The sad part is, that Apple used to make somewhat stable, functional software. I started with the iPhone 3 and a bit later with Mac OS Snow Leopard.
It all started when Mr Cook decided to serve the shareholders, instead of focusing on Apple's core values. The software went downhill in such a speed in just a few years. And moving out of the ecosystem is a painful, if not unbearable, task that barely anyone loves to do. At least I can't even think about moving back to Android.
I recently tested Swiftkey after Typewise is sadly abandoned. It's sooooo much better than the stock keyboard. Not only is the auto-correct working incredibly well (garbage like witjoit is correctly transformed to without, which Apple Keyboard can't), Swiftkey also manages multi-language typing astonishingly well. Last but not least, I can customize it. I am also not signed in to my account, so no settings or whatever is stored on Microsoft servers.
I consider moving away from Github, but I need a solid CI solution, and ideally a container registry as well. Would totally pay for a solution that just works. Any good recommendations?
We can run a Forgejo instance for you with Firecracker VM runners on bare metal. We can also support it and provide an SLA. We're running it internally and it is very solid. We're running the runners on bare metal, with a whole lot of large CI/CD jobs (mostly Rust compilation).
The down side is that the starting price is kinda high, so the math probably only works out if you also have a number of other workloads to run on the same cluster. Or if you need to run a really huge Forgejo server!
I suspect my comment history will provide the best details and overview of what we do. We'll be offering the Firecracker runner back to the Forgejo community very soon in any case.
I actually went through some of the issue/pr stuff for the forgejo project after I asked you. It seems like things are moving along nicely and you seem to have found a welcoming environment in their repo. I will keep an eye on that progress. Thanks very much. I do not have a pressing need but firecracker runners would be pretty awesome to have.
Long time GitLab fan myself. The platform itself is quite solid, and GitLab CI is extremely straightforward but allows for a lot of complexity if you need it. They have registries as well, though admittedly the permission stuff around them is a bit wonky. But it definitely works and integrates nicely when you use everything all in one!
Should our repos be responsible for CI in the first place? Seems like we keep losing the idea of simple tools to do specific jobs well (unix-like) and keep growing tools to be larger while attempting to do more things much less well (microsoft-like).
I think most large platforms eventually split the tools out because you indeed can get MUCH better CI/CD, ticket management, documentation, etc from dedicated platforms for each. However when you're just starting out the cognitive overhead and cost of signing up and connecting multiple services is a lot higher than using all the tools bundled (initially for free) with your repo.
I have searched for a proper keyboard replacement. But there is not a single one that 1) works properly without major bugs, 2) adheres to privacy standards (because no way I am sending all keystrokes to Microslop) and 3) does not cost a fortune. Typewise came close, but seems abandoned now.
I really wish Apple would allow us to swap out the Finder with something else, so files open in that other app instead of the Finder. This works reasonable well on Windows, where I "replaced" the Explorer with Directory Opus.
This used to be possible, I remember that I replaced Finder with some other app many years ago. I strongly assume that this doesn't work any more, though.
I recall you used to be able to flip some bit somewhere to allow you to Quit the Finder, but I assume that's disappeared inside the encrypted and signed partition where Apple keeps all the things us stupid users shouldn't be allowed to touch.
But even then, you'd want more than just that, as when you tell the OS to "Reveal" a file or open a folder, that's the association I'd want to be able to change.
Honestly I'd really prefer the Windows XP File Explorer to the pile of crap the Finder has turned into.
> But even then, you'd want more than just that, as when you tell the OS to "Reveal" a file or open a folder, that's the association I'd want to be able to change.
yep, that should just be a normal setting like default browser (one thing i like about linux nowadays)
Ah yes, thank you for reminding me - of course, it was Path Finder! You could even have it respond to "Reveal". Not sure any more if it was by renaming Path Finder to /Applications/Finder, or by changing its Bundle id to com.apple.finder, or some other trick.
"of course, it was Path Finder! You could even have it respond to 'Reveal'"
This still works. I have been using macs since 1985 and have always hated the Finder. In the days of classic Mac OS, my go to for file management was a desk accessory called DiskTop, which was great. Super fast and easy to operate from the keyboard.
When I switched to OSX, I needed something better than the Finder, chose Path Finder, and have been using it ever since. I have my complaints about it but have not been able to find anything I like better.
I've also found many Actions that do other dodgy stuff, like pulling and executing unpinned scripts from external websites, or installing unpinned binaries from GitHub releases. Pinning an Action isn't enough, you have to audit it.
This may be better than Google, but I don't understand why a blog needs a font CDN at all. Just use standard fonts or host them yourself if you really can't do without your SuperCoolFont.
For real - computers come with a shitton of nice fonts these days. Plus like, font styling allows fallbacks -- choose a nice font stack where all the fallbacks look nice, and you're good to go.
The problem is that you also can't use the majority of local fonts people already have installed because advertisers started requesting those on hidden canvases to try to pinpoint segments of users based on which fonts you have installed, so `local('Some Font Name')` in CSS now sometimes just doesn't work in some browsers to prevent that privacy leak.
Advertising networks: the exact evil for why we can't have nice things on the web.
There's so much good advice in this article. My number one point that i learned the hard way during two decades of writing software: take breaks when your body tells you to. It's an absolute killer if you force yourself to work on your projects just because there's stuff on your to do list, new issues on Github, or whatever. Just stop working if you don't feel it.
There’s so much good advice in the article and I think most developers know these intuitively to a certain extent. The problem with it though is that corporate culture tends to ignore these and is very unforgiving in my experience. When you have to deliver everything on time, all the time, you can’t take any of this advice and practically use it. Taking time with learning for example is something you can do only when your manager allows it, your peers (technical and non technical) won’t take any issue with it and the price of taking time isn’t going to be a negative performance review.
That's hard. My only advice when working in a stifling, corporate environment is to find out what your education budget is and then use it for the kind of learning I was referring to in the article. (If you don't have an education budget, that's one more reason to start planning a job move...)
There’s no golden rule. For me, both work and learning out of curiosity is stress inducing activity. Nail biting, valsalva breathing, skin rashes etc.
I just grind through it and repeat the days.
I would do only aimless activities if I relied on the feels.
This kind of negative emotional investment seems to be the only thing that improves my abilities. If I’m learning through Anki or playing tunes on the piano, habit can stop after 6 months of regular daily practice.
But if I’m on the brink of stress rage frustration, somehow it persists .
I feel like that's great advice for people working on their own side projects.
But... I'm employed? I mean surely it translates to "go on vacation" but it's pretty useless advice for days where you simply have to work and can't just... not?
I don't think it needs to translate to "go on vacation". During my time being employed, this translated into getting up and stretching, taking a few minutes to look out the window, going for a short walk, taking an intentional breath, sitting and meditating for 15 minutes, actually eating lunch away from my computer, or not eating lunch and going for a quick run or doing yoga or going to the gym.
This can come forth in so many ways.
Moment by moment we can have an eye on our body and what it is asking for, I've found it to not only make me more productive, but also led to my baseline of stress to being way, way lower then everyone around me which is contagious in a positive way.
I take your point as I'm retired. But I had my previous working life squarely in mind when writing the post.
"Sustainable pace" helps, which in my case came down to 37 hour working weeks, not working at weekends, and taking all my vacation (and some extra when my employer let me buy it). I know this might sound like madness to Americans, but as a Brit employed mostly by American companies, it worked fine for me.
I found that taking plenty of breaks during the working day helped. Coffee breaks with colleagues, a decent lunch break (ideally including exercise), and plenty of tea breaks. So many times I've had a good idea or solved a problem during a break, so they are actually productive.
Then there's finding other useful things to do which aren't as taxing as the thing that's blocking you (e.g. the next large feature). Fixing bugs, writing docs, and doing preparatory investigations about the upcoming work are all productive ways to give yourself a bit of a mental break. (This was hardest when working in teams with continual short sprints or doing XP and pairing, but if I allowed myself to start to burn out, my productivity started to decline - essentially my brain was forcing me to take things a little more slowly in order to recover.)
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