Hey friends!

I don't know about you, but March FLEW by for me, and we're going into conference season. Whew! Let's boogie.

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Web links of the week

The Great CSS Expansion
CSS Refactoring with an AI Safety Net
GitHub Monaspace Case Study
The gold standard of optimization: A look under the hood of RollerCoaster Tycoon

Something that interested me this week

This week, I made a bunch of updates to my todo app, todometer! It was really fun. I haven't updated it in a while (because it still worked just fine and I got lazy about it), and I'm having a good time laying the groundwork for more updates in the future. I blogged about some of the styling updates (it's all native CSS, now!), and have some more issue-clearing, quality-of-life changes coming! It's been a blast.

I also wrote about + recorded a video about my latest device I got on Kickstarter, the BYOK. It's a little distraction-free writing device, and I've had a fun time playing with it as a medium for writing!

Also, remember, next week is this newsletter's 9th anniversary! Be ready for a bunch of free giveaways from some cool companies, and if your org would like to contribute, smash that respond button and let me know!

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Interview question of the week

Last week, I had you implement the Bitap algorithm, which was pretty challenging (I had an off-by-one error in my own code that led to an example I had to fix in the newsletter archive). But you did it Donato, Alberto, Micah, Ten, Toni, and the wonderful devs in the Ruby Users Forum!

This week's question:
You are given a file system represented as an object where keys are absolute paths and values are either null (real file/directory) or a string (a symlink pointing to another path). Write a function that resolves a given path to its real destination, following symlinks along the way. If a symlink chain forms a cycle, return null.

Example:

const fs = {
  "/a": "/b",
  "/b": "/c",
  "/c": null,
  "/loop1": "/loop2",
  "/loop2": "/loop1",
  "/real": null,
  "/alias": "/real",
};

resolvePath(fs, "/a");      // "/c"
resolvePath(fs, "/alias");  // "/real"
resolvePath(fs, "/loop1");  // null
resolvePath(fs, "/real");   // "/real"

(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)

Cool things from around the internet

What is Ham Radio?
My Astrophotography in the Movie Project Hail Mary
See how the iconic LIFE Noble Notebook is made (video)
Artifact Industries Stratum-80 with GMK Olive
The Old Internet is Still Here

Joke

I am so good at sleeping, I can do it with my eyes closed!

That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and ask for help when you need it!

Special thanks to Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!

cassidoo

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