TIL

PostgreSQL was originally named “POSTGRES”— all caps. The name was chosen because it was the successor (“post-”) to the “Ingres” database. As the system adopted SQL standards and features, the “ql” as added and capitalization refined. ...

Linters are great, except when they aren’t. One example is Rubocop’s BlockLength lint. For example, I don’t care if my RSpec describe and context blocks are too long. Nontrivial test blocks will never be short enough to match a reasonable rule about blocks. I’ve disabled this lint for these blocks with Rubocop’s configuration file: # .rubocop.yml Metrics/BlockLength: IgnoredMethods: ['context', 'describe'] Opting out of just these blocks lets me enforce this rule everywhere else.

Today I learned about the method __id__, aliased object_id, in Ruby. It returns a unique integer identifier for any Ruby object. A few examples: > Object.new.object_id => 7024702983434 > name = "jake" => "jake" > name.object_id == name.object_id => true > "thawed".object_id == "thawed".object_id => false > "frozen".freeze.object_id == "frozen".freeze.object_id => true I’ve never used this method in practice, but I hope to someday.

I love autojump. I use it because I think that remembering my location in a directory structure relative to other directories, so I can navigate with cd, is mental energy I could be using for something else. Today I learned that autojump has a jo command, which jumps to a directory and opens it in your file explorer. jo Desktop This might be a throwaway lesson if I wasn’t regularly sidetracked by the MacOS file explorer. Finding a file using the file explorer is a routine operation I have yet to do fluidly on a Mac. This helps!

When I rebase, I force-push altered history using the flag --force-with-lease instead of the commonly-used --force. git push --force-with-lease But why? This is a TIL for me because I’ve used this command for years without reading the docs. Take it away, docs: This option allows you to say that you expect the history you are updating is what you rebased and want to replace. If the remote ref still points at the commit you specified, you can be sure that no other people did anything to the ref. ...

Here’s some code that made me do a double take. something = items[nil] It’s that [nil]. What’s going on here? It turns out that items is the return of a call to Ruby’s group_by. group_by groups by whatever the block evaluates to, including nil. [ { shipping: 'fedex', id: 1 }, { shipping: 'fedex', id: 2 }, { id: 3 } ].group_by { |item| item[:shipping] } => { 'fedex' => [{ shipping: 'fedex', id: 1 }, { shipping: 'fedex', id: 2 }], nil => [{ id: 3 }] } Hence the key nil. ...

Jira has a hidden ticket ‘Actions menu’ that is really helpful. When a Jira ticket is in focus, type .. This opens a searchable menu with ‘Issue actions’ (‘Attach’, ‘Link Issue’, etc.) and ‘Workflow’ state advancements (‘To Do’, ‘Close’, etc.). Almost any action you’d want to take on a ticket is there.

When developing a new feature in a brownfield app that hasn’t been subject to consistent autoformatter treatment, turn off your autoformatter. Autoformatting is great. I advocate for it. But it can be distracting when trying to read through your new work. The hard-won changes you make get lost in the mix of automated changes. Once you’ve got the feature working, turn on the autoformatter and get that automatic quality. This is a pretty niche piece of advice, but it helped me today.

Here’s an observation from a month of developing for iOS. There can be a delay on any action taken in the App Store Connect console that you should plan for. ...

When working on a React Native app on the iOS side, switching between branches with different dependencies can wreak havoc on your development environment. To ensure they’re you’re running the right libraries, blow everything away and start over: rm -rf node_modules && yarn && (cd ios && pod deintegrate && pod install) Replace yarn with npm install if you’re using NPM.