Tag: SVN

The new phonebook

The new Growl is here! The new Growl is here!

Oh, wait, it’s now a paid application? But it’s open source.

So now we’re in dependency hell because there’s no Maven-like dependency management widget in Xcode. Also, knowing full well I’m behind the times, I still prefer SVN to either Git or Mercurial. I understand how both of these are more desirable in OSS development initiatives. I just don’t like them.

Oh, and so what is up with Google now running all of their search result links through their own proxy now? I really dislike the extraneous metadata they attach to their links now. It’s also a PITA to clean up because, bless their hearts, they are actually HTTP escaping their URLs. Now one right-clicks a search result link and gets http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fbrowse%2Fstupid&ei=rge4TqGZDYnhsQKCndT_Aw&usg=AFQjCNGEqQexn968lheIsBKwJ37dIe1d9Q when all one really wants is http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stupid.

For some reason this running all search results through their proxy really pisses me off. I’d expect this from Microsoft. Coming from Google, this feels icky and gamable. So, off to find some Greasemonkey or Firefox plugin that scrapes that metadata while I continue to try building Growl.

I don’t even know what is so desirable about this new version…. FML?

SVN Deployment

Seems simple in that “WTF is up with me not doing that until now” kind of way but setting up all of your web content in SVN and then using svn export to deploy to your production server just plain rocks.

  1. Version control–which is desirable on its face
  2. The model enforces backing up–your deployment is just a copy of your versioned repository
  3. Instant recovery
  4. Work locally, publish remotely–no zOMGWTFBBQ moments when your internet connection breaks the I/O pipe your text editor is relying on or even dropping your terminal session, whereby you lose your work

There are many things I’ve learned working in CM these last few years, but the value of SVN or version control generally, continues to be the lesson that keeps paying dividends.

If I were still rabbiting away at the computer lab at $SATELLITE_CAMPUS library, I’d be advocating to teach a mini course on version control as a tool for managing all research projects/papers. It is the hammer by which I identify and act upon all nails. 😉