How to achieve the following effect using SwiftUI?

Summary A user on Stack Overflow asked how to implement an irregular selection effect on a circular layout in SwiftUI, inspired by the Pieoneer app. The user had the circular layout working but was stuck on the interaction. As a senior engineer, I would typically address this in a technical postmortem to analyze the common … Read more

WebGL and playwright different output when using the built in browser

Summary A production WebGL application rendered correctly in standard Chromium but produced intermittent visual artifacts only when run inside the Playwright automation browser. The issue manifested as incorrect ID-based coloring, “garbage” values, or leftover pixels in instanced geometry (specifically spheres), while other geometries (quads) remained stable. The root cause was identified as a precision loss … Read more

Composition in SQL; Primary keys

Summary This postmortem analyzes a common architectural flaw in relational database design: mistaking object-oriented composition for a database primary key strategy. The core issue arises when developers attempt to enforce domain constraints (like a receipt having exactly one specific item) using database keys in a way that violates First Normal Form (1NF) and creates brittle, … Read more

Highlight all cells of identical class in a table

Summary A developer managing a large table with ~100 dynamic highlight groups asked if CSS could match arbitrary class names via a capture group to avoid maintaining ~100 lines of selectors. The core issue is that CSS lacks pattern-matching capabilities for dynamic or arbitrary class names, and the :has() pseudo-class cannot select sibling elements based … Read more

Why is `iota(0) | common` not a `random_access_range`?

Summary A std::ranges::iota_view, which is a RandomAccessRange, loses its random access capability when piped through std::views::common. This prevents the usage of the subscript operator ([]) on the resulting view, even though the goal was simply to enable std::ranges::distance calculations (which require a common_range) on a taken or unbounded sequence. The view becomes a common_range but … Read more

Accessing enum via Jakarta Expression Languauge in Pages

Summary A developer encountered a jakarta.el.PropertyNotFoundException: Unknown identifier [suit] when attempting to access a Java enum directly via Jakarta Expression Language (EL) in a JSP page. The developer annotated the enum with @Named and @ApplicationScoped, expecting it to be automatically resolvable as a bean named “suit”. The core issue stems from a misunderstanding of how … Read more

How do I run my Unity WebGL game locally for testing?

Summary A developer struggles with an inefficient Unity WebGL testing loop on macOS. They are under the impression that every code change requires a full Build and Run cycle, which invokes a Python-based local web server that they cannot locate or execute. This leads to the assumption that the operating system or missing Python environment … Read more

Use contents of text field to call Google maps API

Summary The user’s request involves creating a frontend-only HTML page that parses a user-inputted string (e.g., “City A to City B”) to calculate driving distance via the Google Maps Directions API. A senior engineer’s analysis identifies that while the code snippet provided is syntactically functional, it represents a Critical Architecture Flaw. The implementation lacks input … Read more

How flash 8 brush worked?

Summary A user requested a technical postmortem-style article explaining the algorithm behind Adobe Flash 8’s brush tool. The goal was to understand how raw mouse input points are efficiently converted into a smooth Bezier curve with a constant width (tube mesh). The core issue is balancing fidelity to input data against data size (vector compression). … Read more

Automate downloading some files off of an aplication

Summary A developer attempted to automate downloading videos from a FreeTube-like application using Python, encountering challenges with programmatically simulating GUI interactions, handling download dialogs, and managing file naming. The core issue was attempting to automate a desktop application’s UI rather than leveraging the underlying API or command-line tools that the application likely uses internally. The … Read more