Learn Dart, Microsoft and Nuxt

Vue (pronounced /vjuː/, like view) is a progressive framework for building user interfaces. Unlike other monolithic frameworks, Vue is designed from the ground up to be incrementally adoptable. The core library is focused on the view layer only, and is very easy to pick up and integrate with other libraries or existing projects. On the other hand, Vue is also perfectly capable of powering sophisticated Single-Page Applications when used in combination with modern tooling and supporting libraries.

In this video you'll learn how to use Amplify hosting to deploy a Nuxt site from a Git repository. We'll begin by walking through the steps of creating the deployment and configuring the correct build settings to enable a static build. Once the site is deployed, we'll view the live site hosted on AWS.

Deploying a Nuxt Site to AWS from a Git repository with Amplify hosting

In this video you'll learn how to deploy a static Nuxt site to AWS's global edge CDN in less than two minutes. We'll start from scratch, creating a new Nuxt site using npx and walk through the build configuration to set up the deployment target for Jamstack / static site hosting. From there, we'll initialize a new Amplify project using the Amplify CLI and walk through the settings to configure the proper build command for Amplify hosting. Finally, we'll deploy and view the live site. Once we're finished, we'll delete the project and the hosting service.

Deploying a Nuxt Site to AWS with the Amplify CLI

Just about every tool in our accessibility auditing toolkit can help us identify any issues with sufficient color contrast ratio on a web page.  The react-axe library and axe browser extension both report findings on all elements with insufficient contrast ratios.  The tota11y browser extension will annotate any elements with their contrast ratios and color those that are insufficient in red.  

Additionally, we need to use our experience tools to see what some of our users out there may we seeing.  We need to test with high contrast browser extensions as well as the display settings in Windows and Mac.  If our users with visual impairments are using these tools we need to see what our application looks like using them because we may find that under a certain mode some things may suddenly be harder to read or virtually invisible.

## Resources
* https://www.scottohara.me/blog/2019/02/12/high-contrast-aria-and-images.html

Test for Insufficient Color Contrast Accessibility Issues

We should not use color alone as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.  Users may not be able to see/understand the differences in color and require additional indicators.

Along with color, use additional indicators such as:
* typography
* shapes
* grids
* spaces
* and/or allocate more weight to important elements

## References:
* http://www.particletree.com/features/interfaces-and-color-blindness/
* https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/10/color-contrast-tips-and-tools-for-accessibility/

Use More than Color Alone to Convey Information in a Web Page

Flutter allows you to build beautiful native apps on iOS and Android from a single codebase.

flutter

Extension methods allow you to add new methods to classes without directly changing its original interface or creating a derived class. We will explore examples of working with this feature by extending some inbuilt types.

Learn more about Extension Methods at https://medium.com/dartlang/extension-methods-2d466cd8b308

Add New Methods to inbuilt Classes and Interfaces with Extension Methods in Dart

We will learn how to work with Lists using a variety of methods made available in the **dart:core** library. We will explore the top methods for working with List type collections.

Learn more about Lists at https://api.dartlang.org/stable/2.2.0/dart-core/List-class.html

Manipulate Lists/Arrays in Dart

We will learn how to work with Strings using a variety of methods made available in the **dart:core** library. We will explore the top methods for working with String values.

Learn more about Strings at https://api.dartlang.org/stable/2.2.0/dart-core/String-class.html

Manipulate Strings in Dart

In this lesson, we will cover Interfaces and Mixins. Interfaces act as a contract containing properties and methods that a class must define once it “implements” this interface. Mixins are Dart’s way of sharing properties and methods from multiple classes, since by design Dart adopts a single-inheritance model.

Define Interfaces and Share Class Members through Mixins in Dart

Streams represent a sequence of asynchronous events. Each event is either a data event, also called an element of the stream, or an error event, which is a notification that something has failed. When a stream has emitted all its events, a single "done" event will notify the listener that the end has been reached. In this lesson, we will learn how we can capture and handle streaming data, working with various Stream classes.

Capture and Handle Data Sequences with Streams in Dart

Pub is a package management tool that makes it easy for you to install, use, share Dart libraries, command-line tools and other assets. It comes as part of the Dart SDK, and requires a dependency file called pubspec.yaml.

Manage Package Dependencies with Pub

Futures represent a computation that does not complete immediately. Where a normal function returns a result, an asynchronous function returns a Future that will eventually contain the result. These are similar to Promises in JavaScript. In this lesson, we will learn how to program asynchronously by writing logic to capture values that are returned at a later time.

Capture and Return Asynchronous Values with Futures in Dart

Dart is an object-oriented language you can use for building web applications, server-side code, and even mobile apps. It’s expressive, powerful, and has a friendly learning curve. 

In this course, we will look at the syntax and semantics of the Dart programming language. We will also cover various aspects of the Dart ecosystem, including its tools and packages that help make you a productive developer. This knowledge is applicable when developing software for client, server, and especially mobile with the Flutter framework. 

This course is beginner-friendly, but is well-suited for experience programmers as well. 

Dart is an open-source, scalable programming language, with robust libraries and runtimes, for building web, server, and mobile apps.

dart

Get Started with Dart

In this lesson we’ll learn how to fetch & then display data from an API over the network in a Flutter application using the http package.

Fetching & Displaying Data from an API in Flutter using the http Package

In this lesson, you will write a basic HTTP server in the Dart programming language. We will be using the HttpServer class from Dart's inbuilt 'dart:io' library to achieve this.

Dart is an object-oriented programming language by Google, which aims to help the developer build modern web applications. It covers client, server and now mobile with Flutter. It comes with a range of tools including a virtual machine, core libraries, and package management repository, lending enough ammunition to start your next project.

Learn more at https://dartlang.org


Write a Basic HTTP Server in Dart

Express is a minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications.

express

To replicate your production application its helpful when developing a local NodeJS Express application is running under SSL. 

There are some web technologies which do not play nicely with standard http and its likely to become more common e.g. Web Push Notifications.

This lesson will show you how to create a local SSL certificate for localhost and then convert it into a format that will work with Express.  It will also show you how to make sure that Chrome will trust it.

This lesson is for Windows as it uses a powershell command, as well as the Microsoft Management Console (MMC)
 

Create Local SSL Certificates for an Express App on Windows

Microsoft Windows is a group of several graphical operating system families, all of which are developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry.

microsoft

For a production Windows server it makes sense to run NodeJS applications as a Windows service.  This way they can be automatically restarted if the server is rebooted.

It also makes it easier to use monitoring tools like datadog to detect if there are issues with the service which is critical for production systems.

Install a Node.js Application as a Windows Service

URLs often reflect some bit of data that the page should load. This lesson walks you through adding a custom URL Param to the router then forwarding that Param to load data onto the page.

Load Data from URL Params in Vue.js and Nuxt.js

As you create more and more routes, the paths become difficult to manage and concatenate the parts together as just a giant string. Using named routes allows you to reference the route by a simple string then pass in the params as an object. This lesson covers configuring named routes in Nuxt.js in the `nuxt.config.js` and the passing the named route to a `router-link`.

Configure Named Routes in Vue.js and Nuxt.js

Sometimes the `pages/` directory structure doesn't meet your needs, so you'll need to customize your routes manually. Using the nuxt config and "hidden pages" you can map routes to view components without getting in the way of the default pages routing.

Add Custom Routes for Hidden Pages with Vue.js and Nuxt.js

Nuxt.js allows you to return a `Promise` from your `data` function so that you can asynchronously resolve data before displaying the page. This allows the server to fetch the data and render the page once it's ready.

Preload Data using Promises with Vue.js and Nuxt.js

Nuxt.js enables you to easily create layout and navigation by replacing the default App.vue template with your own `app.vue` layout in a `layouts` directory. Then you simply surround your content (the `<nuxt>` instance) with your navigation and/or layout and you're ready to go.

Create Vue.js Layout and Navigation with Nuxt.js

I've been using Cursor as my primary editor for over a year now, but recently I've heard wonderful things about Windsurf AI Agent features. I decided to record myself building out something I've always wanted to make, but never made the time for.

In this lesson, I demonstrate how to leverage Windsurf's powerful agent process to create a fun word-guessing game inspired by Heads Up. Watch as I build an interactive application featuring category selection and word navigation, complete with data hosting on GitHub Gists and deployment to GitHub Pages - all in under 30 minutes (before editing the lesson down to 12 minutes)!

What makes this project particularly exciting is how Windsurf eliminates the typical friction points of development. While this game was always on my project wishlist, the overhead of setup, configuration, and deployment made it hard to justify the time investment. Windsurf's agent process handles all these pain points seamlessly, from managing URLs to orchestrating deployment.

This lesson perfectly showcases how AI agents can help developers bring their backlog of project ideas to life, transforming what would typically be time-consuming tasks into efficient, enjoyable development experiences.

Build a Word Game with Windsurf's Cascade AI Agent



Discover how to harness the power of Cursor IDE's Composer Agent feature to optimize your code. In this lesson, you'll witness an AI agent doing all the work to generate test suites, implement performance benchmarks, and create optimized function variations - all without writing a single line of code. You'll learn how to validate performance improvements through data-driven benchmarking, ensuring that optimizations are backed by concrete metrics rather than speculation. This hands-on demonstration showcases a groundbreaking approach to automated function development that combines the precision of test-driven development with the efficiency of AI-powered optimization.


Agent-Driven Development in Cursor: Testing, Benchmarking, and Optimizing Functions

This course is aimed for using `zod` effectively in projects based on TypeScript (both browser and node.js). The benefits you gain with this course is not just simply coding, but also understanding when/why/how should you perform runtime validation.

`zod` is the missing piece to TypeScript's capabilities, which can guarantee type-safety only in compile-time.

`zod` can be used whenever the compiler cannot guarantee what happens in runtime. And... it's a very frequent usecase, such as HTTP calls, websockets, etc.

In this course you get quickly up and running by:
1. using `zod` with primitives and objects
2. adapting `zod` quickly to existing projects thanks to automatic generators
3. changing the strategy frm type-first to schema-first
4. using error-throwing `parse` or non-error-throwing `safeParse` basing on your needs
5. applying `zod` to the most common usecase - validating API responses
6. handling errors the most convenient way (out of many!)

Take advantage of runtime validation with `zod`. Take advantage of the detailed lessons in this course 🔥

Effective Runtime Type Checks with Zod


Cursor can now automatically run commands in the terminal and walk step-by-step towards building out your entire project. You give it a goal, then it will suggest the commands you need to run and the files that you need to create and you can work with it to achieve what you're building. This lesson does a quick walkthough of using a Cursor Agent to build a project from scratch and guide it along the way. Cursor Agents definitely feel like a sneak peek at the future of programming!

Cursor Agents Initial Impressions - Allow an AI to Build Your Entire Project

Mock Service Worker is an API mocking library that allows you to write client-agnostic mocks and reuse them across any frameworks, tools, and environments.



Mocking WebSocket APIs with Mock Service Worker


While using anonymous functions might seem convenient, they can create difficulties when trying to identify performance bottlenecks during profiling. This lesson will demonstrate how named functions make it easier to pinpoint and address performance issues, ultimately leading to more efficient and debuggable code. Learning this practice will greatly improve your ability to locate and fix performance issues in complex projects.

Always Name Functions in JavaScript


When attempting to load the same module twice in JavaScript you'll hit a cache and code won't re-run. In scenarios where you actually do want to have state in your modules, you'll have to use a cache-busting technique by passing a query parameter to a dynamic import. This lesson walks through how to add a query parameter, how to add the appropriate types for loading dynamic modules in TypeScript, and when these techniques are valuable.

Import the Same JavaScript Module Multiple Times with Cache Busting



The include keyword in GitHub Actions empowers you to add custom variables to your matrix strategy, providing flexibility beyond standard configurations. In this video, we'll explore how include allows you to define specific combinations of variables, enhancing control over your workflow runs. You'll see how this feature enables you to tailor jobs for unique environments or scenarios not covered by the default matrix options. By leveraging include, you can efficiently manage complex build processes with greater precision. This technique helps you streamline your CI/CD pipeline, making it more adaptable to your project's evolving needs.

Use GitHub Actions Matrix Include for Complex Job Configurations

While running `zod` schema validation agains domain-rich objects, the error message saying that _a string is not a number_ might not be really useful.

Especially, when you need to provide a meaningful feeback to the user, e.g. after they have submitted a form with lots of data.

`zod` allows to customize messages on a very granular level. We can also extract repeatable customization to `zod` error maps.

Finally, in order to process an error message further (e.g. display it to the user), we need to handle the `zod` validation errors effectively. Especially, when a big object validation has failed and we could receive a handful of errors.

That's what we learn in this lesson. 🔥

Customize zod Error Messages and Handle zod Errors Effectively

customize zod validation messages, customize zod schema property messages, reuse error maps across different schemas, navigate through zod error objects

You might want to run `zod` schema checks in different styles.

Sometimes you prefer to conditionally throw the error - that's what `parse` does. But another time you'd prefer to receive a `boolean` property that determines whether the validation was successful or not - and perform further actions accordingly.

Additionally, the error-throwing API of `parse` works extremely well with [TypeScript assertion functions](https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/release-notes/typescript-3-7.html#assertion-functions). Their combination is just... perfect! 👌

That's what we learn in this lesson.

Use parse and safeParse Runtime Type-checks with zod

use zod parse function to conditionally throw ZodError, use zod safeParse to get a boolean value and run typescript type guard over success property

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