~/uses

Uses

The languages, tools and services I reach for, and why. Opinions loosely held.

Languages

TypeScript: The default — browser, phone, or Node. I've migrated a JavaScript codebase to it and wouldn't go back.
Python: Backend services with FastAPI, and most of my LLM work.
Swift, Kotlin & Java: For the native modules React Native can't give you.

React Native + Expo: Six-plus years, five-plus apps through the App Store and Play Store. EAS for builds.
React Navigation & Expo Router: Navigation, depending on the project's age.
React Query, Redux Toolkit, Apollo: Server state, client state, and GraphQL. React Query is the quickest way I know to make an app survive a bad network.
Reanimated & Lottie: Motion that stays smooth on cheap Android phones.
Firebase Cloud Messaging: Push notifications, reminders, real-time nudges.

Detox & Jest: End-to-end and unit tests that run on every build, not just before a release.
Fastlane, Bitrise, EAS: Signing, building and shipping without anyone clicking through a console.
GitHub Actions & CircleCI: CI for everything else.
Sentry: Where performance problems and crashes go to be found.

Next.js & React: The web side, including this site. Electron when it needs to be a desktop app.
NestJS & Node: Structured APIs in TypeScript.
GraphQL & REST: Both, and I've migrated from one to the other.
PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB: Relational by default; documents when the shape really is a document.
AWS — Cognito, S3, DynamoDB: Auth, storage, and a database that scales without a DBA.
Cloudinary: Images and media, transformed on the fly.

GitHub Projects, Milestones & Issues: Sprint planning where the code already lives. Also, it turns out, a decent CMS.