thunderbong

Over the years, I've seen many comments dismissing Excel. But as many people who've worked in enterprises know, Excel is a godsend for manipulating reams of data for non-programmers who can think analytically. Of course, complex formulae and extensive VBA functions become a tech debt over time. But implemented properly, it provides a solution which doesn't require huge management approvals and increases productivity.

I'm sure that these new features will find a lot of use amongst many people. And seeing these Excel innovations is heartening.

This is what private branches do

https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/private.wiki

Can none of this be addressed using "probate branches"?

https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/private.wiki

Every time fossil comes up, I hear this same issue - "why is there no rebase?"

And honestly, I've never been able to get this argument. It's a version management system! It's supposed to maintain the history of what's been done, both good and bad. In fact, that's the whole point of a VCS, isn't it?

IMHO, if we want to show a different path than what's been actually taken for the codebase to reach where it is now, we might as well use a network drive to store the different versions. Why bother with a VCS then?

In what way? Genuinely curious

The video is referenced in the article as an inspiration.

Mobile version

https://m.xkcd.com/3290/

That's cool. Didn't know about this. It also worked in Vivaldi for me.

You're certainly welcome to browse the internet without JavaScript.

But when most of the articles submitted here don't work without JavaScript, this comment seems really irrelevant.

Mobile version

https://m.xkcd.com/1732/

What's BEAM?

Very interesting.

Focusing on the magnitude instead of the value of a number, changes the perspective when we're talking or thinking in these scales.

From the site:

> The universe is very large, but it is not infinite. All quantities in the universe (distance, time, energy, mass, etc) exist within 50 to 100 orders of magnitude.

> The human species interacts with only 25 of these magnitudes.

This article from yesterday -

Good Tools Are Invisible

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48858121

In my opinion, software tools are different from software libraries.

Knowing RDBMS concepts and SQL is one thing, vim and git are something else altogether.

A lot of the article is extremely useful for people creating software libraries, IMHO.

Under the section -

"Applying the Lindy effect to software engineering"

The suggestions are -

- Prudent Adoption

- Stick to Proven Foundation

- Plan for Longevity

- Embrace Evolution, Not Revolution

Great article.

Every time there's a post here on git and I read the comments, I keep thinking of all the years I've used fossil and how it's been completely invisible, in the background, letting me get ahead with my work.

I agree. I also agree with the sibling reply that -

> every time you have a bug or a regression, you write a test that confirms correct behaviour.

What I fail to see in these rewrites however is - what about new bugs introduced by virtue of this rewrite? I mean it'll have to go through its own challenges in real-world scenarios, right?

No code is faster than no code

That's a really nice point - about uninterrupted time.

I do notice however, in myself as well as in others, that given an amount of uninterrupted time, we quickly get bored and pick up our phones to break it.

I recall that when Covid hit, I suddenly had a lot of interrupted time on my hands. It quite felt like the times from when we were kids, when he had these vast swathes of time in the afternoon and before bedtime.

I think for a lot of adults, besides the chores and errands that keep life busy, it's become a habit for us to fill up what little uninterrupted time we get with distractions.

XKCD always has a mobile version. You need add a m. prefix -

https://m.xkcd.com/3266/

Helps to see the alt-text if you're on a phone.

I had started blogging (on blogspot!) those days and like many others, I also used to follow Om's articles on RSS.

I still remember very clearly coming across his article where he had linked to my blog. I felt on top of the world! Because why would a renowned SV journalist link to a lowly blog?

I'm quite sure that my reason to continue blogging over all these years can be attributed to that small gesture.

Just the title here has me transported to a time and place long forgotten.

Thank you, Om.