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Now

A snapshot of my life via short updates.

Spent the past week diving into Lexical and the world of text editor frameworks. Rich text editing is one of those problems that looks simple on the surface but gets deeply complex once you start pulling at the edges.

After a lot of reading and tinkering with open-source code, I built a feature-complete replacement for our legacy <RichTextarea /> component (previously based on the now-deprecated react-rte). It was one of those projects where the learning curve was steep, but the result was worth it.

The live component in our design system playground.

For me, 2024 is going to be a year of maturing: a year of solidifying my programming foundations, following good advice, and learning to tune out the noise. Additionally, I want to expand my existing horizons and learn more about backend development. I love UI engineering and still see it as my passion, but the future is starting to feel more full-stack. I want to be prepared for it.

Added syntax highlighting to code blocks using rehype-pretty-code. One of those small touches that makes a big difference in how writing about code actually reads.

It supports inline code const test = () => console.log('hello world');

And code blocks:

const test = () => {
  console.log('hello world');
};

Started embracing AI-based tooling for my work, specifically GitHub Copilot. I was skeptical at first, mostly from seeing all the Twitter discourse around where it falls apart. But those failures seem to come from over-ambitious expectations. These tools work best when you let them exist in the background, relying on them as a nudge when you're stuck. The auto-complete alone is a real productivity boost.

Added persistence to the "now" updates. Each entry is its own MDX file, parsed by Contentlayer. Small change, but it makes adding new updates feel effortless — which is the whole point.

  • Got promoted to Senior Frontend Developer. Feels good to see the work recognized.
  • Moved this page to Contentlayer. It makes working with MDX significantly easier than anything else I've tried. Worth the migration effort.