Feeling overwhelmed by work is quite a common feeling. Especially if we work on the project for a long time. Good planning can make your work more pleasant and simplified. You don’t have to complete all tasks (alone). Some tasks can even be removed. With the Eisenhower matrix you can manage your priorities.

Error handling is an integral part of any project. However, only a few can do it well. What makes an error message good? Take care of the language of the message, its length and indicate how to mitigate errors. Have automatic bug reporting tools to quickly respond to system problems.

I would like to present some useful tricks to speed up your work. Elixir’s interactive shell is a great tool to make your work comfortable. You don’t need to use a browser to check function errors. You have everything available in the console!

One of the advantages of Elixir is its openness. You can get more readable code with the command wrapped in tuple. You don’t need to modify the response from functions itself.

The presentation of extra details about your website is straightforward. All you need to do is use Open Graph protocol. Any web page can become a rich object in a social graph. You can use it to show a thumbnail, author details, or even a short description.

You can use Ecto to check any information from the user. Extra, we have another layer of security. Only the supported parameters are passed to the domain layer. Using Ecto to verify parameters from the user is not difficult and can be part of your API verification pipeline.

A lot is happening in the IT world. Instead of jumping from one topic to another nervously, it’s worth concentrating on one thing. Stop for a moment and identify the problems. Also, remember that there is no right way in life. One is faster, and the other is slower. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Elixir 1.12 introduced two very useful macros. They can be life savings helpers in your codebase. Instead of write extra functions, you can have nice logging and executing actions based on given data.

Users often do not see the dangers of a weak password. Often, they reuse the same passwords on different sites to make their daily lives easier. Security is one of the critical aspects of any project. With Have I Been Pwned? it is possible to check passwords based on various leaks.

Ecto Schema is very easy to adapt to our needs. Besides changing the type of the primary key, you can also change the type and names of the fields created by the timestamps() macro.

Not so long ago, to release the application, it was necessary to modify the binary files on the servers. Thanks to good DevOps practices, the entire process can be changed. It is possible to achieve tens or hundreds of releases each day. Everything without the downtime of the application.

Start from understanding the needs and point of view of the organization. Take care of good communication with customers. Don’t be afraid to develop both technical and soft skills. You will have a lot of battles at work. Choose wisely what you can engage in, given your limited time capacity. Act locally, think globally to change the project in small steps. Use non-hanging fruit to be successful and avoid burnout.

In my opinion, the best investment is our development. It allows us to achieve better results, receives promotions, and increase our remuneration. By investing in ourselves, we invest in our future. You didn’t know everything (and you still don’t know everything). It is worth trying to help others and learning at the same time.

Many applications introduce some kind of status to make it easier to share data. However, more and more modules in your codebase need to be explicit about these assumptions. Views can eliminate the problematic SQL query. It’s also great way to introduce well-defined entities.

Understanding exactly what SQL commands are running is helpful to ensure safe migrations. By default, Ecto does not log the raw SQL. However, we can change it.