2026-04-02 https://danielrotter.at/feed.xml A blog about web development in general and about PHP, JavaScript, Linux and its command line in particular. 2025-11-12 2025-11-12 https://danielrotter.at//2025/11/12/batch-fixing-date-of-images-based-on-filename-in-fish.html

I was confronted with a large amount of images, all of which did not have the correct date attached to them. Fortunately I was able to fix them by relying on the filename.

2025-08-11 2025-08-11 https://danielrotter.at//2025/08/11/dont-be-shy-start-your-own-meetup.html

You might think that starting your own meetup might be very hard. Let me tell you the story about the VlbgWebDev meetup, which might change your mind.

2025-06-29 2025-06-29 https://danielrotter.at//2025/06/29/test-creation-methods-on-steroids-with-named-parameters.html

Creation methods are a well-known pattern in testing. But they are even more powerful when used with named parameters.

2025-04-12 2025-04-12 https://danielrotter.at//2025/04/12/batch-curl-requests-in-php-using-multi-handles.html

Sending many requests in a PHP script might not be a straightforward task, especially if you want to do that in a performant manner.

2025-03-05 2025-03-05 https://danielrotter.at//2025/03/05/automatically-generate-changelogs-with-git.html

Generating changelogs is a rather tedious task for developers. But with a bit of discipline it becomes a one-line script.

2025-02-05 2025-02-05 https://danielrotter.at//2025/02/05/the-problem-with-indirections.html

Indirections are invaluable for programming, since basically every programming concept makes use of one. However, we should still be careful when using them.

2024-10-19 2024-10-19 https://danielrotter.at//2024/10/19/writing-high-quality-tests.html

Tests often do not get the attention they deserver especially during code reviews, even though there are some things a reviewer could look out for.

2024-04-02 2024-04-02 https://danielrotter.at//2024/04/02/finding-all-html-tags-not-being-self-closed.html

For some refactoring I needed to find all HTMl tags not being self-closed. I decided to use regular expression for that, and this is what I came up with.

2023-10-28 2024-02-10 https://danielrotter.at//2023/10/28/git-bisect-and-the-importance-of-a-clean-history.html

The value of a clean git history is often underestimated. I will explain one of the advantages based on the git bisect command.

2023-09-22 2023-09-25 https://danielrotter.at//2023/09/22/avoid-mocking-repositories-by-using-in-memory-implementations.html

Mocking libraries come with disadvantages, but fortunately they can be replaced by in-memory implementations, at least for repositories.

2023-09-02 2023-09-02 https://danielrotter.at//2023/09/02/making-the-shell-history-more-useful-by-using-shell-variables.html

The shell history is cluttered with useless commands if stuff like tokens are included. Shell variables allow to exclude such content from the history.

2023-08-07 2023-08-07 https://danielrotter.at//2023/08/07/redesign-website-to-be-even-simpler.html

After a few years with my website I felt like it could be even simpler, so I reduced the design and HTML/CSS to the absolute minimum.

2023-07-19 2023-07-19 https://danielrotter.at//2023/07/19/combine-jq-with-curl-to-improve-its-json-handling.html

jq is a nice JSON processor, which is helpful when working with JSON outputs, no matter if they are retrieved using curl or any other command.

2023-07-06 2023-08-06 https://danielrotter.at//2023/07/06/use-external-programs-like-git-in-Neovim-commands.html

Neovim comes with a very powerful command system, which can even be combined with existing shell commands!

2023-05-30 2023-05-30 https://danielrotter.at//2023/05/30/configuring-nginx-with-php-fpm-in-kubernetes-and-the-file-not-found-error.html

It was not trivial to setup nginx with php-fpm to run in separate containers in kubernetes. Therefore I want to explain how I got it to work.

2022-01-16 2022-02-12 https://danielrotter.at//2022/01/16/some-reasons-for-disliking-react-hooks.html

React has introduced hooks to replace classes. Some people are huge fans, while I am a bit more skeptical. An explanation.

2021-03-06 2021-03-06 https://danielrotter.at//2021/03/06/use-git-submodules-and-make-for-simple-code-sharing.html

Simple code often does not require complicated packaging mechanisms. Reusing established tools like Git and make seem perfect for this use case.

2021-01-16 2021-01-16 https://danielrotter.at//2021/01/16/code-comments-are-mostly-a-violation-of-dry.html

Comments in code are quite often a code smell. Let’s see what is suboptimal about comments and talk about some strategies to avoid them.

2020-10-07 2020-10-07 https://danielrotter.at//2020/10/07/automatic-command-execution-on-file-changes-with-entr.html

Sometimes you want a command to be automatically executed as soon as a certain file changes. There is a small tool called entr, which helps with that.

2020-08-24 2020-09-10 https://danielrotter.at//2020/08/24/applying-design-patterns-the-builder-and-factory-pattern.html

Creating objects is a very basic task. Although this seems like a simple problem, it can be improved by using patterns like builder and factory.

2020-06-12 2020-06-12 https://danielrotter.at//2020/06/12/understanding-animated-graphs-with-d3js.html

Building a graph is a pretty straight forward task in D3.js, but I’ve had a hard time understanding how to update them. This is a try to explain why.

2020-06-05 2020-06-05 https://danielrotter.at//2020/06/05/typing-in-javascript-flow-vs-typescript.html

There were two choices for static type checking in JavaScript - Flow and TypeScript. TypeScript is much more popular nowadays, but let’s compare them anyway.

2020-05-13 2020-05-13 https://danielrotter.at//2020/05/13/execute-commands-for-multiple-files-in-fish.html

Quite often I want to execute the same command for multiple files. It is quite easy to achieve that using the fish shell, once you get the hang of it.

2020-04-14 2020-04-14 https://danielrotter.at//2020/04/14/finding-used-values-of-xml-attributes-using-the-commandline.html

I was refactoring a feature and wanted to know which options were used for a certain attribute in a XML file. I decided to level up my CLI skills for that.

2020-04-08 2020-04-08 https://danielrotter.at//2020/04/08/avoid-z-index-whenever-possible.html

Whenever I use z-indexes, I am going to regret it at some point, especially with libraries utilizing components. Let’s see if we can avoid them all together.

2020-03-28 2021-02-28 https://danielrotter.at//2020/03/28/creating-highly-customizable-html-presentation-with-markdown-and-pandoc.html

Presentations can be created using markdown, a plain file format. There are some available options, but let’s see why it pays off to build your own solution.

2014-04-10 2014-04-10 https://danielrotter.at//2014/04/10/testing-traits-with-non-public-methods.html

Testing a trait with PHPUnit is not that easy, especially if it only contains private methods. See how it can be achieved in this step by step introduction.

2014-02-07 2020-08-28 https://danielrotter.at//2014/02/07/my-getting-things-done-system-in-wunderlist.html

Building your own “Getting Things Done” system using a few simple tips, including some that will hopefully boost your productivity.