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Writing a Regex Parser and Tree Visualizer in ~400 Lines of Vanilla JS
Writing a Regex Parser and Tree Visualizer in ~400 Lines of Vanilla JSA small tool that turns a regex like ^(?<year>\d{4})-(?<month>\d{2})-(?<day>\d{2})$ into a color-coded nested tree you can actually read. Plus the old trick of letting the browser's RegExp do the heavy lifting.Writing regex: manageable. Reading someone else's regex a month later: brutal. regex101 is great for testing behavior but doesn't really show you the shape of the pattern. regexper.com does, but i
Automate Your Links: A Developer's Guide to the toui.io API
Your marketing team just dropped 50 product URLs into a shared spreadsheet. Subject line: "Flash sale this weekend -- need trackable links for all of these by Friday."You open the spreadsheet. Fifty rows. Each one needs a short link with a descriptive title and social preview metadata, so the links look good when shared on LINE, Facebook, and X. You could open the toui.io dashboard, paste each URL one at a time, fill in the OG fields, copy the short link back... and repeat that 49 more times.Or
Mastering Your Frontend Build with Bazel: Testing
In my previous post I went through Bazelifying a single monorepo's package. That was mainly a study exercise. Since then I've applied the same methodology for the rest of the monorepo's packages. This post is where I stop studying and start committing.I would like to start with testing (you know this subject is dear to me) and embrace Bazel practices on the matter. The sandbox always tells the truthAfter Bazelifying the tests in the components package, the test script in package.json change
I was tired of json-server — so I built a free mock API tool (no signup needed)
Every frontend project I start hits the same wall.I have a UI to build. I know what the API responses should look like. But the backend isn't ready yet.So I spend 15–20 minutes doing the same setup ritual:npm install -g json-server# create db.json# configure routes# run json-server --watch db.json --port 3001And that's the fast version. If I need CORS headers, custom status codes, or simulated delay, it gets longer.I built MockBolt to remove that setup time entirely. What MockBolt doesPaste
The 5 APIs That Run 200+ Times Per User (And Why That Matters)
Most developer tools get used a handful of times. Someone finds your API, tries it on a test case, maybe runs it a dozen more times, then moves on. That is the normal pattern. Out of 38 actors I have running on Apify, most average 5 to 20 runs per user. Respectable numbers.But five of them break the pattern completely. These five average 100 to 260 runs per user. Not because of better marketing or a viral tweet. Because they solve problems that require bulk processing by design. The Numbers
I rewrote my encrypted form tool because I was tired of Cloudflare owning my setup
formseal-embed is a drop-in utility for client side encrypted contact forms. You drop it in, it encrypts submissions in the browser before they're sent, and your backend receives ciphertext it can decrypt on its own terms.That's the pitch. The reality is I had a working version of this before the rewrite and it drove me insane. Every time I touched it I was thinking about Cloudflare. Cloudflare KV. Cloudflare Workers. The challenge/verify pipeline. It worked, but it was a house of cards. One con
20 Years on AWS and Never Not My Job
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Building Klondike Solitaire in React — Card State, Move Validation, and the Fisher-Yates Shuffle
Solitaire is one of those games that looks simple until you try to implement it. The rules are well-known, but representing the full game state, validating every possible move, and keeping UI in sync with that state all have non-obvious pieces.Here's how the Solitaire game at Ultimate Tools is built. Card RepresentationEvery card needs a suit, rank, and whether it's face-up:type Suit = 'spades' | 'hearts' | 'diamonds' | 'clubs';type Rank = 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
Free Online Typing Speed Test — Measure Your WPM and Accuracy Instantly, No Login
How fast do you actually type? Find out in 60 seconds.The Typing Speed Test at Ultimate Tools measures your words per minute and accuracy on a passage of real words — built in React, no download, no account. How It WorksThe test shows a passage of common English wordsStart typing — the timer begins on your first keystrokeCorrect letters turn green, incorrect letters turn redWhen the passage is complete (or the timer runs out), your WPM and accuracy are shownMetrics shown at the end:MetricWh
I Just Upgraded My Portfolio from Next.js 14 to Next.js 16 and Felt Like a Child Who Knows Nothing
My honest journey through incremental framework upgrades, breaking changes, and lessons learned IntroductionWhen I started this morning, my Next.js portfolio was running smoothly on version 14. By afternoon, after upgrading to version 16, I was debugging 404 errors, dealing with deprecated middleware patterns, and questioning every life choice that led me to this moment.But here's the thing: upgrading Next.js isn't as scary as it seems. It's just a series of small, manageable steps - kind o
Great at gaming? US air traffic control wants you to apply
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Building a Real-Time Word Counter in React — Unicode-Safe Splitting, Reading Time, and useRef for Instant Updates
A word counter seems trivial — split on spaces, count the parts. But accurate counting across Unicode text, real-time performance without re-renders on every keystroke, and reading time estimation all have implementation details worth getting right.Here's how the Word Counter at Ultimate Tools is built. Counting Words: The Right SplitThe naive approach:const count = text.split(' ').length;This breaks immediately on leading/trailing spaces, multiple consecutive spaces, newlines, and tabs — a
React-flexi-window v2.0 — I added a WASM-powered Liquid Glass engine to my React window component
Hellooooooo DEV Community!About 9 months ago, I shared my first ever npm package here — react-flexi-window, a draggable and resizable window component for React. The response was really encouraging, and I've been working on it ever since.Today I'm excited to share v2.0 — and it's a big one. I built a custom WebAssembly optics engine in Rust and shipped it as a new feature called the Material System. The first material is Liquid Glass — a refractive lens effect that actually bends background pixe
A Company Raised $17M to Replace Git. I Have Questions.
Git tracks files. Not context.That's the problem.When an AI agent writes code, Git sees the diff. It doesn't see which model wrote it. It doesn't see the prompt or the temperature setting.If a bug appears, you need to know which agent introduced it. Was it Claude Code? Gemini?Git gives you a hash. Not an answer. Git Was Built for HumansGit was built for Linux kernel development in 2005. Now it has to handle AI agents writing half your codebase.They generate, iterate, and sometimes break thi
Abandoned Cart Email Templates That Actually Convert (2026)
Quick AnswerThe highest-converting abandoned cart email templates share 5 elements: the exact product image, visible price, a single CTA, a relevant trust signal, and a specific subject line using the product name. A 3-email sequence (30 min, 24h, 72h) recovers 3–4x more revenue than a single email. The average abandoned cart email generates $5.81 in recovered revenue; the best earn $47+. Baymard Institute documents 70.22% global abandonment — email templates are your primary recovery tool
Checkout Optimization Guide 2026: Fix the 35% Revenue Leak
Quick AnswerThe average ecommerce checkout has 14.88 form fields. The optimal number is 7–8. Baymard Institute estimates that better checkout design alone could increase conversion by 35.26%, representing $260 billion in recoverable revenue across US and EU ecommerce annually. The most impactful single fix: guest checkout availability, which alone eliminates the 24% of abandonments caused by forced account creation (Baymard Institute, 2024 study of 4,500 shoppers). The Checkout Abando
Email vs AI Cart Recovery ROI: The 2026 Real Numbers
Quick AnswerEmail cart recovery delivers 3–11x ROI. AI-powered pre-abandonment recovery delivers 1,800–3,400x ROI. The gap comes down to two structural factors: reach (email covers 15–20% of abandoners; AI covers 100%) and timing (email arrives 30–60 minutes after abandonment; AI acts during the session). For a $200K/month store, email recovers ~$12,835/month; pre-abandonment AI recovers $535,000–$678,000/month. Why ROI Is the Only Metric That MattersCart recovery tools produce a lot
Hello, Dev.to Community! 👋 I'm Thabang, a Full-Stack Developer from South Africa
Hey everyone! 👋I'm Thabang Gideon, and I'm a Full-Stack Agile Developer based in South Africa. I've been a quiet observer here for a while, soaking up knowledge, and I'm thrilled to finally share my first post. 💻 My Tech JourneyMy journey into tech has been a mix of curiosity and building things. I'm comfortable working across the stack, and my day-to-day toolkit includes: Languages: Java, JavaScript, TypeScript Frontend: React (with Flowbite for UI) Backend: NestJS, GraphQL Databases:
🚫 Stop Writing Old JavaScript — ✅ Start Using Modern Built-in APIs (Part 2)
Missed Part 1? [Read it here] — covers structuredClone, Object.groupBy, AbortController, Promise.any, and more. 🧩 More Modern APIs You Should Already Be Using 1. Object.hasOwn() ❌ Old wayif (obj.hasOwnProperty("key")) { ... } ⚠️ Why this is dangeroushasOwnProperty can be overridden on the object itselfBreaks completely on null-prototype objects (e.g. Object.create(null))const obj = Object.create(null);obj.name = "Nagendra";obj.hasOwnProperty("name"); // ❌ TypeError: obj.hasOw
Artemis II safely splashes down
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