Peterbe.com

In the last couple of days, I've created variations of a simple algorithm to demonstrate how Celcius and Fahrenheit seem to relate to each other if you "mirror the number".
It wasn't supposed to be about the programming language. Still, I used Python in the first one and I noticed that since the code is simple, it could be fun to write variants of it in other languages.

1. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit with Python
2. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit with TypeScript
3. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit with Go
4. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit with Ruby
5. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit with Crystal
6. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit with Rust

It was a fun exercise.

You might have heard that Node now has watch mode. It watches the files you're saving and re-runs the node command automatically. Example:

// example.js

function c2f(c) {
  return (c * 9) / 5 + 32;
}
console.log(c2f(0));

Now, run it like this:

❯ node --watch example.js
32
Completed running 'example.js'

Edit that example.js and the terminal will look like this:

Restarting 'example.js'
32
Completed running 'example.js'

(even if the file didn't change. I.e. you just hit Cmd-S to save)

This is a continuation of Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit with Python, but in TypeScript:

function c2f(c: number): number {
  return (c * 9) / 5 + 32;
}

function isMirror(a: number, b: number) {
  function massage(n: number) {
    if (n < 10) return `0${n}`;
    else if (n >= 100) return massage(n - 100);
    return `${n}`;
  }
  return reverseString(massage(a)) === massage(b);
}

function reverseString(str: string) {
  return str.split("").reverse().join("");
}

function printConversion(c: number, f: number) {
  console.log(`${c}°C ~= ${f}°F`);
}

for (let c = 4; c < 100; c += 12) {
  const f = c2f(c);
  if (isMirror(c, Math.ceil(f))) {
    printConversion(c, Math.ceil(f));
  } else if (isMirror(c, Math.floor(f))) {
    printConversion(c, Math.floor(f));
  } else {
    break;
  }
}

And when you run it:

❯ bun run conversion.ts
4°C ~= 40°F
16°C ~= 61°F
28°C ~= 82°F
40°C ~= 104°F
52°C ~= 125°F

Here's a useful mnemonic for remembering how to convert Celsius to Fahrenhait(*):

• Start at 4°C
• Add +12 each time
• Flip the C in mirror, with some additional fudging

For example, 4°C is 04°C. Mirror image of "04" is "40". So 4°C equals 40°F.
And when there's a 1 in front, as in 125°F, look at that as 100 + 25°F. Mirror of 25°F is 52°C. So 52°C equals 125°F.

In Python it can be tested like this:

import math


def c2f(c):
    return c * 9 / 5 + 32


def is_mirror(a, b):
    def massage(n):
        if n < 10:
            return f"0{n}"
        elif n >= 100:
            return massage(n - 100)
        else:
            return str(n)

    return massage(a)[::-1] == massage(b)


def print_conv(c, f):
    print(f"{c}°C ~= {f}°F")


for i in range(4, 100, 12):
    f = c2f(i)
    if is_mirror(i, math.ceil(f)):
        print_conv(i, math.ceil(f))
    elif is_mirror(i, math.floor(f)):
        print_conv(i, math.floor(f))
    else:
        break

When you run that you get:

4°C ~= 40°F
16°C ~= 61°F
28°C ~= 82°F
40°C ~= 104°F
52°C ~= 125°F

(*) If you can't remember F = C × 9/5 + 32 or, perhaps, remember it but can't compute the arithmetic easily.

More than happy to be informed of a better solution here! But this came up in a real-work situation and I "stumbled" on the solution by more or less guessing.

In plain JavaScript, you have an object which you know you set certain keys on. But because this object is (ab)used for a templating engine, we also put keys/values on it that are not known in advance. In our use case, these keys and booleans came from parsing a .yml file which. It looks something like this:

// Code simplified for the sake of the example

const context = {
  currentVersion: "3.12", 
  currentLanguage: "en",
  activeDate: someDateObject,
  // ... other things that are values of type number, bool, Date, and string
  // ...
}
if (someCondition()) {
  context.hasSomething = true
}

for (const [featureFlag, truth] of Object.entries(parseYamlFile('features.yml')) {
  context[featureFlag] = truth
}

const rendered = render(template: { context })

I don't like this design where you "combine" an object with known keys with a spread of unknown keys coming from an external source. But here we are and we have to convert this to TypeScript, the clock's ticking!

Ever got this error:

Element implicitly has an 'any' type because expression of type 'string' can't be used to index type '{ foo: string; bar: string; }'. No index signature with a parameter of type 'string' was found on type '{ foo: string; bar: string; }'.(7053)

Yeah, me too. What used to be so simple in JavaScript suddenly feels hard in TypeScript.

In JavaScript,

const greetings = {
  good: "Excellent",
  bad: "Sorry to hear",
}
const answer = prompt("How are you?")
if (typeof answer === "string") {
  alert(greetings[answer] || "OK")
}

To see it in action, I put it into a CodePen.

Now, port that to TypeScript,

For some reason, I always forget how to do this. Tired of that. Let's blog about it so it sticks.

To format a number with thousand-commas you do:

>>> n = 1234567
>>> f"{n:,}"
'1,234,567'

To add whitespace to a string you do:

>>> name="peter"
>>> f"{name:<20}"
'peter               '

How to combine these in one expression, you do:

>>> n = 1234567
>>> f"{n:<15,}"
'1,234,567      '

Officially, I'm one day behind, but here's how you can calculate the value of π using the Leibniz formula.

Python

import math

sum = 0
estimate = 0
i = 0
epsilon = 0.0001
while abs(estimate - math.pi) > epsilon:
    sum += (-1) ** i / (2 * i + 1)
    estimate = sum * 4
    i += 1
print(
    f"After {i} iterations, the estimate is {estimate} and the real pi is {math.pi} "
    f"(difference of {abs(estimate - math.pi)})"
)

Outputs:

After 10000 iterations, the estimate is 3.1414926535900345 and the real pi is 3.141592653589793 (difference of 9.99999997586265e-05)

Unfortunately, the app I ported from using the Pages Router to using App Router, is in a private repo. It's a Next.js static site SPA (Single Page App).

It's built with npm run build and then exported so that the out/ directory is the only thing I need to ship to the CDN and it just works. There's a home page and a few dynamic routes whose slugs depend on an SQL query. So the SQL (PostgreSQL) connection, using knex, has to be present when running npm run build.

In no particular order, let's look at some differences

Build times

With caching

After running next build a bunch of times, the rough averages are:

• Pages Router: 20.5 seconds
• App Router: 19.5 seconds

Without caching

After running rm -fr .next && next build a bunch of times, the rough averages are:

• Pages Router: 28.5 seconds
• App Router: 31 seconds

Note