Tag: scm

The eli4d Gazette – Issue 066: GitHub’s FREE private repos, Neat 2019 Tech Conferences, and the Amazingly Written “Leviathan Wakes”

GitHub announces unlimited free private repos

GitHub is the standard when it comes to Git based source control management.

Up to now, you could get a free account as long as your code was publicly viewable. While this has been great for public facing open source projects, it was problematic for those that wanted private source repositories (aka ‘repos’). A viable free private repo alternative has been Atlassian’s Bitbucket.

GitHub has recently announced unlimited free private repos. This change is great for anyone who wants to experiment around with some code without exposing their cruft out in public.

Some folks have lamented that now there will be many personal projects that will be locked away in private repos and that takes away valuable code that could be “out there.” While I understand this objection, I think it’s somewhat questionable. Every developer has the right to determine what is crappy code and what isn’t, and whether s/he is comfortable publishing it. After all, once something is public on the internet, it’s there forever.

Before GitHub’s change, Bitbucket was already used for private repos – so what exactly has changed? Am I to understand that Bitbucket’s free private repo feature was so secret that no developer ever used it? Or perhaps developers were too lazy to switch from GitHub to Bitbucket for personal projects?

Some interesting conferences from Delicious Brains

Delicious Brains is a WordPress company that develops high-end plug-ins for WordPress developers. They have a really nice development blog.

In a recent blog entry, they had a comprehensive listing of upcoming JavaScript, WordPress, CSS, UX, Tech and PHP conferences: https://deliciousbrains.com/php-javascript-wordpress-conferences-2019/

Just Finished Reading

I just finished reading Leviathan Wakes which is the first book from The Expanse Series. This was an amazingly well-written book covering the near future. In all honesty, no amount of words can express how well written this book is so I’ll pick three sentences that scratch the surface of this writing:

Here is a description of a space ship…can you see the image?

Three-quarters of a kilometer long, a quarter of a kilometer wide—roughly shaped like a fire hydrant—and mostly empty space inside, the Canterbury was a retooled colony transport.

What about these sentences?

Seven years in Earth’s navy, five years working in space with civilians, and he’d never gotten used to the long, thin, improbable bones of Belters. A childhood spent in gravity shaped the way he saw things forever.

Thoughts? Feedback? Let me know: @eli4d on Twitter

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The eli4d Gazette – Issue 040

Tech Pick

I’ve mentioned the source control management system Git before as well as Jason McCreary’s excellent course. I recently came across some great information from Atlassian in regards to Git. Atlassian hosts a Github competitor called Bitbucket. One of Bitbucket’s great advantage is free hosting for unlimited private repositories.

Now onto the awesome tutorials from Atlassian:

Media Pick

It’s that time of the year, the leaves are turning gold and falling in some places, and Costco has Christmas decorations for sale. It’s also the time of the year for non-profit pledge drives like Radiotopia – a purveyor of independent, thoughtful, and occasionally heart wrenching podcasts. I am a big fan of “99% invisible”, “The truth”, and “Trump Con Law”.

Consider that only 7 in 10,000 listeners are actual supporters of Radiotopia (and I would guess similar podcasts).

Fun Pick

The iPhone X’s animoji capability is like Snapchat’s face filters on steroids. Here are some best animoji karaoke videos that I’ve come across (I know it’s ridiculous, but this cracks me up when I imagine the faces of the people that are producing this – contorting their faces and lip syncing to create the animoji facial expressions):

Thoughts? Feedback? Let me know: @eli4d on Twitter

The eli4d Gazette – Issue 037

Tech Pick

I’ve been going through Jason McCreary‘s Getting Git course. I’ve used git superficially in the past, but I didn’t ‘get’ it. At $29 it is an amazing bargain and is well worth purchasing. The course is broken down into the following sections:

  • Making Changes
  • Viewing History
  • Managing Workflows
  • Sharing Work
  • Everyday Git

Each section contains the git commands related to that section, and it is covered through two videos. There’s an ‘init’ video which is a short video (typically one minute max) introducing the command. This is followed by a ‘Master’ video covering greater details of the command and providing context to both the section and its usage.

One core feature of this course is that it is all about the practical usage of git. There’s no esoteric ‘stuff,’ which is helpful when you need to work with git quickly.

My approach has been to mirror what Jason shows in a terminal window of my own and to take notes about it. Jason keeps each video’s set-up (in terms of the initial repository) to the bare minimum, which makes it fairly easy to follow and practice.

Media Pick

If you’re looking for a quirky podcast – check out Reply All. It’s hard to describe this podcast. I’d recommend that you start with the Phantom Caller episode.

Thoughts? Feedback? Let me know: @eli4d on Twitter