Hello, my name is Ryan Nickel

A personal blog focused on (primarily) software.

The One True Code Value: Why Maintainability is the Unsung Hero of Programming

There are two kinds of programmers in this world: those who love writing brand-new code (fresh, shiny, and untouched by mortal hands), and those who have gazed into the horrifying abyss of code maintenance – and survived. You know where I stand. Give me maintainability any day. Because nothing says “programming value” quite like writing code you can still understand a year later.

How NPM's Defaults Set You Up for Failure

In software development, consistency and stability are critical — especially when managing dependencies. However, NPM’s default behavior when installing packages—using the caret (^) in package.json — creates a fragile environment that often leads to frustrating issues for developers. Idempotent and reproducible dependency management should be the standard experience by default, but NPM’s use of ^ undermines this goal.

My workflow for managing documents with Paperless NGX

Managing a pile of documents can be a real headache, can’t it? I used to have all these papers stuffed into folders, always mixing things up. Was my business tax return in the “Tax Returns” folder or jammed in the “Business” one? And good luck finding anything in that mess!

Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell: A Promising Start That Got Lost in the Digital Abyss

So, I recently dove into Neal Stephenson’s “Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell,” expecting an epic adventure. Well, let me tell you, it didn’t quite deliver. Clocking in at a whopping 900 pages, you’d think there’d be enough room for some serious action. But nope, not much happens for the most part. I mean, we get bombarded with pages upon pages of philosophical musings, theological ramblings, and political banter. Some of it relates to the story, but a lot of it feels like it’s just there to fill up space. It’s like Stephenson took a philosophy/theology textbook and tried to disguise it as a novel.

Setting up my own @ryannickel.com domain for Mastadon

If you’re using Mastodon or other decentralized social networks, you might be looking for ways to improve your discoverability. One technique that’s gained popularity is using the webfinger protocol to create a discoverable profile for your domain.

Updating to use H-Entry for each article

As I delve deeper into the IndieWeb, I first took on the low hanging fruit of adding the h-card format to the footer.

On Removing Bootstrap Dependency

As part of my ongoing blog update, I’m working on removing my dependency on Bootstrap.

Adding H-Card To This Site, and Scope Creep

I was recently inspired by @tbeseda@indieweb.social to add some h-card formatting to my site.

Creating Homebrew Package For StaticSiteGenerator Distribution

In a previous post playing with GitHub Actions I thought it might be interseting to figure out how to distribute the binary via Homebrew.

On Adding GZip Compression To StaticSiteGenerator

In an attempt to be a Good Web Citizen, I thought I’d try to add some GZip compression to the responses served up by the StaticSiteGenerator.