The CapsLock Key was not the Problem
It’s fashionable among developers to give a tip about the CapsLock key: you can switch out its functionality, replacing it with the Escape key. When I did this, in order to then type out something like SEQUENCE_OF_UPPERCASE_WORDS, I’d hold down the shift key using my left pinky finger, and type out the letters as necessary.
– And if you [...]
The just Command Runner is an Neat Tool
I came across the tool just. It’s a tool for running commands/scripts. My initial impression was “that’s it?”. I might describe it slightly differently, compared to other common workflows: It’s common to see make used with a bunch of .PHONY: targets. The point of a make is to describe how some target is built. But since people will often want [...]
Using NixOS Specialisations to Try Out Different Desktop Environments
Recently, Tweag’s blog featured a post on NixOS specialisations. It allows for having an additional boot entry in grub which loads a slightly different configuration. – This makes it very convenient to try slightly different NixOS configurations. As the blogpost above shows, this can be used for different desktop environments. I ran into some problems with conflicting attributes, and wasn’t [...]
Git Worktrees a Neat Command for Working with Multiple Versions of a Repo
git-worktree has apparently been in git for some time, but I’ve only recently learned of it. It lets you conveniently check out multiple versions of a repository at once. Which may sound only marginally useful; but I find the benefit to be better than it sounds. (e.g. Without the worktree command, perhaps the easiest way to imitate it would be [...]
Signal Boost drduh's Yubikey Guide
https://github.com/drduh/YubiKey-Guide I recently set up my Yubikeys so that I could use the key to hold the private keys I use with git. I spent a bunch of time reading through various guides discussing how to set up a master key with an offline backup, and how to put this on a GPG smartcard. Drduh’s guide above is the best [...]
Travel Setup Using a Fancy Keyboard with a Laptop
One of the downsides to using a fancy keyboard is that it’s difficult to use when out and about with a laptop. This is arguably mitigated by that laptops themselves have a keyboard. I like my small, fancy keyboard much more than the laptop keyboard, though. (My thumbs get access to 2-3 keys each on my fancy keyboard, etc.). Here’s [...]
A Visual Explanation of GPG Subkeys
As with anyone who’s been using git for long enough, I’m familiar enough with SSH keys (Even to the point where I don’t really need to follow the GitHub docs for generating a new key. My developer journey hasn’t led me to build the same intuition for GPG keys. So, when I see fancy wiki pages and guids, such as [...]
EPA in Emacs is a Neat UX on top of GPG
GPG is notorious for having an archane interface which is easy to misuse. As a developer, the most I’ve used it for has been to sign git commits. Emacs supports a workflow which uses GPG to automatically decrypt the file when reading it, and automatically encrypt the file when saving it. With the Doom Emacs distribution of Emacs, if the [...]
Tool Recommendation: Helix Editor
The Helix editor is a fancy new text editor which looks to be a compelling competitor to vim for modern developer environments. Currently, my preferred editing environment is Emacs, making use of the Doom Emacs distribution. Before that, I was using vim (and its cousin, neovim). And I still use neovim for editing files from the command line. But, I’d [...]
Use of Anki for Programming
Anki is software which helps you to review flash cards. What’s notable about it is it uses the idea of Spaced Repitition; by getting you to recall something at approximately the time you would otherwise have forgotten it, you’re better able to recall some fact at increasingly long intervals. This is useful for foreign language learning (or health science) where [...]