March 2024
I am aggregating here some more or less interesting stuff of various IT related materials which I came across this month. Some of them are strictly related to the things I did or am currently doing.
Articles
Speaking for Hackers
How to keep a roomful of programmers entertained when your competition is the internet.
Julia Evans: git branches: intuition & reality
... I’ve been thinking about git branches a lot. I keep hearing from people that they find the way git branches work to be counterintuitive. It got me thinking: what might an “intuitive” notion of a branch be, and how is it different from how git actually works?
Julia Evans: Inside .git
Hello! I posted a comic on Mastodon this week about what’s in the .git directory and someone requested a text version, so here it is.
New Study Reveals The Single Most Important Factor for Learning Rate
A recent paper I encountered suggests that the rate of learning among students doesn’t actually differ all that much. Instead, what differs mostly between students is their prior knowledge.
Feature flags are ruining your codebase
The dangers of letting PMs control them
The 2038 Problem
The End of Time
(Almost) Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years running infrastructure at a startup
This post will list some of the major decisions made and if I endorse them for your startup, or if I regret them and advise you to pick something else.
The “errors” that mean you’re doing it right
Some things appear to be mistakes, but in fact should be celebrated as the expected outcomes of great decisions.
Productivity
The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity Methods
You don't need a to-do list, you need a system you can trust.
William J. Rapaport: How to Study: A Brief Guide
I am going to give you some suggestions on how to study efficiently. They worked for me when I was in high school, college, and graduate school.
Python
Safely rewriting complex code
First of all I would suggest making sure you test the function as good as you can. More often than not I found small issues with the new implementation by simply running tests for the old code against the new one.
Implementing a lasting service pattern for your business logic
Best practices for building an understandable, maintainable and scalable home for your custom logic
Getting help [in Python] 🧙
>>> help()
A Retrospective on Requests
... most people only know that Requests does the right things for them for TLS and some other HTTP behaviour, but I doubt anyone understands just how bad the project is internally.
Django
The simplest way to add Google sign-in to your Django app ✍️
All the guides I've seen about adding Google Sign to Django make it overly complicated (e.g., Django-allauth or Django-social-auth).
Python libraries
uv
An extremely fast Python package installer and resolver, written in Rust. Designed as a drop-in replacement for common pip and pip-tools workflows.
procrastinate
PostgreSQL-based Task Queue for Python.
prettymapp
Prettymapp is a webapp and Python package to create beautiful maps from OpenStreetMap data.
Django libraries
django-queryhunter
Hunt down the lines of your Django application code which are responsible for executing the most queries.
Tools
PiPHero
The macOS menu bar app to picture-in-picture any window.
Cloud
Google Cloud Architecture Framework
The Google Cloud Architecture Framework provides recommendations and describes best practices to help architects, developers, administrators, and other cloud practitioners design and operate a cloud topology that's secure, efficient, resilient, high-performing, and cost-effective. The Google Cloud Architecture Framework is our version of a well-architected framework
Other stuff
Mastering Behavioral Interviews for Software Developers
This video course is designed to equip developers with the essential skills and insights necessary for excelling in behavior-based interviews.
Intel One Mono Typeface
Introducing Intel One Mono, an expressive monospaced font family that’s built with clarity, legibility, and the needs of developers in mind.