On the writing front (book content is French-only) #
Today, an excerpt from Le Cabinet des Mauvais Souvenirs that highlights the sometimes challenging exercise of description:
« Cassan jette un regard méprisant à… l’échoppe, si on peut appeler ainsi ce qui n’est à proprement parler que le salon étroit d’une maison. Une véritable maison, avec un meuble à chaussures et des vestes dans l’entrée, un escalier qui monte vers l’étage, et des bruits de maison ordinaire, tels une radio allumée, des pas sur le plancher du premier, tandis qu’en bas des tintements métalliques et le crépitement caractéristique d’aliments en train de frire indiquent que quelqu’un s’affaire à la cuisine.
C’est donc dans ce qui aurait bien dû être un salon que le charlatan s’est aménagé son antre, remplie à ras bord d’un fatras d’objets magiques et autres babioles pseudo-occultes accolées d’étiquettes aux prix ridicules. Sur la grande table basse divinatoire qui occupe la majeure partie de l’espace, un plateau décoré à l’aide de galets précieux met en valeur le porte-encens en porcelaine sur lequel un bâtonnet rougeoie. La fragrance aux touches de lavande est si forte qu’elle paraît imprégner la pièce jusque dans l’épaisseur de ses murs aux tapisseries roses délavées. Cassan ne comprend dans une telle odeur que la volonté de faire tourner assez la tête du visiteur pour lui faire oublier qu’un tome de magie fiable n’est pas supposé contenir des sorts d’exorcisme, et qu’un bouclier de foudre n’est pas de la plus grande utilité à moins de travailler dans les armées ou de vivre dans une cabane au sommet d’un sapin. »
On the web front #
You’re updating your frontend framework, and while you’re at it, you include a newer version of the ESLint plugin with the officially recommended lint rules for your framework. Now, you’ve got lint errors in 150 files because some of the syntaxes used in your code are now deprecated.
Last week, I explained that globally disabling lint rules you’d ideally like to follow in your ESLint config is a false good idea. It’s better for your linter’s configuration to serve as a source of truth, reflecting what your codebase should ideally look like. When you want to enforce a new rule but some pre-existing code hasn’t been updated yet, it’s better to disable the rule locally at the top of the file. This signals that the disable is local and temporary. There’s even a library to turn this approach into a monitoring tool: lint-to-the-future, developed by my colleague, Chris Manson.
Lint-to-the-future uses your ESLint configuration to automatically add “ignore” comments at the top of all files that don’t yet comply with your lint rules. These “ignore” comments then become data points, allowing you to display a dashboard of all occurrences of each rule that needs fixing in the codebase. The initial data helps estimate the workload, and you can track progress over time until there are no more occurrences left.
Combine this with custom, highly specific lint rules you want to implement in your codebase, and you’ve got a powerful way to monitor code migrations. For example, suppose you want to replace the use of service A with service B: you can implement your own custom lint rule that forbids the use of A and points to documentation for replacing it with B. Once this rule is added to your ESLint configuration, Lint-to-the-Future treats it like any other rule, and you can track the replacement of A with B.
In the garden #
This week, I cooked roasted garlic parsnip sticks. Parsnips are those large, white, carrot-like roots you find at greengrocers’ stalls in winter. Their sweet, mild flavor is much more neutral and delicate than that of carrots, and they’re very easy to cook. You can prepare them however you like: sautéed, mashed, in soup, roasted, as fries, steamed… It’s no more complicated than cooking potatoes.
For the roasted garlic parsnip sticks, I peel and cut two large parsnips into… sticks, yes, well done. Then, I take a head of garlic (which is also available in winter), remove and peel the cloves, chop them into small pieces, and crush them slightly with a pestle. I put everything in a bowl with some herbs (depending on my mood) and salt, then mix it all with olive oil. Next, I preheat my oven to 180°C with a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Once it’s hot, I spread the bowl’s contents onto the paper and let it bake for 25 minutes.
On the culture front #
Monster Hunter Stories 3 will be released on March 13, 2026. It’s coming soon. I’m waiting. And then I’ll probably disappear for a while. Probably.
For what it’s worth #
Technically, it’s possible to accidentally break swimming goggles during the remove-rinse-put-back cycle after a lap. I wouldn’t have believed it, but I did it.