This is probably a “duh” tip, but here goes: don’t put heavy loading code in ~/.zshenv because this code will be processed in every system call inside another program like Vim, making the program seem slow. Like every single programmer I maintain a repo of my dotfiles that I constantly tinker with. At some point […]
Category Archives: Miscellaneous
Raspberry Pi wifi+ssh connection disconnecting (Ourlink rtl8192cu)
I started playing around with a new Raspberry Pi 2 that arrived yesterday. I had used a Beaglebone before (always connected to ethernet) so I knew what to expect in terms of memory and CPU limitations. What surprised me was how flaky ssh connections were when connected over wifi using this USB wifi dongle (an Ourlink RTL8188CUS/RTL8192cu chipset) from […]
Meanwhile
I mean to write some longer pieces here soon. I’ve put some energy into various posts on forum.stupididea.com. I would especially recommend the links category, which is where I put interesting things that I find through my feed reader. I also write over at my company’s blog on software development topics, mostly Ruby-related: http://wegowise.github.io/. When I write over […]
Review of It’s Complicated, by danah boyd
http://www.amazon.com/Its-Complicated-Social-Lives-Networked/dp/0300166311 (This book is actually available for free download here: http://www.danah.org/itscomplicated/, though it would be good to support her work if you like it.) The remarkable thing about It’s Complicated is that danah boyd actually talks to teenagers for her findings. As she describes the different popular attitudes and beliefs about teens and social media […]
Webcomics
Somebody asked me to make a list of webcomics that I subscribe to (using Feedly these days) and I started writing little descriptions next to each one. I figured I’d just place it here in case anyone else is interested. These are the webcomics that have made the cut after having tried out and abandoned […]
Work
My new work is great1. The main thing I like about it is the consummate professionalism of the team. Everyone I work with is interested in improving their craft and is eager to engage in discussions about software principles, code quality, development processes and tools. In general there is a noticeable group ethos that seems guided […]
My actual workflow
I should update that my current testing workflow is the one described here. At my new work the testing suite is so large (a good problem to have!) that it’s not really feasible to rerun all or even a large subset of the tests on every write. Also I realized that you mentally start waiting […]
Local Memes
I have meant to undertake this project for a long time: the compilation of a list of “local memes” in my household. As I get older (and older and older) I become more and more aware of this condition of being composed out of bits and pieces that originated in other people. I am also […]
Goodbye, Autotest
Update (10/15/2012): This isn’t how I’m doing it now. See this aside for my current workflow. (That Latour article is in a half-finished limbo state, but I’ll get around to posting it eventually). I wrote in a recent post about how easy it is to configure Autotest these days. And Autotest has been an essential part […]
Ruby, Linux, Autotest, Rspec 2, Cucumber
Update: I’ve moved on to using Guard Of the posts I’ve written this article about Rspec, Autotest, etc. has been one of the more visited. Time to update that ooold information. If you don’t know what any of this is, the idea of Autotest is to get a test suite to run continuously in the background […]