Welcome

My name is Steven Merrill. I describe myself as a cyclist, weightlifter, gamer, musician, Transformer-pilled software engineer, and fermentation enthusiast.

I'm based in the Greater Boston area and currently work for Campfire Learning.

Thank you for reading.

Newest Blog Posts

1. I promise you shouldn't fear rejection January 2025

   Pop quiz for node.js users — what does this program output if the promise resolves, and what is different if it fails to reject through its else branch?

   async function main() {
   	const promise = new Promise((resolve) => {
   		setTimeout(() => {
   			if (Math.random() > 0.5) {
   				console.log("We win");
   				resolve();
   			} else {
   				console.log("We lose");
   			}
   		});
   	});
   	await promise.catch(console.error);
   	console.log("Looks like we made it");
   }
   
   main();
   

2. Why Is TypeScript Picking Up Old Types? October 2024

   At Campfire Learning we have a large TypeScript monorepo containing all the code for our various services as well as our various frontend applications that we use to deliver our curriculum and assessment experiences.

   While working on a new backend component, I installed the 1.0 version of the Cheerio XML parser to handle HTML and XML parsing. As I worked in a new package in the repository, I noticed that I was getting errors when trying to initialize a Cheerio 1.0 parser through its load() method:

3. Everyone Wants A Blog, Nobody Wants To Blog July 2024

   It's been more than a decade since I wrote a blog post on this site.

   I told one of my new coworkers about my desire to restart my blog, and he hit me with the quote featured in this blog entry's title:

   Everyone wants a blog, nobody wants to blog.

38 more posts can be found in the archive.