Git, GitHub and Social Coding

via Video: Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath and Scott Chacon — Git, GitHub and Social Coding.

While I don’t use GitHub for my projects, most of the rubygems and other code bases exist on GitHub. I guess there are the few that are still on Google Code and even fewer on SourceForge.

The video, not only being extremely informative for someone who doesn’t know anything about git (but would like to know more), was a very nice overview of what I’ve been learning in the past couple months. (Especially more so the past couple of weeks.)

What I find awesome is that (at least Chris specifically) had a very personal problem he wanted to fix with version control systems (Subversion, in his case) and supporting tools (Bugzilla, in his case).

Sidenote: Chris’s presentation images are just hilarious. One comment: SVN could have been the lighthouse, not the “house”. The whole centralized repository idea?

Yahoo! blahblah Microsoft blahblah

The rumors existed for years now, and this morning, it happened. But because the entirety of the Internetz is covering this story, I waited until there was a more opinionated voice of reason.

The New Yahoo: Smartly Optimized for a Microsoft Takeover

Great article. Brings up a lot of points I would have if I sat down and thought it through.

Microsoft owns part of Facebook, runs advertising on Digg and may soon own Delicious & Flickr. Web 2.0 is over.

Very interesting.

Who needs TV when you’ve got real life drama all up in hurr?

Week in Review + Today's Yahoo & OpenID News

This week… keeps on surprising me. So, in review:

  • Monday: Zuckerborg’s boring and awkward “60 Minutes” reactions
  • Tuesday: Macworld: MacBook Air and et cetera
  • Wednesday: MySQL for $1 Billion by Sun, BEA for $8.5 billion by Oracle

And today:

The Obligatory OpenID logo

I guess I should start an OpenID related post with an OpenID logo… like every single other freaking tech blog…

I guess Yahoo! is in. OpenID has been one of those lovely ideas that’s been taking quite a while to take off. Maybe one year from now, this poll from Mashable will change dramatically:

Mashable's Poll on the Usage of OpenID

I selected Never. I’m willing to be a lot of the web applications I use already implement OpenID, and yet I never ever seem to actually need it. I wonder what the killer application is going to be for OpenID, because the way things are now doesn’t really bother the 95% of the Internet users just yet.

So many of these great ideas… sometimes never seem to take off. We’ll see if the Semantic Web will be as awesome it is going to be, with applications like shift-space.

IMAP on Google: Took Them Long Enough…

I guess Google thought I wasn’t cool enough, because starting last week, Gmail had been phasing in IMAP. But today, they’ve finally announced the darn thing for everyone.

Seriously. Took them long enough! I guess it wasn’t ranked high on the list of priorities at Google, seeing how iPhone users are like one in a million (and yes, I know there are non-iPhone users who would be interested in IMAP… but I’m sure the push for it had to do something with it). But still, I trusted Google to step it up and to bring their A game. I didn’t want to create some kind of kludge forwarding system to Yahoo! and have to deal with other accounts.

Huzzah.

Nothing to See Here: Just a Tired Man

I’ve been dying to put something up here. Something eloquent. Something earth-shattering. I mean, if it took this kid like a month to post something, it’s bound to be nuggets of diamond-encrusted platinum, right?

But I come before you, a humble man: I’ve got really nothing to say. And since I’ve got nothing to say (at least… I’m not lying to you), I think this is the best time to return to the “blogosphere”.

I’m not trying to come up with excuses as to why this blog has been just wasting away (no… it’s not WoW or Ruby or other life changing… events…), but I think it’s good to kinda throw out some possibilities as to why this might have happened.


I think it’s safe to say this: I was slapped on the wrist for violating an NDA with Yahoo! during the interview process. I’m still not 100% sure what I did to break it (I’m about 90% sure). Whatever it was, I think it was settled. I complied and removed the offending posts. I really should have requested a hard copy of that NDA… but I really don’t care too much about Yahoo! at this point. A recent article on Ars Technica covered a story on something like this.

At least I didn’t pull a “Josh Kim” after getting a job. Whew.

Anyway, all that insanity made me question something about this blog: Who am I writing for? Yes, it is indeed, partially for me… but what about everyone else?

I just haven’t really realized how public my blog is. I mean… it’s just as easy to get to my site as it is to get to facebook or google. This is the beauty of the Internet, and one of the many reasons why I got into web development in the first place. (However, seeing how Dreamhost has been acting up in the last couple of weeks… I’m considering switching hosts.)

So what is to become of JoshKim.org?

I think I’m going to keep it just as open as before… but with more sobriety (and no drinking jokes here, please). I think I just need to keep straight that this blog, while frequent most by the loyalist of fans (i.e., friends I know in real life), can and will be visited by people I’ve never met before. (That “How to Hack Xanga, Kinda” is one of the few examples as to why this statement is… so very true.)

In general, I need to start posting less personal posts. I have a lot of “Lessons Learned” posts, but I need to make sure those are just vague enough so that the people that were involved in the incident would know, and only those people.

Link blog? I think I should start it up someday… I have too many links to share with the world. I should at least start with my starred items in Google Reader.


Ruby. Rails. I’ve started going through the books. And methodically, might I add. I forgot how much I learn by doing. I also forgot how much I love to learn by doing. Yikes.

Purpose. Without purpose… why even do it? Follow the examples…

Why do all my posts end up with some kind of universal life lesson? Oh, right. Metacognition.

Ugh.


Chicago, Illinois. Madison, Wisconsin. Fun.

Another Personal Update

Yes, I realize there’s been a lack of actual content with the blog.

I apologize.

Instead, you keep getting my personal ramblings. Yikes.

I’m currently working on an entry on Facebook and how it’s changing social networking in the real world, as well as a post on why I started buying books again, especially technical books.

Yahoo! Homework is going swimmingly. I’m almost set, except for a little JavaScript magic which should take about an hour, as well as going for a couple more bonus points for compatibility with multiple browsers. That’ll be most of tomorrow spent at Grainger.

Which brings me to a few things I have to finish up as I leave Grainger. Subversion demo/presentation is tomorrow at 10, and so I am completing some documentation for that.

Need coffee. Not an all-nighter, but I just need a boost.

By the way, Dave Brubeck is amazing. Someone please point me to some other good Jazz musicians… this is a new genre of music I need to continue exploring.

Oh, and beer tasting. Something tells me I’ll be… slightly inebriated tomorrow.

Let’s see… more randomness…

Grainger’s full today. All the nerds are studying for their finals. Why wasn’t I like this back in the day…

Oh one last thing I’ve realized… I cannot get work done at my apartment here on campus. One thing, my apartment is not very inviting for work, because of the horrible desk height/chair combo (as well as the lighting). I’m going to have to revisit some ergonomic issues later, but… looks like it doesn’t really matter much anymore. I’m really amazed that I got any work done in the past 4 months there… wow.

A larger issue is that… I have a feeling I really do have to get out from where I sleep to get work done. Be it the kitchen table… or even a separate office room. This is all, of course, planning for the days of the start-up.

Look at the time, back to work!

The To-Do List

Either things are actually due on Monday, or I’m making them so.

  • Design “Homework” for Y!: I got started today… only a couple of hours here and there. Looks like there’s quite a bit to be done.
    • Note to self: Don’t get bogged down in the details. Optimize later…
    • Goal tonight: Finish the markup, at least.
  • CVS/SVN presentation: Both from the admin and the client point of view (including Mac and PC svn clients). I’ve implemented the server before, but I’m still not 100% satisfied as to what I can actually do.
    • Note to self: Don’t get bogged down in the details. Once again… stop being so darn detail-oriented
  • Slowdown bug for Moodle upgrades: Using Xdebug to profile Moodle, and to see where the bottleneck is…
    • Possible Solution: Cache the DB if the problem is indeed MySQL.
    • Goal tonight: Continue figuring out where the bottleneck is… debugging isn’t as nearly as fun as design…
  • Attend the Webmaster Forum on Thursday: Means… I have to go back to Urbana by Wednesday night.
  • Decide who to tell about my dreams and hopes…
    • Indeed… tricky situation…

Tired…

I feel like it’s all been a dream in the past three days. Visiting the Yahoo! campus… Just driving past Apple campus… Having a trip to San Jose completely paid for…

I’ve been told I look a little tanned. I’m uncertain how this could be, since I spent most of the day… in the tiniest room on the 2nd floor of building G, “.eu”. For some reason, all the conference rooms on that floor is named after TLDs (1st floor rooms looked like they were named after “I Love Lucy” characters).

Between you and me, dear reader, I don’t think most people who know me personally read this blog. My my, what a world they’re missing…

I hope to post the “post-interview with Yahoo!” tonight… but it might be tomorrow. Hence, this little stub of an entry will have to do for tonight.

Yahoo? Yahoo!

Yes. I am indeed… excited, to say the least. The irony is that the name of the company I will be interviewing tomorrow for about… oh… five hours is what I feel like shouting at the top of my lungs, as I’m driving down 101 in my rental PT Cruiser.

And with that… and without reading my feeds… time to sleep.