data. A typical example is the conversion between a Python object and its JSON string representation. This article discusses the two stand-alone frameworks marshmallow and Pydantic, which handle the conversion as well as data validation. I provide an…
Static Python type hints – advantages and drawbacks
While Python is a dynamically typed language, it is possible to add type hints to your code. This makes code more readable and allows for static analyzers to check your code for type errors, e.g. during development or in a CI pipeline. This article discusses the advantages and drawbacks of static Python type hints in detail, presents the most common…
Python and SQLite caveats
SQLite is a popular, relational database that you embed into your application. Python comes with official bindings to SQLite. This article examines caveats of using SQLite in Python. It demonstrates problems different versions of linked SQLite libraries can cause, how datetime objects are not properly stored, and how you need to be extra careful when relying on Python’s with connection…
SQLite performance tuning
SQLite is a popular, relational database that you embed into your application. With an increasing amount of data in your database, you need to apply SQLite performance tuning. This article discusses indices and its pitfalls, the use of the query planner, the Write-Ahead-Logging (WAL) journal mode and increasing the cache size. It also elaborates on the importance of measuring the…