http://clarityincode.com/software-maintenance/
So, this is really great.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Please help support the lamp with a lamp stack... and here's why
I'm about to engage in blatant fanboi marketing, so if you don't want to experience that, stop reading now.
"The Light by MooresCloud" is the name of an amazing product. It's a computer, inside a lamp. The lamp is attractive, and would be worthy of the $100 price even if it just sat there like a rock making your room light up.
But what's truly amazing about it goes far deeper...
Perhaps you have heard about the "Internet of things". This refers to the idea that everyday appliance will be internet connected. We are starting down that path already. Our phones are internet connected, and they became computers almost overnight. Now they are channels and platforms, delivering not just phone calls, but text messages, emails, movies, web pages, notifications, shopping transactions and limitless other information exchanges. Our televisions are going the same way -- they don't just such down sound and images from the sky any more. They give us internet TV, apps and more.
This is only the beginning.
Software freedom true believers, bleeding heart optimists will know that the beating heart of the internet is software built by volunteers, for free, for the love of the game. People who cared sat down, figured out how to make a million computers talk to eachother efficiently and at great distances, and then just gave it all away. They mostly had day jobs, because creating the internet out of nothing didn't earn them a paycheck. It was an essentially creative exercise, a solution to an out-of-context problem which nobody knew existed. They probably didn't even know what they were building.
Nobody really wants their bedside lamp to do all of these things. At least, not exactly. But it could certainly do with some upgrades. Like, maybe it could turn on in the morning automatically when the alarm clock goes off, so you don't have to fumble for the switch... and maybe some more...
This is the internet of things. Not powerful phones, or powerful televisions, delivering the same content. But rather, it is the seamless and intelligent integration of tiny appliances, operating in concert based on our intentions. For example, it's 2am. You bump your lamp on. Its onboard computer notifies the Phillips Hue LED lamp down the corridoor to the bathroom. They both recognise the 2am timestamp, and light dimly rather than blazing 60 watts straight into your sleepy eyes.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a seminal work on the economics of open source software. It discusses the traditional, capitalist, business-based model of invention and monetary return. It accepts that by creating intellectual property, protecting it, and extracting a return, one can make invention profitable. But it also outlines another approach. Not all work is profitable. Some work is done simply to address costs. For example, if you are in the business of selling fishing lines, you don't care much about phones. You'll pay to get a better one, but you don't mind if that improvement goes only to you, or to everyone at the same time. Imagine a world if every time you paid for something, *everyone in the world* got the benefit. That's open source. Imagine if every time you paid to get a software bug fixed, it got fixed for everyone. And imagine if, every time, anywhere in the world, someone else paid to fix a software bug, your world got automatically better, for free. That's the key. Imagine if you could concentrate on the business which you were really in, while everything else just got better for free.
Moore's Cloud have done something amazing. They will sell you a light (well, reward you with one at the kickstarter stage). But they will give you everything else for free. Including instructions for building your own light. The software. Oh, and their business model. You can simply download their financial documents and business plan. Just like that. Why? Because they don't care about that. They believe they can do a better job of developing the leading edge than anyone else, and that open developments will drive out closed developments in the short and long run. Nobody can steal their ideas because everybody can have them for free.
So, how does the rubber hit the road? Open source software is still largely a volunteer exercise, although major corporations invest in it for precisely the reasons outlines in the Cathedral and the Bazaar. Google doesn't want to own your web browser and compete against Microsoft. They want to own your search results, and make browser competition irrelevant. Which they pretty much have. Many pieces of software cost money, representing substantial intellectual property and value, and kudos to their inventors. But as many are free, getting quietly and continually better for free, like a rising tide lifting all boats.
Moore's Cloud live at the intersection of the Open Source movement, the modern startup innovation culture, a commercial business and the obvious strategic trend toward an Internet of Things. Like the early internet pioneers, those people participating in this space are solving an out-of-context problem for the 99%. In twenty years, when the world around us is profoundly inter-connected, and this profound interconnection becomes the environment in which we live, this movement will seem every bit as profound as any other major innovation in our built environment.
Building the internet, and building open-source software takes trust, commitment and skill. It takes people to work together at a distance, with little direct obligation. It takes time and it takes money. It takes donations. It requires a business model which will allow the makers and dreamers to try, fail and succeed. It needs your help. For the price of any other piece of quality industrial design, why not also take part in the revolution?
Check out their kickstarter pitch. Let them tell you their story in their own words. Here's the trick. If they fail, backing on kickstarter is free. You can help with as little as a $1.00 contribution. For $100, one of the lights can be yours, and you can own a part of history. And get a bedside lamp to be proud of.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cloudlight/light-1/
Footnotes:
-- This post was made without consultation with the team behind Moore's Cloud
-- I'm definitely not making any money out of this. I've backed them, but I have no vested interest.
-- I've probably made lots of mistakes. This is a blog post on the internet, get over it. I did it in a rush.
-- That said, I'll make any and all corrections required / desired
"The Light by MooresCloud" is the name of an amazing product. It's a computer, inside a lamp. The lamp is attractive, and would be worthy of the $100 price even if it just sat there like a rock making your room light up.
But what's truly amazing about it goes far deeper...
Perhaps you have heard about the "Internet of things". This refers to the idea that everyday appliance will be internet connected. We are starting down that path already. Our phones are internet connected, and they became computers almost overnight. Now they are channels and platforms, delivering not just phone calls, but text messages, emails, movies, web pages, notifications, shopping transactions and limitless other information exchanges. Our televisions are going the same way -- they don't just such down sound and images from the sky any more. They give us internet TV, apps and more.
This is only the beginning.
Software freedom true believers, bleeding heart optimists will know that the beating heart of the internet is software built by volunteers, for free, for the love of the game. People who cared sat down, figured out how to make a million computers talk to eachother efficiently and at great distances, and then just gave it all away. They mostly had day jobs, because creating the internet out of nothing didn't earn them a paycheck. It was an essentially creative exercise, a solution to an out-of-context problem which nobody knew existed. They probably didn't even know what they were building.
Nobody really wants their bedside lamp to do all of these things. At least, not exactly. But it could certainly do with some upgrades. Like, maybe it could turn on in the morning automatically when the alarm clock goes off, so you don't have to fumble for the switch... and maybe some more...
This is the internet of things. Not powerful phones, or powerful televisions, delivering the same content. But rather, it is the seamless and intelligent integration of tiny appliances, operating in concert based on our intentions. For example, it's 2am. You bump your lamp on. Its onboard computer notifies the Phillips Hue LED lamp down the corridoor to the bathroom. They both recognise the 2am timestamp, and light dimly rather than blazing 60 watts straight into your sleepy eyes.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a seminal work on the economics of open source software. It discusses the traditional, capitalist, business-based model of invention and monetary return. It accepts that by creating intellectual property, protecting it, and extracting a return, one can make invention profitable. But it also outlines another approach. Not all work is profitable. Some work is done simply to address costs. For example, if you are in the business of selling fishing lines, you don't care much about phones. You'll pay to get a better one, but you don't mind if that improvement goes only to you, or to everyone at the same time. Imagine a world if every time you paid for something, *everyone in the world* got the benefit. That's open source. Imagine if every time you paid to get a software bug fixed, it got fixed for everyone. And imagine if, every time, anywhere in the world, someone else paid to fix a software bug, your world got automatically better, for free. That's the key. Imagine if you could concentrate on the business which you were really in, while everything else just got better for free.
Moore's Cloud have done something amazing. They will sell you a light (well, reward you with one at the kickstarter stage). But they will give you everything else for free. Including instructions for building your own light. The software. Oh, and their business model. You can simply download their financial documents and business plan. Just like that. Why? Because they don't care about that. They believe they can do a better job of developing the leading edge than anyone else, and that open developments will drive out closed developments in the short and long run. Nobody can steal their ideas because everybody can have them for free.
So, how does the rubber hit the road? Open source software is still largely a volunteer exercise, although major corporations invest in it for precisely the reasons outlines in the Cathedral and the Bazaar. Google doesn't want to own your web browser and compete against Microsoft. They want to own your search results, and make browser competition irrelevant. Which they pretty much have. Many pieces of software cost money, representing substantial intellectual property and value, and kudos to their inventors. But as many are free, getting quietly and continually better for free, like a rising tide lifting all boats.
Moore's Cloud live at the intersection of the Open Source movement, the modern startup innovation culture, a commercial business and the obvious strategic trend toward an Internet of Things. Like the early internet pioneers, those people participating in this space are solving an out-of-context problem for the 99%. In twenty years, when the world around us is profoundly inter-connected, and this profound interconnection becomes the environment in which we live, this movement will seem every bit as profound as any other major innovation in our built environment.
Building the internet, and building open-source software takes trust, commitment and skill. It takes people to work together at a distance, with little direct obligation. It takes time and it takes money. It takes donations. It requires a business model which will allow the makers and dreamers to try, fail and succeed. It needs your help. For the price of any other piece of quality industrial design, why not also take part in the revolution?
Check out their kickstarter pitch. Let them tell you their story in their own words. Here's the trick. If they fail, backing on kickstarter is free. You can help with as little as a $1.00 contribution. For $100, one of the lights can be yours, and you can own a part of history. And get a bedside lamp to be proud of.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cloudlight/light-1/
Footnotes:
-- This post was made without consultation with the team behind Moore's Cloud
-- I'm definitely not making any money out of this. I've backed them, but I have no vested interest.
-- I've probably made lots of mistakes. This is a blog post on the internet, get over it. I did it in a rush.
-- That said, I'll make any and all corrections required / desired
Thursday, December 13, 2012
[solved ]LG LM7600 Wifi Connection Password not accepted
Hi all,
Some breadcrumbs for anyone else experiencing this problem.
SYMPTOM:
The LG LM7600 will not connect to the wireless network. It appears not to accept your wireless password, but you're sure it's correct.
PROBLEM:
Your password may have spaces in it. The LG LM7600 is too stupid to recognise a password with a space in it.
SOLUTION:
Change your wireless password to not have any spaces in it.
Some breadcrumbs for anyone else experiencing this problem.
SYMPTOM:
The LG LM7600 will not connect to the wireless network. It appears not to accept your wireless password, but you're sure it's correct.
PROBLEM:
Your password may have spaces in it. The LG LM7600 is too stupid to recognise a password with a space in it.
SOLUTION:
Change your wireless password to not have any spaces in it.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Career options for ICT staff in Australia
This post is a response to the article below:
http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/a-brilliant-career--but-not-in-ict-20121112-29866.html
The article is fine. However, I think one of the main reasons that ICT careers are not fully appealing is that people have seen that when the rubber hits the road, and ICT pro will NEVER get the big promotion into management over people from other tracks within an organisation. This post is based purely on personal opinions, and has not undergone any real fact-checking. In fact, as soon as I started thinking too hard, I started poking holes in my own arguments. But, rather than sink the entire thing, I've posted it for crumbs of insight and general discussion...
Only a few people make big bucks directly out of ICT: Apple, Facebook, Google, hardware vendors, maybe a few others. By this I mean people who's core business does not extend beyond ICT. People who aren't in business mainly as part of a value chain which leads to something else.
For example, stock-trading companies. This is ludicrously heavily automated, and involved a lot of IT. However, a software engineer is never going to grow up to run the business themselves. They know too much about systems engineering, and not enough about running the business. Other tracks, like sales, or project managers, or product developers know far more about what it takes to stick with the trends and grow the business of taking other people's money in return for a service. And it's those people who will always run the business.
Another example, airplane companies. These businesses require autopilots that work, their flight routes are automatically determined, checkin is self-serve. But the fundamental transaction -- ticket for money -- is defined, grown and managed outside the ICT branch. No ICT professional will ever know as much or be as trusted to make business decisions as someone who has come out of the business part of the business.
ICT is simply not at the big table in most companies. There might be a CIO or CTO who is responsible for things like enterprise architecture, or for negotiating large contracts for computing services. Frequently, said CIO or CTO will not have come from the systems engineering, software engineering or system administration areas. They will only really exist to solve a problem and efficiently manage what looks to most people like a big fat cost centre that everyone needs but nobody really wants to be friends with.
Same with lawyers.
There are big companies, full of lawyers and full of ICT people, going around plying their trade. Within those firms, ICT staff can develop into business managers. But they're still the minority. Most ICT staff are still fundamentally embedded people inside other people's businesses, and with that model, there is always an uphill battle to the next promotion when competing with others who are inherently more trusted by that business. Most people just don't want to deal with the boring details of a technical issue.
There is obviously a strong startup culture in ICT, especially in places like the US where it's practically the standard way of doing business. But not every country has a silicon valley, and even those that do, still have huge numbers of ICT staff embedded in other businesses, part of a branch which might be important but is never really part of the trunk. To break free of this, ICT entrepreneurs mainly find that they have to go it alone.
I think there are a few reasons for this:
(1) ICT is both more expensive and more valuable than most businesses can easily plan for
(2) ICT is both harder and more technical than most people can easily accommodate
(3) It's really hard to balance technical and business priorities at the same time in the same head
(4) There is such a major history of ICT project failures
(5) Most business people would rather be managing and doing business than thinking technically, and they have all the money
Is it any surprise that most capable people, when considering a career, don't pick a highly technical and difficult profession, that is generally paid at best a solid middle-class income?
One figure quoted in the article claims that people don't choose ICT as a university course because they don't understand what an ICT career is, and think it's basically just programming. I think it's true that people think that, but I think that is in large part because of how dead boring most IT in Australia is. You get paid okay, which is a good start, but not so well that it seems glamorous or important. Nobody sees ICT as the fast track to a BMW and private school fees for the kids. Doctors and lawyers spring to mind as examples of people who make the big bucks for their primary activity. ICT staff who make big bucks do so by transitioning out of doing ICT work and making the leap into another profession: managing people and running a business.
Most ICT is dead boring. Relatively few people have the chance to work on something that is even visible to a person outside the company, let alone something important. Mostly you get treated like you're not really a part of the business, which you're not. Or like you can't be trusted with business decisions, which you often can't, because you're never given a playground to learn and make mistakes in. If you want rewarding work, you either have to excel at your job, or go out and find it, deliberately and painstakingly. That's what I did.
Which is all completely stupid.
Because most ICT problems are exactly the frickin same as everyone else's problems. ICT staff are, mainly, technically competent general problem-solvers. Sounds like the ideal manager to me. They can tell when something is worth doing and when it's not, because every day they get confronted with a general problem, loosely specified, expressing somebodies need, and get expected to turn that into something that people can use to Get Stuff Done. As an ICT worker, I have seen a wider range of business problems than most. I see financial issues, legal ones, systems issues, scientific problems and the list just goes on and on.
However, they tend not to be exposed to the same range of "people problems" (and ways of solving them), such as negotiating, making a business case, making a sale, designing a business proposal, working with clients etc as those who are in directly relevant roles. It makes some sense. ICT staff need a fair bit of time to complete their technical work. They need the space to think and plan. You can't get into the zone of technical work with less than 3-4 hours of known uninterrupted time. etc etc.
What we mainly have, as I hope I have just illustrated, is in fact an economic and career management issue. It has, in my opinion, almost nothing to do with whether enough capable people would enjoy the work. They can just see it's a bit of a dead end for someone with ambition.
http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/a-brilliant-career--but-not-in-ict-20121112-29866.html
The article is fine. However, I think one of the main reasons that ICT careers are not fully appealing is that people have seen that when the rubber hits the road, and ICT pro will NEVER get the big promotion into management over people from other tracks within an organisation. This post is based purely on personal opinions, and has not undergone any real fact-checking. In fact, as soon as I started thinking too hard, I started poking holes in my own arguments. But, rather than sink the entire thing, I've posted it for crumbs of insight and general discussion...
Only a few people make big bucks directly out of ICT: Apple, Facebook, Google, hardware vendors, maybe a few others. By this I mean people who's core business does not extend beyond ICT. People who aren't in business mainly as part of a value chain which leads to something else.
For example, stock-trading companies. This is ludicrously heavily automated, and involved a lot of IT. However, a software engineer is never going to grow up to run the business themselves. They know too much about systems engineering, and not enough about running the business. Other tracks, like sales, or project managers, or product developers know far more about what it takes to stick with the trends and grow the business of taking other people's money in return for a service. And it's those people who will always run the business.
Another example, airplane companies. These businesses require autopilots that work, their flight routes are automatically determined, checkin is self-serve. But the fundamental transaction -- ticket for money -- is defined, grown and managed outside the ICT branch. No ICT professional will ever know as much or be as trusted to make business decisions as someone who has come out of the business part of the business.
ICT is simply not at the big table in most companies. There might be a CIO or CTO who is responsible for things like enterprise architecture, or for negotiating large contracts for computing services. Frequently, said CIO or CTO will not have come from the systems engineering, software engineering or system administration areas. They will only really exist to solve a problem and efficiently manage what looks to most people like a big fat cost centre that everyone needs but nobody really wants to be friends with.
Same with lawyers.
There are big companies, full of lawyers and full of ICT people, going around plying their trade. Within those firms, ICT staff can develop into business managers. But they're still the minority. Most ICT staff are still fundamentally embedded people inside other people's businesses, and with that model, there is always an uphill battle to the next promotion when competing with others who are inherently more trusted by that business. Most people just don't want to deal with the boring details of a technical issue.
There is obviously a strong startup culture in ICT, especially in places like the US where it's practically the standard way of doing business. But not every country has a silicon valley, and even those that do, still have huge numbers of ICT staff embedded in other businesses, part of a branch which might be important but is never really part of the trunk. To break free of this, ICT entrepreneurs mainly find that they have to go it alone.
I think there are a few reasons for this:
(1) ICT is both more expensive and more valuable than most businesses can easily plan for
(2) ICT is both harder and more technical than most people can easily accommodate
(3) It's really hard to balance technical and business priorities at the same time in the same head
(4) There is such a major history of ICT project failures
(5) Most business people would rather be managing and doing business than thinking technically, and they have all the money
Is it any surprise that most capable people, when considering a career, don't pick a highly technical and difficult profession, that is generally paid at best a solid middle-class income?
One figure quoted in the article claims that people don't choose ICT as a university course because they don't understand what an ICT career is, and think it's basically just programming. I think it's true that people think that, but I think that is in large part because of how dead boring most IT in Australia is. You get paid okay, which is a good start, but not so well that it seems glamorous or important. Nobody sees ICT as the fast track to a BMW and private school fees for the kids. Doctors and lawyers spring to mind as examples of people who make the big bucks for their primary activity. ICT staff who make big bucks do so by transitioning out of doing ICT work and making the leap into another profession: managing people and running a business.
Most ICT is dead boring. Relatively few people have the chance to work on something that is even visible to a person outside the company, let alone something important. Mostly you get treated like you're not really a part of the business, which you're not. Or like you can't be trusted with business decisions, which you often can't, because you're never given a playground to learn and make mistakes in. If you want rewarding work, you either have to excel at your job, or go out and find it, deliberately and painstakingly. That's what I did.
Which is all completely stupid.
Because most ICT problems are exactly the frickin same as everyone else's problems. ICT staff are, mainly, technically competent general problem-solvers. Sounds like the ideal manager to me. They can tell when something is worth doing and when it's not, because every day they get confronted with a general problem, loosely specified, expressing somebodies need, and get expected to turn that into something that people can use to Get Stuff Done. As an ICT worker, I have seen a wider range of business problems than most. I see financial issues, legal ones, systems issues, scientific problems and the list just goes on and on.
However, they tend not to be exposed to the same range of "people problems" (and ways of solving them), such as negotiating, making a business case, making a sale, designing a business proposal, working with clients etc as those who are in directly relevant roles. It makes some sense. ICT staff need a fair bit of time to complete their technical work. They need the space to think and plan. You can't get into the zone of technical work with less than 3-4 hours of known uninterrupted time. etc etc.
What we mainly have, as I hope I have just illustrated, is in fact an economic and career management issue. It has, in my opinion, almost nothing to do with whether enough capable people would enjoy the work. They can just see it's a bit of a dead end for someone with ambition.
Friday, August 24, 2012
PyCon AU write-up
Well, PyCon AU 2012 was definitely the best Olympics ever. The quality of the talks was outstanding, and the event organisation went flawlessly. Kudos all around.
I presented twice, videos available on YouTube:
"Visualising Architecture" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGOtqXA_y1E
"Virtual Robotic Car Racing with Python and TORCS" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGOtqXA_y1E
Visualising architecture presents some useful tools you can use easily for examing codebases and running systems to show the internal structures, and includes some discussion on good design in context. Robotic cars is pretty much as the title indicates. Thank you to everyone who showed up, sat through them, and special thanks to those who asked some great questions at the end. Speaking is a real pleasure when the audience is happy to talk afterwards.
Other talks I attended (and would recommend) were:
"What to buid. How to build it. Python can help!" by Mark Ramm. A great piece on, essentially, good management practises utilising evidence-gathering to make decisions. Presented examples based on product management at sourceforge. People should do this more.
"The Lazy Web Dev's Guide to Testing Your Web API" by Ryan Kelly. Ryan is a great speaker, and he showed some good techniques for reducing the amount of effort in testing web APIs.
"Python Dark Corners Revisited". Definitely worth a watch for anyone working with Python. A good explanation of Python's types and data structures, presented as a bunch of surprising and challenging short questions and explorations in Python.
"Funcargs and other fun with pytest" by Brianna Laugher. Everyone should know more about testing, py.test is a great tool, and the presentation was very practical and includes applied real-world examples and problem-solving.
"Python Powered Computational Geometry" by Andrew Walker. A great exploration of tools and techniques for representing and visualising 3d objects. Cool!
I didn't see, but plan to watch later, a couple of the other presentations. I'd also queue up "Think, Create, and Critique Design" by Andy Fitzsimon (video not available, but use Google to find the slides he posted); and "An unexpected day" by Aaron Iles.
I presented twice, videos available on YouTube:
"Visualising Architecture" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGOtqXA_y1E
"Virtual Robotic Car Racing with Python and TORCS" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGOtqXA_y1E
Visualising architecture presents some useful tools you can use easily for examing codebases and running systems to show the internal structures, and includes some discussion on good design in context. Robotic cars is pretty much as the title indicates. Thank you to everyone who showed up, sat through them, and special thanks to those who asked some great questions at the end. Speaking is a real pleasure when the audience is happy to talk afterwards.
Other talks I attended (and would recommend) were:
"What to buid. How to build it. Python can help!" by Mark Ramm. A great piece on, essentially, good management practises utilising evidence-gathering to make decisions. Presented examples based on product management at sourceforge. People should do this more.
"The Lazy Web Dev's Guide to Testing Your Web API" by Ryan Kelly. Ryan is a great speaker, and he showed some good techniques for reducing the amount of effort in testing web APIs.
"Python Dark Corners Revisited". Definitely worth a watch for anyone working with Python. A good explanation of Python's types and data structures, presented as a bunch of surprising and challenging short questions and explorations in Python.
"Funcargs and other fun with pytest" by Brianna Laugher. Everyone should know more about testing, py.test is a great tool, and the presentation was very practical and includes applied real-world examples and problem-solving.
"Python Powered Computational Geometry" by Andrew Walker. A great exploration of tools and techniques for representing and visualising 3d objects. Cool!
I didn't see, but plan to watch later, a couple of the other presentations. I'd also queue up "Think, Create, and Critique Design" by Andy Fitzsimon (video not available, but use Google to find the slides he posted); and "An unexpected day" by Aaron Iles.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Committing to Git
I've been doing a bit more developing lately, and a bit less hanging around in meetings. As a result, it has become somewhat painfully obvious that I don't quite know all the right things any more. One of the moves I have made is to use git-svn to interact with our SVN repo. This basically gives me all the relevant advantages of git, without having to go and have a fight well-reasoned discussion with the manager of said repo to bring about the change.
There are some things I've learned painfully, and some positive workflow changes I have come across. These are my notes on the topic so far.
Basic workflow:
1.) git svn clone the repo
2.) ALWAYS WORK ON A BRANCH. You do *not*, I repeat do *not* want to do a git svn fetch and discover you have introduced merge conflicts into your master branch. Masters of git kung fu can probably get themselves out of this hole, but it's fairly painful.
3). ALWAYS WORK ON A BRANCH.
4.) Okay, so you're working on a branch. Switching branches is pretty easy. However, you do need to notice that creating a new branch is not the same thing as working on it. Either use git checkout -b, or checkout the branch after creating it. You'll get used to this.
5.) Your local file changes follow you around as you switch branches. I have no idea what would happen if two branches had, say, wildly different directory structures. Probably you would have to rely on git being awesome.
6.) Sometimes, I have had some problems with the local git log not matching up with the remote SVN log after doing a git svn dcommit. I followed some script on the internet once to "fix" it. It worked the first time. The second time, it corrupted my entire git repository just before a deadline, and basically everything was terrible. Luckily I had an SVN repo as well and copied my changes there manually before blowing away my whole git repository. The moral of the story is that while learning, maintain a parallel repo using plain SVN so that you have a separated clean system which you can switch to if the going gets scary.
Covering Your Ass
I would recommend this. I don't know about you, but my fellow devs tend to get a bit twitchy if I commit too much lint or break tests, I can't think why. I have a tendency to get frustrated about 80% of the way through complex work, and it's really useful to have automation in place to protect against stupid mistakes.
Fortunately, git comes with an inbuilt ass-covering system, called hooks. It lives inside the git repository, which makes me feel faintly suspicious about it, but it both exists and works. Inside .git/hooks you will find a collection of files *.sample. If you make copies of these without the .sample extension, you can add automated checks and processes to the system. As follows.
pre-commit:
This runs, as said, before anything gets *really* committed. This is a good spot to add a pylint check, a pep8 check, and maybe a short run of unit tests. Before you even get the chance to type your commit message, there is a safety net. You can skip this with --no-verify.
prepare-commit-msg:
This allows you to template your commit messages. For example, if your system requires a bug ID to go along with each commit message, you can insert template text into the message here.
These are just shell scripts. Since I basically hate everything that is not python, my first step is to start the files with
#!/usr/bin/python
which will cause them to be interpreted in python rather than bash. FTW!
There are some things I've learned painfully, and some positive workflow changes I have come across. These are my notes on the topic so far.
Basic workflow:
1.) git svn clone the repo
2.) ALWAYS WORK ON A BRANCH. You do *not*, I repeat do *not* want to do a git svn fetch and discover you have introduced merge conflicts into your master branch. Masters of git kung fu can probably get themselves out of this hole, but it's fairly painful.
3). ALWAYS WORK ON A BRANCH.
4.) Okay, so you're working on a branch. Switching branches is pretty easy. However, you do need to notice that creating a new branch is not the same thing as working on it. Either use git checkout -b, or checkout the branch after creating it. You'll get used to this.
5.) Your local file changes follow you around as you switch branches. I have no idea what would happen if two branches had, say, wildly different directory structures. Probably you would have to rely on git being awesome.
6.) Sometimes, I have had some problems with the local git log not matching up with the remote SVN log after doing a git svn dcommit. I followed some script on the internet once to "fix" it. It worked the first time. The second time, it corrupted my entire git repository just before a deadline, and basically everything was terrible. Luckily I had an SVN repo as well and copied my changes there manually before blowing away my whole git repository. The moral of the story is that while learning, maintain a parallel repo using plain SVN so that you have a separated clean system which you can switch to if the going gets scary.
Covering Your Ass
I would recommend this. I don't know about you, but my fellow devs tend to get a bit twitchy if I commit too much lint or break tests, I can't think why. I have a tendency to get frustrated about 80% of the way through complex work, and it's really useful to have automation in place to protect against stupid mistakes.
Fortunately, git comes with an inbuilt ass-covering system, called hooks. It lives inside the git repository, which makes me feel faintly suspicious about it, but it both exists and works. Inside .git/hooks you will find a collection of files *.sample. If you make copies of these without the .sample extension, you can add automated checks and processes to the system. As follows.
pre-commit:
This runs, as said, before anything gets *really* committed. This is a good spot to add a pylint check, a pep8 check, and maybe a short run of unit tests. Before you even get the chance to type your commit message, there is a safety net. You can skip this with --no-verify.
prepare-commit-msg:
This allows you to template your commit messages. For example, if your system requires a bug ID to go along with each commit message, you can insert template text into the message here.
These are just shell scripts. Since I basically hate everything that is not python, my first step is to start the files with
#!/usr/bin/python
which will cause them to be interpreted in python rather than bash. FTW!
Initiate debugger using signals
So, I was watching a lightning talk at PyCon AU yesterday, and I think the speaker's first name was Matt. Apologies for not giving a better reference. It all went by pretty quick, but I think I heard something like "Why not use a signal to start the debugger in Python"?
And so I did. I can't work out if this is too trivial to upload to the cheese shop, but if you create a file called "signal_handler.py", and import it from anywhere in your code, you will magically link up the SIGINT (what gets sent by control-C) to the Python debugger. For extra win, it will try to initiate "ipdb" if you have it. I haven't actually tested it on pdb, but it's hard to see how it could fail to work. Besides, you should be using ipdb (pip install ipdb).
And so I did. I can't work out if this is too trivial to upload to the cheese shop, but if you create a file called "signal_handler.py", and import it from anywhere in your code, you will magically link up the SIGINT (what gets sent by control-C) to the Python debugger. For extra win, it will try to initiate "ipdb" if you have it. I haven't actually tested it on pdb, but it's hard to see how it could fail to work. Besides, you should be using ipdb (pip install ipdb).
import signal
try:
import ipdb as pdb
except:
import pdb
def handle_signal(signal_number, frame_stack):
pdb.set_trace()
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, handle_signal)
Voila! Now, next time you are watching your app run and you need to start the debugger when you least expected it, you can just do it!
A small note of caution -- it's probably wrong to override the SIGINT expected behaviour in this way. You could also wire it up to, say, SIGUSR1, but then you would have to explicitly sent the signal with "kill -10". It would work perfectly fine, but is a bit less convenient that just slamming ctrl-c wherever processing happens to be. I'm not sure what else might want/need to sent the occasional SIGINT and rely on normal behaviour, so use this at your own risk!
When you push ctrl-d to end the debugger, you will exit the program.
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