The blog
Longer reflections on testing, open source, and the things I learn while shipping.
Read the journalField notes / software and open source
A working notebook for software that has to hold up.
I am Soham Parekh, a software developer. I write about the craft of building software, the discipline of testing it, and the open source work that keeps both honest.
On the desk
What I am working through
Reading
browser automation notes
Writing
field notes on testing
Learning
metrics for classifiers
Building
open source projects
Latest entry / August 24, 2020
01
Who is writing
A developer who likes the part after the first draft.
My work sits around software development: writing it, testing it, and learning how other people keep it healthy. The notes move between open source work, competitive coding, applied machine learning, cybersecurity, and the daily habits of information security awareness.
I founded Devstation, which operates as a not for profit, and I serve as its lead maintainer. Devstation exists to make open source adoption easier for startups and growing organisations.
At a glance
Software developer.
Founder and lead maintainer, Devstation.
The 2020 Google Summer of Code, Wikimedia Foundation.
Founder and lead maintainer, Devstation.
The 2020 Google Summer of Code, Wikimedia Foundation.
02
What lives here
Three shelves, one habit.
The journal holds longer thoughts. The tutorial holds a way in. The notes hold the short version I come back to.
The way in
A guided start for people who want to set up a modern web project without the guesswork.
Start the setupThe short version
Reference sheets for tools and topics I return to: classifiers, containers, macOS, and Vim.
Open the notes
03
Latest entries
Fresh from the notebook.
- August 24, 2020 What a Summer of Browser Testing Taught Me A final report from GSoC 2020 at Wikimedia Foundation, where we weighed Cypress, Puppeteer, and WebdriverIO.
- June 29, 2020 Cypress and the Case for Boring Test Setup Why a tool that ships with its own runner, assertions, and debugger can make end to end testing feel calm.
- May 29, 2020 Habits I Want to Keep as a Programmer Lessons from community bonding at Wikimedia about humility, refactoring, and staying curious.
- May 19, 2020 How I Prepared for My First Summer of Code The research, conversations, and small patches that led to a GSoC 2020 project with Wikimedia Foundation.
04
From the notes
Short pages for long tabs.
Four reference notes that earn their place in the bookmarks bar.
05
Tutorial
Set up a working desk.
The tutorial starts with the command line, then adds Node.js, Git, the Gatsby CLI, and an editor. It is written for someone who has not built a site before.
npm install
gatsby build
gatsby serve
06
The letter
A short letter, now and then
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