PODCAST · technology
Programming By Stealth
by Bart Busschots & Allison Sheridan
A collaborative project between Bart Busschots and Allison Sheridan to sneak up on real programming in small easy steps, using the allure of the web as the carrot to entice people forward.
Episodes
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PBS 187 — Back to Jekyll
We dust off our memory from where we left off learning about Jekyll back in PBS 181 in June of last year. After some housekeeping, Bart takes us through the challenge solution from PBS 181, and then teaches us how to add metadata to our static sites. After the new material, he sets up where we're...
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PBS Tidbit 19C — Building a JavaScript CLI App with NodeJS
In this final episode of Tidbit 19, Bart walks us through the very few libraries he used for the final design of his Linkifier CLI App. His choices on tooling to build nice terminal commands and provide color in the terminal (like red for error messages) were based on simplicity, the fewest...
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PBS Tidbit 19B — Building a JavaScript CLI App with NodeJS
We're back with Part B of Tidbit 19, where Bart walks us through the architecture of his Linkifier module. He starts with the three data modeling classes that he's been using for decades, but explains how hard it is today to extract article headlines. He walks through how he developed an…
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PBS Tidbit 19A — Building a JavaScript CLI App with NodeJS
In Part A of Tidbit 19, Bart explains the problem he needed to solve, which was bringing a script he's written up into the modern age as a JavaScript command-line interface app that can help navigate the AI landscape. As always, his explanation is geared towards teaching us the fundamentals with...
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PBS 186 of X — Web Metadata — the Search and OpenGraph HTML Headers
One of the things that helps your posts get traction is if you have a nice, pretty card that displays when you post the URL on social media. Plain blue links just don't get clicked. With WordPress and other dynamic Content Management Systems (CMSs), you can get plugins to create the pretty cards....
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PBS 185 of X: Customising Bootstrap 5 with Sass
This final instalment of Sass lays a strong foundation for our return to developing statically generated websites with Jekyll. We learn how to deeply customise and integrate Bootstrap into our own styles. As is often the case, Bart starts by describing the different techniques that can be used to...
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PBS 184b of X: Sass Basics
This week, Bart and I recorded the second half of Programming By Stealth installment 184. The first half covered the Sass basics, and in this half, we get to learn through a worked example how to write in Sass, which compiles to regular old CSS. He created a little web page with some wise and...
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PBS 184a of X: Sass Basics
In our most recent installment, Bart taught us how to use CSS "variables" (custom properties) to customize Bootstrap to make your pages not look like every other Bootstrap page on the Internet. He explained at the end that you can take all of this quite a bit further if you learn how to use Sass...
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PBS 183 of X: Customising Bootstrap with CSS 'Variables'
In our previous installment, Bart taught us how to use CSS "Variables" to style our web pages and web apps. In this installment, he takes it up a notch by showing us how to start with a Bootstrap-enabled page, and still customize the colors, fonts, and more with CSS "Variables". You can find…
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PBS 182 of X: CSS 'Variables'
In this very fun installment of Programming By Stealth, Bart teaches us how to use CSS “variables”, which aren’t actually variables (they’re custom properties). These non-variables allow you to take advantage of Bootstrap to style web pages, but make the look and feel all your own. Bart outdid...
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PBS Tidbit 18 — A Real-World Jekyll Example
Bart taught us about creating static sites with Jekyll and even how to create custom layouts using Bootstrap 5. We learned about Markdown files with YAML front matter and more. In this Tidbit, Bart walks us through how he used everything he learned and taught us to migrate his Let's Talk website...
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PBS Tidbit 17b — Simplifying Developer Setups with Docker
This instalment is the second half of PBS Tidbit 17 in which Helma van der Linden is the instructor and Bart Busschots is the student. We pick up the plot right where Helma begins to teach how to reuse the Docker image created in the first half of the lesson. You can find Helma's fabulous…
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PBS Tidbit 17a — Simplifying Developer Setups with Docker
This very special episode of Programming By Stealth is a Tidbit written and taught by the lovely Helma van der Linden. Bart has wanted to understand Docker better, and Helma has some great use cases for how to use them for developer setups so it was a good opportunity for Bart to learn from…
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PBS Tidbit 16 — How Podfeet.com Works
Bart continues his unofficial series where he listens for where I say, "I wish I understood..." This time, he explains the history of how Podfeet.com has evolved over the last 20 years. We started with a shared server, then a virtual machine, to a dedicated server, and to a separate database...
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PBS Tidbit 15 — Building an Indie Author Site with Hugo by Eddie Tonkoi
This week, we have a guest contribution by the fabulous Eddie Tonkoi. He walks us through his journey to move his wife's book series website using a static site generator called Hugo. He hosts the generated files on GitHub and serves them (for free) through Cloudflare. You can find Eddie's…
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PBS Tidbit 14 — Coding with AI
You can find Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes and the audio podcast at pbs.bartificer.net. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: PBS_2025_10_25 Join our Slack at podfeet.com/slack and look for the #pbs channel, and check out our pbs-student GitHub Organization. It's by...
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PBS Tidbit 13 — PowerShell Tames Monty
Bart had an itch to scratch, and he decided to scratch it with PowerShell. You'll remember that he gave us a teaser Tidbit seven months ago in Tidbit 11, and we still haven't started learning PowerShell so this one is yet another teaser. The itch he had was trying to understand the "Monty Hall...
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PBS 181 of X — Reusable Snippets with Jekyll Includes
We've been having great fun in Programming By Stealth learning how to use Jekyll to create a website using GitHub Pages. This week Bart goes through the challenge he left us with last time — to add a nav bar to our little static website using Bootstrap 5 along with Jekyll and Liquid templates.…
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PBS 180 of X — Theming Jekyll
We continue our series on making websites using GitHub Pages. Building on our Jekyll knowledge with Liquid templates, we now learn how to create our own theme with Jekyll layouts. The terminology of Jekyll is still tricky, but with some worked examples and a challenge this time, maybe it will…
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PBS 179 of X — Introducing Liquid Templates in GitHub Pages with Jekyll
In this episode, Bart continues teaching us about GitHub Pages using Jekyll by introducing us to Liquid Templates. Liquid allows us to move from adding static content to our web pages to auto-generated information. It's a lot for one lesson, and some of the terminology is a little weird, but as...
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PBS Tidbit 12 — XKPasswd Rewrite Exits Beta
In this tidbit episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots and Helma van der Linden start by reviewing how she took the reins of the XKPasswd project to first convert it from Perl to JavaScript, then to rewrite the web app. After that, she separated the JavaScript library from the web app...
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PBS 178 of X — Getting Started with Jekyll Pages
Last time we learned how to install Ruby, install Bundler, install Gems, and build a very simple website using Jekyll as our static site generator into GitHub. In this installment of our Jekyll miniseries, Bart explains Jekyll's build process which is mostly automated by how you name things and…
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PBS 177 of X — Publishing A Basic Jekyll Site (GitHub Pages)
In our miniseries on GitHub Pages, we learn how to create a basic Jekyll site. To do this, we must install a modern version of Ruby, install its Gem Bundler, create a little placeholder site, and then serve Jekyll to view our site locally. We push it to GitHub where the GitHub Actions we learned...
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PBS 176 of X — Deploying a JavaScript Web App with Webpack & GitHub Actions
Way back in September of 2022, Bart finished off the Webpack miniseries by leaving it as an exercise for the student to deploy their web apps to GitHub Pages. Bart closes that circle in this installment while teaching us how to use GitHub Actions. We learn about workflows, jobs, steps, events…
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PBS 175 of X — GitHub Pages: Static Site Generators
In Programming By Stealth this week, Bart has started a new miniseries to teach us how to use GitHub Pages to create a website (for free.) In PBS 175, he starts by explaining what Static Site Generators (like GitHub Pages) are, and the pros and cons vs. a more traditional content management…
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PBS Tidbit 11B — A PowerShell Teaser
As promised, we're back with part 2 of the Powershell Teaser. We pick up where we left off, starting with learning about parameter definitions and the advantages such a structured language affords us, including automatically generated help files and error checking. Bart updated the shownotes to...
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PBS Tidbit 11A — A PowerShell Teaser
Bart Busschots is enamored with the open source shell from Microsoft called PowerShell. His goal was to give us a teaser on this modern shell but there was enough material in his shownotes that we're recording the audio in two halves. Feel free to read ahead in the shownotes if you like, or you…
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PBS Tidbit 10 — Run LLMs Locally with Ollama with Steve Mattan
In a very unusual Tidbit episode of Programming By Stealth, Allison interviews NosillaCastaway and Programming By Stealth student Steve Mattan about how he's running Large Language Models locally on his Mac. He pulls this off using a series of open source tools, starting with Ollama for the…
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PBS 174 of X: Working with Git Submodules
In this installment of Programming By Stealth, Bart completes his miniseries on Git Submodules. Last time he created an imaginary company with three developers and went through three relatively simple scenarios where Git submodules were implemented. In this finale installment, he takes it up a...
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PBS 173 of X: Getting Started with Git Submodules
In PBS 172 Bart Busschots explained what Git submodules are and the kinds of problems they solve. In this practical lesson, he walks us through three scenarios where we actually get to type in Git commands to learn how the process works. We get to pretend we're in a small web app business where...
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PBS 172 of X: Git Submodules
Bart takes us back into our Git miniseries to explain Git submodules, which are essentially nested Git repos. After we learn what they are, he explains why nesting is needed. Then he takes us through three use cases as a way of illustrating the kinds of problems Git submodules can solve. You can...
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PBS Tidbit 9 – Using Git on iOS
In ye olden days, iOS kept everything sandboxed in a way that apps weren't allowed to reach outside of their own data to open individual files. But with the aptly named Files app, and an API to allow a human to do the picking, apps can now open files directly on iOS. This "innovation" allows us…
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PBS 171 of X: MVC in XKpasswd-js
We have a bit of a changeup for today's lesson. While Bart Busschots is in attendance for this episode, he is not be the instructor, he is a student like me. Our instructor today is the delightful Helma van der Linden and she's going to teach us about how she applied the Model View Controller...
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PBS 170 of X: Model View Controller (MVC)
We're back from our summer hiatus (actually scheduled for the first time ever instead of accidentally happening!) In this week's episode, Bart takes on the task of explaining the philosophy behind why having a framework for software development is useful and even crucial as projects get bigger…
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PBS Tidbit 8 – Interview with jq Maintainer Mattias Wadman
In this Tidbit version of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots interviews Mattias Wadman, one of the maintainers of the jq project. This was great fun as we just finished learning jq in Programming By Stealth. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: PBS_2024_08_06 You…
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PBS Tidbit 7 – jq to Analyze macOS Installed Apps with Helma van der Linden on
In this special tidbit installment of Programming By Stealth, Helma van der Linden joins Allison to walk through how she solved a real-world problem using jq. The problem to be solved was a need to analyze the installed applications on her Intel-based Mac before migrating to her new Apple Silicon...
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PBS 169 of X — Advanced YAML Topics
In this second (and final) installment about YAML, Bart teaches us who to write multi-line strings and how not to write multi-line strings. He teaches us about String Blocks which is a bit head-bendy but allows you to write human-readable strings and also tell YAML what to do with empty lines and...
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PBS 168 – Introduction to YAML
In Programming By Stealth, we've completed our series on the jq language and now Bart Busschots brings us a two-part miniseries about the YAML data format. He takes us through the history of data formats we've "enjoyed" such as fixed-width text files, Comma Separated Value files, through to JSON...
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PBS 167 of X – jq: Recursion, Syntactic Sugar, Some old Friends and a Few Honourable Mentions
It was actually bittersweet for Bart and me this week as he taught the final installment in our series of Programming By Stealth about jq. As Bart says partway through our recording, he thought this would just be a few episodes but it took 13 episodes to go through everything Bart thought was fun...
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PBS 166 of X — jq: Processing Arrays & Dictionaries sans Explosion
In this penultimate jq episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart introduces us to three new ways to process arrays and dictionaries without exploding them first. I know that sounds crazy – we've always exploded our arrays first. He teaches us how to use the `reduce` operator which lets us take an...
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PBS 165 of X – jq: Variables
In this installment of Programming By Stealth, Bart explains why jq is uniquely designed not to need variables (most of the time) and then explains how to use them in the few instances when there's no other way. It's really a fairly straightforward lesson as Bart sets up some clear examples and...
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PBS 164 of X – jq: Working with Lookup Tables
In our previous episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots taught us how to create lookup tables with jq from JSON data using the `from_entries` command. Just when we have that conquered, this time he teaches us how to do the exact opposite – disassemble lookup tables. I think this was a...
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PBS 163 of X – jq: Lookups & Records
In this episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots as usual works through his solution to the challenge from last time, and as usual I learn a lot more about how to use jq to solve problems. He takes a bit of a detour to explain a fun email we got from Jill of Kent in which she explained…
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PBS 162 of X — jq: Altering Arrays & Dictionaries
Bart Busschots is back to teach us how to alter arrays and dictionaries in JSON files using jq. Bart went through his challenge solution on cleaning up the Nobel Prize database and I learned a lot from it. Maybe he'd already taught all of it to us before but I sure wouldn't have been able to put...
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PBS 161 of X — jq: Maths, Assignment & String Manipulation
In this week's episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart continues to expand our knowledge on how to use jq to query and manipulate JSON files. We learn how to use mathematical operators on data in our JSON files along with fun functions like floor and absolute value. I even contributed some to the...
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PBS 160 of X — jq as a Programming Language
In this week's installment of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots teaches us how to use jq as a programming language. Before we get into the new stuff, Bart takes us through his solution to the challenge, and I have to say I was pretty chuffed when he said my solution to the extra credit…
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PBS 159 of X - jq: Building Data Structures
In this very meaty episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots teaches us how to build data structures using jq with JSON files. We're not just querying existing data, we're rebuilding the data the way we want to see it. We learn how to build strings with interpolation, which I find is a…
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PBS 158B - jq More Advanced Queries
Two weeks ago, Bart Busschots and I recorded a Programming By Stealth episode covering more queries using the jq language on our JSON files. We spent so much time working through the challenges from the previous installment that we only made it halfway through his tutorial shownotes. So this week...
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PBS 158A – jq: More Queries
In Programming By Stealth this week, Bart Busschots and I start off by going through the challenges from our previous installment. Remember how I said I was really digging jq and querying JSON files because at heart I'm a data nerd? Well, I failed completely at accomplishing the homework. It was...
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PBS 157 of X — jq: Querying JSON with `jq`
In this week's episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots continues his instruction on learning more about how to use the jq language to query JSON files. We get into the thick of it as Bart teaches us three important jq concepts: filter chaining, operators, and functions. To get there we...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
A collaborative project between Bart Busschots and Allison Sheridan to sneak up on real programming in small easy steps, using the allure of the web as the carrot to entice people forward.
HOSTED BY
Bart Busschots & Allison Sheridan
CATEGORIES
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