Michael Washburn Jr.

Web Application Engineer

About Me

Hi, my name’s Mike, and I’m a Software Engineer in the Boston area. My passion is in full stack web application development, but I also have experience in Mobile application development, automated testing, UI design, software architecture, database design, and project management.

I currently work as a Front-End Software Engineer at Hubspot in Cambridge, Mass.

I started this blog as a place for me to share my thoughts, experiences, and findings in the software engineering field. In particular, my posts will be focused on web application development.

  • Refactoring JQuery to React
    Refactoring JQuery to React

    JQuery is quickly becoming a thing of the past, and in it’s place stands React. I mean, even John Resig, author of JQuery, uses React now. So how can you refactor your website to use React instead of JQuery? In this article I’ll show you step-by-step how to refactor a website using JQuery into React, […]

  • Redux: Drawing the Line Between Actions and Middleware
    Redux: Drawing the Line Between Actions and Middleware

    When I first started out using Redux, I learned very quickly how to use (read: abuse) Redux actions. Actions and middleware used to be simple: if it’s synchronous, put it in an action, but if it’s asynchronous then you should use middleware. Unfortunately for us, redux-thunk was created. Now don’t get me wrong; Thunk is great! […]

  • What’s the best way to store tokens in Redux?
    What’s the best way to store tokens in Redux?

    One problem I’ve been struggling with lately is: what is the best way to store tokens when using redux? I could store it in the Redux state, but then it wouldn’t be there after refresh. I could just store it in the browser’s localStorage, but where would I do that? Before I dive into what […]

  • User Authentication with Django REST Framework
    User Authentication with Django REST Framework

    User Authentication is a simple concept, but when it comes to properly implementing it in Django, things can get complicated. Django offers an abundance of different authentication mechanisms: BasicAuthentication, TokenAuthentication, SessionAuthentication, and various ways to implement custom authentication mechanisms. The introduction of Django REST Framework did great things for Django. However, it introduces another layer […]

  • Narrowing Your Focus: The Key to Being a Successful Developer?
    Narrowing Your Focus: The Key to Being a Successful Developer?

    Do you have a lot of goals you can’t seem to make progress on? I do. Why is working towards too many goals bad? I’ve recently come to the realization that I can’t work towards all my goals and achieve the progress that I need. When you’re actively trying to make progress on too many […]

  • Boost Productivity with the Right Dev Environment
    Boost Productivity with the Right Dev Environment

    Software Development can be hard on its own, but when your own development environment doesn’t work for you it makes it even harder. In the last year or so, I’ve really come to appreciate the environment I develop in, and I’ve been able to tailor my environment to make me more productive. In this article, […]

  • 5 Tips for Writing Better Python
    5 Tips for Writing Better Python

    I’ve been writing Python for some time now, and when I reflect on some of the older code I’ve written… I sometimes cringe. For example, when I was just starting out, I wrote this Sudoku game in python (available on GitHub here). I thought that this was one of my better pieces of work at […]

  • Why You Shouldn’t Import Functions and Classes Directly in Python
    Why You Shouldn’t Import Functions and Classes Directly in Python

    Today I was doing some programming, trying to finish up an old project that was 80% done, but I never finished. The project is an API for sharing beer ingredient data, being the avid homebrewer that I am. I was in the middle of writing some pretty simple authentication logic, when I found a weird […]