Notes on Frontend Craft
Practical lessons from building performant, scalable web apps — React, Next.js, performance, and the occasional war story.
- ·3 min read
I Failed a HackerRank Test This Week
Ten years as a frontend developer and I still failed a 15 minute HackerRank test. What tripped me up, why it happened, and how I am turning the weak spots into a study list.
- ·5 min read
TypeScript Is the Default Now, Not a Nice to Have
TypeScript stopped being optional for professional frontend work in 2026. Here is why, plus three simple habits that make your types catch real bugs: branded types, satisfies, and noUncheckedIndexedAccess.
- ·6 min read
useMemo vs useCallback vs React.memo: When to Use Each
A practical guide to React's three memoization tools — what useMemo, useCallback, and React.memo each do, when they help, when they hurt, and how to choose the right one.
- ·8 min read
Claude Sonnet 5 vs Opus 4.8: Which Model Should You Actually Use?
A hands-on comparison of Claude Sonnet 5, Sonnet 4.6, and Opus 4.8 covering benchmarks, pricing, and practical token spending strategies for frontend and full-stack developers building with the Anthropic API.
- ·6 min read
How I Cut Unnecessary React Re-renders by 40%
A practical walkthrough of the techniques I use to diagnose and eliminate wasteful re-renders in large Next.js apps — using Zustand, Context, memoization, and the React DevTools profiler.
- ·7 min read
Building a Mobile-First PWA with Next.js and Supabase
Lessons from shipping MatchPost — a Progressive Web App where 62% of traffic is mobile — including offline-friendly data, iOS Safari install quirks, and a Supabase-backed real-time layer.