My current favorite thing in web dev is a new site generator called Astro. Astro is like Hugo and 11ty, yet contains a few neat tricks r...
Astro SCSS Supabase Frontend Spotify NetlifyRecently a fellow team member challenged me to recreate the new Spotify “Like” button using only CSS. Honestly I’m not sure if he challen...
CSS SCSS UI/UX Frontend AnimationsThe value of Promises in Javascript cannot be overstated. They are used everywhere, helping to navigate the asynchronous maze that comes ...
JavaScript Async PromisesIf you have been working with an icon set and noticed that your icons are not vertically centered, then you are not alone. I was working ...
CSS UI/UXWith the release of our CSS Framework, Platform UI, it might be fun to actually build something with it! At RitterIM, we have an interna...
CSS Frameworks Static SitesIt’s been a few years, several great people, an awesome company, and a cool thing we made 😀 Once upon a time, we had a mixed bag of fram...
CSS Frameworks RIMdevI’m a huge fan of animation on the web, especially when it comes to user interaction. A simple way to include such a thing on webpages is...
CSS SCSS JavaScript UI/UX Frontend AnimationsI dedicate this blog post to all the QA testers that expose all the flaws in my code. For a few years now I thought I had it all figured...
CSS SCSS Mobile UX UI/UX frontendOne of the perks being with Ritter, and on the dev team, is you can choose the hardware that makes you happy and productive! Team members...
macOS RIMdevAs a technical writer, I create software documentation. But many times, I find myself looking at in-product copy and wondering about cont...
Documentation Technical writing UX writing Content designDocs and contextual help We recently started a push towards integrating Docs content into our software platform. The goal is to pull in...
Documentation Hugo XML RSSHave you ever wanted to change the value of a Sass variable based on screen size, a state, or for any other reason that might require cha...
css SassEver been confused about naming a branch with Git? Looking for a good naming convention? Well, I might have an answer for you. I’m not sa...
GitHubWe often use GitHub to create a compare view, and list pull requests (PRs) for releases. However, GitHub limits the number of commits you...
Documentation GitHub GitUsing our Hugo-based documentation site, we typically publish release notes once per week. My usual process includes the following: M...
Documentation Hugo ArchetypesAs someone who basically gets by when it comes to writing Javascript, I tend to look at things from a “I bet I could do this with CSS” st...
CSS SCSS Mobile UX UI/UX frontendThis is an updated post of the original here. Whether you’re new to the frontend at RIMdev or looking for more about our Frontend team...
Team RIMdev FrontendIf you’ve ever worked in Azure Data Studio, you may find tab colors very useful. They allow you to visually separate different connectio...
Documentation Azure Data StudioIf you’re not familiar with Platform UI, it’s a utility rich CSS framework we created. As we look to migrate all of our apps and static ...
UI UX CSS SassGet ready to celebrate because, as of Friday, September 18, 2020, Evan You, creator of Vue.js, announced Vue 3 is officially released. He...
vue3 frontend developmentAt Ritter Insurance Marketing, we continue to invest heavily in Web APIs primarily built on top of ASP.NET Web API 2. To supplement our APIs, we also make client libraries available to our other applications. These client libraries hold request and response objects that help reduce the duplication across our ecosystem.
As we were building a new endpoint, Cheng Yang, another developer, asked:
Why are some of the primitive types on the request object
nullable?
In our case, primitives include:
boolintdoubleDateTime and DateTimeOffset
We build most of our endpoints to accept JSON. The JSON passed in then goes through a model binding process that maps a JSON request into our C# representation. That’s great, but we lose one thing: intent.
For example, take these three JSON requests:
{ }
{ "count" : null }
{ "count" : 0 }
When mapped to this C# object we get something that is logically equivalent:
public class HelloWorldRequest {
public int Count { get;set; }
}
Which results in a Count value of 0. The value of our C# request object does not reflect the callers intent.
When we use Nullable<T> on our request, we get a tri-state property.
This tri-state attribute of Nullable allows us to respond to the requester with more meaningful validation messages.
- "You forgot to set 'Count' on the request."
- "'0' is an invalid value for 'Count'."
In our previous example, our request would change:
public class HelloWorldRequest {
public int? Count { get;set; }
}
Nullables work for us the majority of the time, but if you want to get advanced, you can hook directly into Web API 2 model binding. We did this for our PATCH implementation, which you can read in our series entitled “Extending Patch Support For ASP.NET Web API.”]
Requests are the conduit between our requesters and us, and it is important to keep as much fidelity around intent as we possibly can. Nullables on our request objects help due to their tri-state behavior. The practice allows us to respond with more meaningful validation messages, helping our users diagnose and speed up development. In this case, nulls are a good thing.
