Something @ Somewhere • Kent, UK
It took me longer then I expected it to, to find out how to revert a single file using git. Git revert is not it, that’s for creating a commit to undo the changes of another commit. Maybe git reset? No, that resets the current HEAD, not a specific file, it would seem. Turns out it’s just a simple re-checkout of the offending file. D’oh.
git checkout ${offending_file}
EBay Employees – 15,500 (Q1 2008)
WTF do they all do? And more importantly, how many have a rating over 99.8%? Apple has 19,000…
I’ve been cursing my work computer all morning and am once again considering either bringing in my computer from home or just buying one outright (It wouldn’t be a first. I paid for my own monitor here at work. Go figure). Kris Kemper wrote a good post on the subject a few days ago.
I’ve seen this on every project I’ve been on. We are given slow machines, and time is lost. It may be lost because I’m running grep over a lot of files, it may be because when I have my all my development tools open and the machine slows down.
To me, when you’re in the business of developing software, investing in your own companies IT is a complete no brainer. Companies are normally extremely quick to spend on server hardware, but when it comes to development machines, spending is often few and far between. My machine here at work isn’t a “horrible” machine, but the agony it puts me through makes me feel that it’s perhaps not best suited to the task of developing on. But then even simple tasks seem to thwart it with constant disk grinding. I tried deleting an old repository checkout, no more then 200mb on the disk, and stopped it after it had only reached 14% done in 10 minutes. Virus checking my update of DirectoryOpus took nearly 3 minutes. Maybe it’s just a build issue and not so much a hardware one. Vista complains that all off the Office 2007 apps are not valid Win32 applications or the Snipping tool politely tells me it’s not working “right now”. Yes, I can see that. Whatever it is, it’s not the sort of shit that you need when you’re in the middle of something. Whatever, they should have got me a Mac.
I can understand that sometimes you just can’t afford whizzy machines or the latest version of software. Just don’t let me catch you running a .NET stack and complaining about not being able to afford machines fast enough to run it.
Via LispCast
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
I can type, I just can’t type super duper fast. For years now I’ve been managing to get around 60wpm (70wpm if I really really push) without the use of my little fingers, which is fine for most things, but me being me, I want more.
Thinking about all the extra things I could get done if that went up to a comfortable and sustainable 80-90wpm gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling. So a week ago I purchased a copy of MasterKey and began the long road to proper form. I have to admit it was extremely hard and painful for the first day or two and I came very close to giving up, but six days later, I’m not that much slower then I was to begin with. At first I was down to about 25wpm but at least now I’m hovering just below 50 wpm which is fine for most day to day stuff and not slow enough that I feel the urge to revert back to my old style (sans little fingers). I still have some bad habits I’m struggling to get rid of, namely still using my ring finger for the backspace key and occasionally for the U key, but some habits die hard, real hard.
As a background, Steve Yegge wrote an interesting article on the subject of typing a couple of weeks ago, saying that programmers who type slow make up for it through a lack of commenting and refactoring. By not possessing the ability to type fast, you’re just building up technical debt. While I don’t know if I whole heartedly agree, I can certainly see where he is coming from. I don’t think it’s a critical skill to have, but I think it can, to some degree, display a programmer’s level of mastery of computers. Certainly, someone may have had a job that required them to know how to type, but for those that didn’t, typing is one indicator of time spent infront of a computer/interest in computers/willingness to learn the tools of your trade.
To expand on the last point a bit, I think learning the tools (not tricks, there is no magic here) of the trade is extremely important. Why would you not choose the path that offered a 10%, 20%, 50% or maybe even a 100% (!) increase in productivity. To not make that choice is beyond belief and deserves a shunning. Whether you wanted to take that gained time to make project improvements, read a book or even just kick back, why would you not do it. I don’t want to get into the subject too much now as it deserves another post in itself, but this is why I have chosen to improve my typing skills. To move that one step closer to mastery and not feel impeeded by the tools that I use (Not counting the ones I have to use, blegh Windows).
Stop knocking me off my bike. Thank you please.
A deal that would cost each American taxpayer $5,300 to rescue the banking system and save the world economy from catastrophe was agreed in outline tonight.
Reading that the US Goverment has coughed up $700m to bail out the banks is one thing, reading it in the context of how it’s going to affect all 240m odd adult Americans is mind blowing.
For just over a week now I’ve been tracking all my time spent infront of a computer with RescueTime. It’s a great little tool which sits and just logs everything you do. You tag any captured applications and devide them up using tags. As you can see from the graph above I spent 69 hours and 56 mins (Damn, just missed 70 hours, must try harder this week) in front of a computer. The chart is broken down into work, web and everything else. As a lot of my work tasks include the “web” tag, the divide in the chart isn’t a split between work and mindless browsing. So really there is a lot of overlap between the two categories (Well I think that’s how it works). All-in-all, excluding my 9-5 job, I’m still spending an almost mighty 30+ hours infront of my computer at home. How awesome is that! :P
Don’t like the new Facebook? Tough shit. Suck it up.
If Spore freezes on the splash screen when you start it up, with one running process and one non-responding one, then all you have to do is*:
I found this piece of information through MacRumors.
I only just noticed that the iCal icon actually updates to show the current day’s date! No more bringing up my calendar widget. The 3rd is my birthday by the way :D
All my news feeds today have been filled with nothing but talk of Google Chrome. As there is no OSX version (it can be built if you’re really that desperate), I fired up my Vista VM and installed it and I’m quietly impressed. Does the world need a new browser? Maybe, maybe not. While it’s nice that each tab runs in seperate processes, does that really make Chrome a browser for what the web has become or becoming? The Google “Reasons Behind Chrome” video talks about playing games in one tab, checking mail in another, but I do this already with no problem in Firefox. Maybe it’s betting too much on the web and I certainly don’t agree with Michael Arrington‘s idea that “Chrome is nothing less than a full on desktop operating system that will compete head on with Windows”. I think he’s mis-understood what an OS actually does. The suggestion that desktop apps will be replaced by “webified” versions is just too out there. I can’t wait to start using my scanner through my browser. Oh, and this post was of course written in Google Chrome.
I have always hated CSS simply because anything I ever did would break in either Firefox or IE. I would spend countless hours tweaking and experimenting to get things consistent, and even then it felt like things where hanging together by a thread. Once things worked, I prayed I never need to “change” it. I have to confess that up until recently I still believed that tables were the solution to most web UI problems. A table here or there never hurt anyone. Really though, tables are sooooo Altavista. Thus, I’ve been making a conscious effort to move towards styled divs without tables full of spaced out cells containing transparant spacer gifs. I have been pretty much fudging my way through it so I thought I should read up on the subject and saw that CSS Mastery had gotten some really good reviews. I stole the office copy, made my way through it and can honestly say, with hand on heart, that it is an absolute must read for anyone involved in any sort of web development. My CSS ability has developed by leaps and bounds. I recently put together our new site which gave me a chance to flex some of my new found CSS skills and it made such a difference. Everything came together quickly and painlessly. For the first time ever I had a site that worked in both Firefox and IE pretty much off the bat and I had a tidy HTML and CSS file. Will this book make you a CSS Master? Probably not, I’m not one yet, that’s for sure, but it will get you on the right track to eventually getting there.
To go off on a bit of a tangent. Some work places have a specific team that do all the styling and formatting of whatever the developers give them. Maybe on huge projects, it makes sense, but in small teams I see no benefit apart from massaging the developers own egos and beliefs that HTML/CSS is beneath them or something. This divided approach really bugs me, simply because I believe that it causes developers to not give the asthetic or functional side of what they produce any consideration. Un-usable? Hey, it works and that’s all that matters, it’s not my job to make it look pretty! The process is circular. Good design begets good functionality begets good design begets… You get the point. Design is not just about making things pretty, and that’s the trap that people fall into. It is about communication; giving the user an experience they understand and can relate to. I’m not a UI guru or claim to have all the answers, but I’m a big believer in at least trying. The curse of knowledge from the book Made To Stick plays a big factor in this. People find it extremely hard, if not impossible to imagine not knowing what they know, and that is what stifles communication. I once argued with a company director about an existing system’s poor UI. They claimed that it was sooooo easy and quick to use and I pointed out that’s because had been walked through it so many times and used it nearly every day. So eat your own dog food and do your own HTML/CSS. Use your own system and pretend like you’ve never used it before. Do a hallway test and ask someone to perform a task without telling them how to do it. You might be surprised by the results.
Saw this on Digg and thought I’d take a look myself. At least they aren’t afraid to admit it.
