Programming By Stealth

Latest Episodes:

PBS Tidbit 19B — Building a JavaScript CLI App with NodeJS Aug 29, 2026

Show notes

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 extraction logic but had to do it per domain. That sounds crazy but he uses surprisingly few sites for his articles for Security Bits and Let's Talk Apple.

You can find Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes and the audio podcast at pbs.bartificer.net.

PBS Tidbit 19A — Building a JavaScript CLI App with NodeJS Aug 10, 2026

Show notes

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 his problem as the example.

The shownotes are for Part A and B, but we've only recorded the first half so far.

You can find Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes and the audio podcast at pbs.bartificer.net.

PBS 186 of X — Web Metadata — the Search and OpenGraph HTML Headers Jun 27, 2026

Show notes

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. But with Jekyll (and Hugo and other Static Site Generators), you need to build the capability into your theme. It's not hard, you just need to know what metadata to build, and of course, Bart is here to teach it to us.

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_2026_06_27

Join our Slack at podfeet.com/slack and look for the #pbs channel, and check out our pbs-student GitHub Organization. It's by invitation only but all you have to do is ask Allison!

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PBS 185 of X: Customising Bootstrap 5 with Sass Jun 06, 2026

Show notes

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 customise Bootstrap with Sass, and then ties it all together with a worked example. We now have the tools to use Bootstrap, even if our website uses a content management system like WordPress.

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_2026_06_06

Join our Slack at podfeet.com/slack and look for the #pbs channel, and check out our pbs-student GitHub Organization. It's by invitation only but all you have to do is ask Allison!

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PBS 184b of X: Sass Basics May 27, 2026

Show notes

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 humorous quotes from notable people in history, and used everything we learned in the first half to style the page. As I told Bart at the end, it's great that he teaches us the foundation of these tools, but it's equally great to have a worked example where we can see theory in action, and reference these examples in the future.

You can find Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes for both Part A and Part B at pbs.bartificer.net. If you want to jump right to the spot in the notes were Part B starts, go to this direct link pbs.bartificer.net/...)

PBS 184a of X: Sass Basics May 10, 2026

Show notes

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 (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets).

Sass is a preprocessor for CSS, which means it creates "normal" CSS but allows you a lot more flexibility in how to create that CSS. For example, you can even create lists and maps and loop over them just like a proper programming language. We get Sass for free with Jekyll so why not take advantage of it?

There's a lot to learn about Sass, so we broke this topic up into two parts, but even this first "half" is a mammoth episode. Nothing is a hard lift, but there's a lot to lift!

You can find Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes for both Part A and Part B and the audio podcast for Part A at pbs.bartificer.net. As Bart says at the very end, Part B comes with a "health warning" as it hasn't yet been proofread!

PBS 183 of X: Customising Bootstrap with CSS 'Variables' Apr 25, 2026

Show notes

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 Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes and the audio podcast at pbs.bartificer.net.

Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: PBS_2026_04_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 invitation only, but all you have to do is ask Allison!

PBS 182 of X: CSS 'Variables' Apr 25, 2026

Show notes

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 himself on the shownotes, the examples, and the challenge looks super fun.

You can find Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes and the audio podcast at pbs.bartificer.net.

If you appreciate the work Bart puts into Programming by Stealth, consider supporting him through Patreon or Paypal by going to supporting him on Patreon..

PBS Tidbit 18 — A Real-World Jekyll Example Mar 14, 2026

Show notes

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 from WordPress to Jekyll hosted on GitHub Pages. It's a fun episode because we learn what worked well, what slipped through the cracks, and what he forgot to do.

He built up a lot of technical debt on Let's Talk with his Let's Talk Apple and Let's Talk Photography podcast posts, so he highly encourages you to fork the site and create pull requests to help him clean up the older posts.

You can see how many posts need cleanup (mostly adding contributors) at lets-talk.ie/temp-episodes-to-review.html

You can find Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes and the audio podcast at pbs.bartificer.net.

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PBS Tidbit 17b — Simplifying Developer Setups with Docker Jan 31, 2026

Show notes

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.

pbs.bartificer.net

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