On the writing front (book content is French-only) #
Le Cabinet des Mauvais Souvenirs :
« Cassan n’est pas enquêteur pour rien. Il a l’œil. Quand il a reçu dans ce même bureau la jeune automobiliste niant avoir percuté l’adolescent au niveau du pont Tour-Ramiers, il a noté l’angoisse qui lui faisait triturer sans cesse le pendentif à son cou : un hippocampe, représentation locale de Chimène, la Pèlerine blanche, l’esprit qui guide les humains. Cette jeune femme croit en Chimène et cherche un signe de l’esprit équin, un signe qui la guidera hors du guêpier dans lequel elle s’est fourrée. « Je n’ai vu personne d’autre. » a-t-elle dit. Aucun témoin pour corroborer son histoire.
Et voilà que le témoin miraculeux apparaît, en la personne d’un enfant maudit. La situation ne manque pas d’ironie. »
On the web front #
Recently, I started working with a new client of a significant size. Due to the onboarding process, I wasn’t immediately granted permission to use the team’s AI tools to automate my task, despite the pressure on engineers to upskill, and even though I had about sixty PRs to open for making the same type of change across many of the organization’s applications.
Did this permission issue waste my time? Not at all. The type of modification I needed to make in each project was highly deterministic. Since all the applications are built on the same model, the files to be processed are more or less identical and must be handled in the same way. In a context as predictable as this, you don’t need AI, you need a script (which always does exactly the same thing when executed).
Task automation is extremely important in web development, especially for large-scale projects that sometimes require similar migrations across a broad codebase. Tools like codemods are essential, and I encourage you to write a script to manipulate files for you whenever the effort to write it is less than doing the work manually. That’s why, AI or not, mastering Node scripts remains a fundamental skill in our field.
Here are two resources that might interest you if you’re unfamiliar with the topic:
- On this blog, Week 1 of the Ember Initiative Journey, which covers the basics of writing codemods.
- My article on an example of writing a Node script (for a translation project where we needed to sync French with the latest changes in the official English version): Automating the maintenance of the Ember Guides in French.
In the garden #
Between sowing sessions, I worked on “green cover”, or what to do with a patch of bare soil where nothing grows?
Remember, this winter, I had my old thuja hedge removed to replace it with a new hedge of local, bird-friendly species. Since there was an old concrete fence to remove and clean up, the workers drove a tractor through the garden, and the trampling left many areas of bare, crusty soil as it dried out.
Rather than waiting for natural regrowth—which could take time and leave the garden struggling with the return of heat—I decided to give a boost to one area by preparing a flower mat:
- I loosen the soil with a pickaxe to aerate the surface and remove most of the roots below.
- Once the surface soil is well loosened, I cover it with a layer of compost, which can mix in more easily.
- In a cup, I pour the flower mat seeds. Here, I mixed balsam (a gift) with phacelia and leftover Japanese lawn seed, which combines grass with various flowers like cornflowers.
- I scatter the seeds by hand so they’re spread evenly over the compost.
- I cover them with a thin layer of potting soil.
- I gently press down.
- I add a layer of mulch (in my case, I only have straw). Light mulching won’t prevent the seeds from sprouting and will keep the soil moist.
- I finish with a gentle watering, like rain, not only to help the seeds germinate but also to weigh down the straw slightly and prevent it from scattering too quickly in the wind.
Results to come…
On the culture front #
Monster Hunter Stories 3 is out!
The demo covers the beginning of the game, and the save file is transferable to the full version, so I decided to try it as soon as it became available. It was enjoyable enough to convince me to buy the complete game, and honestly, I don’t regret it. It might just be the best in the series.
I quite like the storytelling. I think it starts a bit overwhelming with the number of Monsties and all the things available right from the start, but at least the story explains this choice, and overall, it works well. Mechanics unlock gradually as you progress through the main quest, and there’s enough content to take your time and explore each stage without rushing. I’m having a lot of fun with it.