ChatGPT on choosing a JavaScript framework
Prompt: Explain how to select a javascript framework in the style of edgar allen poe Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "’Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door — Only this and nothing more." But the tapping grew louder and more insistent, and ...
Published: 2022-01-26
Happy New Year 2022
Editor's note: I've actually been sitting on this post for a few weeks trying to determine if it really says what I want it to. I'm now at the point where I just want to put it out there. Enjoy. What a weird a couple of years. Pandemic. Crazy weather. Inflation gone wild (lol money). Turmoil in the world everywhere. I want to write a “new year’s” blog post, but I honestly have no idea where ...
Published: 2020-05-17
Git workflow
It's 2020. People and teams are still using and adopting git. As new teams are created, at some point, someone asks, "what's a good git workflow for us?" Here's a workflow that has served me well over the past few years working in small teams. Assumptions You're using git. You have an authoritative git repo somewhere (e.g. github, bitbucket, gitlab, etc), and that repo is named origin (this is the default name of remotes in ...
Published: 2019-05-06
A reasonable number of bikes
If you know me in person, then it's possible that you know I have a thing about cycling. And bikes. And shame on me for not writing about this stuff here. Anyway, a recent conversation among friends led me to thinking about the question: What is a reasonable number of bikes? You see, among cyclists, there's the N+1 debate. (it's not really a debate, you need N+1 bikes) Anyway, when confronted with the question, here ...
Published: 2019-02-03
I'm doing a Whole30
Early in January I saw a backlash towards things like whole30, paleo, and keto in some of my fitness circles. I'm not sure why, but I do think a lot people approach these things as "quick fixes" rather than tools for setting a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. Admittedly, I've done the Whole30 regimen twice (2015, 2016), so I should have all the tools I need to have a healthy food lifestyle. But sometimes, things go off the rails. It ...
Published: 2019-01-03
New Year, New Site (2019 edition)
So, it's a new year (happy 2019 everyone), and despite not publishing a single article in 2018, I've done a fair amount of work recently to update my site. Here's the quick & dirty rundown: I'm now running Django 2.1 with a nod toward the next LTS release -- 2.2 django-blargg now only supports Django 2+ officially. There's still a fair number of pages powered by django-staticflatpages which has also seen a recent update ...
Published: 2017-11-28
Giving Tuesday: My Favorite Memphis Nonprofits
Today is #GivingTuesday. A time when we've finished with Black Friday shopping and all the Cyber Monday deals are over still well under way. It's a chance for us to collectively reflect on the charitable organizations that help make the world a better place. Here are my five favorite Memphis-based nonprofits. 1. Tech901 Tech901's charter is to "train current or potential Memphians for a variety of information technology jobs and to work with employees to increase the ...
Published: 2017-05-14
What's in my requirements.txt
It's Sunday, and tomorrow is our scheduled monthly python meetup in Memphis, and it's one of those month's where I've been busy and I haven't done a good job of finding a speaker. So, that mean's I've got to pull something together at the last minute. While racking my brain for a quick-and-easy topic, I thought, "I wonder what python packages I'm using most?" So, I ran this nifty monstrosity of a ...
Published: 2017-02-12
The Blue Collar Programmer
There's a recent Wired article that's been floating around the web that asks if computer programming is the next big thing in blue collar work. I find this article interesting, because I've long though about computer programming a skilled trade. In one sense, it's not unlike being a plumber or and electician, both of which can provide very decent, middle-class salaries. In fact, thinking of tech jobs in this manner is nothing new! In the '90s ...
Published: 2017-02-01
Sending SMS messages with Amazon SNS and Python
There are many services out there that will let you programmatically send SMS messages. One of the more popular is Twilio, and they have a great API and a python client that's easy to use. There's an interesting quora thread with several other suggestions as well. Another option is to use Amazon's Simple Notification Service (SNS), which also supports sending SMS messages. I recently incorporated this into a project, and thought I'd share. Step 1: API ...