GNU Recutils
Fred and George, Turtles in love There are hundreds of cool command line tools that have been made over the years built on the unix philosophy. Plain text is powerful, ubiquitous, and human-centric. It was also the only option for computing for quite a while. It’s no surprise that some of the most sophisticated tools…
Guide to Python Debugging
<p> Even if you write clear and readable code, even if you cover your code with tests, even if you are very experienced developer, weird bugs will inevitab...
Build tools around workflows, not workflows around tools
While I was there, I thought a lot about tools – mechanical tools, software tools, tools that last, and tools that are fragile. The somber snow-covered scenery made me think about how quickly most of the tools we use today get outdated or replaced, and I thought about the kinds of tools that I’ve been building for…
I overslept because iOS 14 disabled my alarm
I’m using the iOS Bedtime feature for years now. With yesterday’s iOS 14 update the feature got moved from the Clock app to the Health app. Unfortunately the migration is done by disabling your existing alarm and showing a button to open the Health app to set it up again. I woke up late and well rested today.
Minimal safe Bash script template
A minimal template for a safe Bash script. It includes error handling, parameter parsing, and cleanup.
How to Run a Live Coding Stream on Twitch Using OBS
If you’re reading this post, you might be interested in trying your hand at live coding on stream, as a way of sharing your projects in a more relatable, immediate way than a polished blog post, teaching others about programming, or just as a way to have fun. I think that live coding and streams in general are an…
Print this file, your printer will jam (2008)
Another story from printer-land of 20 years ago: this time about a seemingly impossible bug.
Escaping strings in Bash using !:q
TIL this trick, via Pascal Hirsch on Twitter. Enter a line of Bash starting with a # comment, then run !:q on the next line to see what that would be with proper Bash escaping applied.
Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
*Please see the associated Hacker News comments for some interesting discussion related to this article.*
Tired of note-taking apps
I’m tired of note-taking apps. It’s not because of limited choices. But it’s the other way around. There are so many note-taking apps you could try but end up sticking to none. At…
Zsh and Fish’s simple but clever trick for highlighting missing linefeeds
tl;dr: We look at how Zsh and Fish is able to indicate a missing terminating linefeed in program output when the Unix programming model precludes examining the output itself.
Recently minted database technologies that I find intriguing
I’m a huge fan of databases, so much so that I’ve written a book on so-called “NoSQL” databases, I spent some of my most fruitful years in tech working on the highly influential distributed database Riak , and I even built a database called Purple last year just for fun.
Git scraping: track changes over time by scraping to a Git repository
Git scraping is the name I’ve given a scraping technique that I’ve been experimenting with for a few years now. It’s really effective, and more people should use it. Update …
Please stop recommending Gitflow
Git-flow is a branching and merging methodology popularized by this blog post, entitled “A Successful Git branching model”. In the last ten years, countless teams have been snookered by…
Go's Tooling Is an Undervalued Technology
Regardless of your opinions of the Go programming language , the primary implementation of Go, gc, is an incredible piece of software engineering. Everyone ought to be blown away by it! Yet not only is it undervalued in general, even the Go community itself doesn’t fully appreciate it. It’s not perfect, but it has…
What I learned from looking at every AI/ML tool I could find
[Twitter thread, Hacker News discussion]
How I built a keyboard/video/mouse switch for my two 4k monitors
How I built a Keyboard/Video/Mouse switch for my two 4K monitors for $30.
Help Message for Shell Scripts
I share what I know.
Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows
Can you believe it's been 6 years since my last Tools list? Tools have changed, ...
Personal Data Warehouses: Reclaiming Your Data
I gave a talk yesterday about personal data warehouses for GitHub’s OCTO Speaker Series, focusing on my Datasette and Dogsheep projects. The video of the talk is now available, and …
How a lazy bitch like me learned to be productive
Before, I was a train wreck that ate too many cinnamon rolls and watched Netflix while laying in sweats on the couch. Today, I ran 3 miles, did 40 minutes of yoga, meditated, ate steel cut oats with berries for breakfast, then turned on my favorite business podcast while I showered, all before work.
Why I Procrastinate (2019)
A look into me, my awful procrastination habit, and how I fixed it. (spoiler alert: it was ADHD)
Why Learn Awk? (2016)
Jonathan Palardy's blog about technology
I Spent $6M on Google Ads Last Year
I spent a lot of money on Google ads last year across Search, Display, Youtube, Discovery, and Gmail. Here's what I learned.