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jbranchaud

848 karma · joined March 22, 2012

I write code, photograph things, and shoot pool. Co-founder of Lincoln's Beer and Code (beerandco.de).

Find me at joshbranchaud.com and @jbrancha.

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jbranchaud··on Is your Postgres migration safe or not safe?
This largely depends on the kind of software system you are working on. These sorts of DDL migrations are common on the kinds of Rails apps I’ve worked on over my career. Size of the table, traffic patterns, who uses associated features, tolerance for small downtime windows, or orchestrating a multi-phase zero-downtime migration are all ways to justify these migrations, and is preferable to alternatives that would be comparably over-engineered for that app’s business and technical context.
jbranchaud··on Sort branches by last commit date
The best upgrade to these kinds of git branch scripts is piping them to fzf. I’ve been using this fbr one from the fzf repo. https://github.com/jbranchaud/dotfiles/blob/main/zshrc.local...
jbranchaud··on Leave a Trace
One way that I leave a trace, which is a practice I've adopted from Simon Willison, is to record blogmarks for interesting and useful things I come across. Sometimes I just leave a pull quote, but usually I try to add my own thoughts or make a connection to something else.

https://still.visualmode.dev/blogmarks

jbranchaud··on From Zero to GitHub: Starting a New Jj (Jujutsu) Repo
I don't remember my first steps with subversion, mercurial, or git too well, but I don't think any of them were any more intuitive. My understanding is that jj is supposed to be easier to use for day-to-day version control. I'm very comfortable with git, but that was hard earned and I don't see that level of confidence with most devs that I've worked with over the years. Hoping jj can be more accessible to the average working software engineer than git has been.
jbranchaud··on Decoupling design from engineering
The core advice of the article seems relevant and useful to both of those types of design.
jbranchaud··on Decoupling design from engineering
Great article -- I'm going set aside some time with a notebook and pencil today and give this a try.

I'm not sure I agree with the left brain/right brain, analytical and logical vs creative and emotional dichotomy. I think good design work can be just as analytical as it is creative. I think it has to be when it comes to UI and UX.

jbranchaud··on Pandoc
I outsource most of my esoteric `jq` syntax questions to ChatGPT. It does really well with them, usually turning up solutions that I'd struggle to munge together from several different google search results.

I wonder how ChatGPT would do with focussed pandoc requests.

jbranchaud··on Ask HN: How to build infinite grid in the browser?
Moveable looks like a super full-featured library for this kind of thing https://daybrush.com/moveable/
jbranchaud··on Ask HN: How to build infinite grid in the browser?
Maybe this: https://interactjs.io/
jbranchaud··on Collection of "Today I Learned" notes
Hey, I'm Josh, the creator of this TIL repo. I've started it back in 2015 and still contribute to it a couple times a week. I reference TILs all the time to remember how to do something. It has been a great practice and I'd recommend to anyone to maintain their own TIL repo.

AMA!

jbranchaud··on Use fzf for tmux session switching
I tend to use one tmux session per project. I usually have 2-3 open for various client projects, one open for my TIL repository, and then I go from there. Within those sessions I tend to have separate windows and panes as a way of organizing any (web) servers and other long-running processes. The 'first' window of each session is usually a split between Vim (where I'm working) and zsh (where I'm executing git commands, running tests, etc.).
jbranchaud··on One Thousand TILs and Counting
> I refer back to mine a LOT. The principal audience for them is future me - if anyone else finds them useful too that's just a bonus.

100% this. Several times a week I'll be trying to do something, remember I've written about, and then find a TIL my past-self wrote that explains how to do the thing. It's really satisfying each time it happens.

jbranchaud··on One Thousand TILs and Counting
I wrote about my thinking and process behind this TIL repo here: https://dev.to/jbranchaud/how-i-built-a-learning-machine-45k...
jbranchaud··on One Thousand TILs and Counting
Because all these posts are 200 words or less, they tend to be the kind of thing you can read in ~90 seconds. I like sharing these smaller learnings to twitter. For a venue like HN though, I agree they don't meet quite the effort threshold.
jbranchaud··on Ask HN: What are some cool new technologies/databases to learn up?
Postgres, though not new, has some incredibly powerful features these days that make it worth investing in.

- JSONB column type, get NoSQL-esque document storage when you need it.

- Generated columns, computed from other columns without the need to maintain triggers or syncing app code

- Extensions, all kinds of OSS and SaaS-based extensions that add powerful facets to your DB

jbranchaud··on Stock and Flow (2010)
I became aware of both of these articles through Tom Critchlow's writing on Digital Gardens.

In this piece, he references the Garden and Stream concepts, while also adding in his own, Campfires. https://tomcritchlow.com/2018/10/10/of-gardens-and-wikis/

Then in this follow on piece, he touches on Stock and Flow referencing the original article. https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/02/17/building-digital-garden/

jbranchaud··on Stock and Flow (2010)
Analogous terminology for Stock and Flow are the Garden and Stream metaphors explored in Mike Caulfield's _The Garden and The Stream: A Technopastoral_. https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-te...
jbranchaud··on I've been writing TILs for 5 years
I usually remember when I've written on something even if I've forgotten the details. I tend to be able to do a Cmd-f search of the README for a keyword to turn up what I'm looking for.

All that said, I've been contemplating moving all of this into a Gatsby-powered site with either a custom search backend or Algolia to make it all a bit more accessible.

jbranchaud··on I've been writing TILs for 5 years
No better time than today to start building your own learning machine

https://dev.to/jbranchaud/how-i-built-a-learning-machine-45k...

jbranchaud··on I've been writing TILs for 5 years
Vim is by far my most TIL-ed topic. I recently started gathering a lot of that learning into a screencast series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL46-cKSxMYYCMpzXo6p0C...
jbranchaud··on Show HN: A comparison of websocket servers in multiple languages/frameworks
There is a companion blog post here https://hashrocket.com/blog/posts/websocket-shootout
jbranchaud··on PostgreSQL Exercises
There are legit (free) Postgres screencasts at pgcasts.com
jbranchaud··on PG Casts – Postgres Screencasts
Thanks for the feedback. Seems like a happy medium would be to copy and paste from an editor that is on screen.
jbranchaud··on PG Casts – Postgres Screencasts
This sentiment is part of what inspired PG Casts. The database can do lots of powerful things that framework ORMs tend to keep in the shadows. We want to make the DB more accessible!
jbranchaud··on PG Casts – Postgres Screencasts
Would it be an improvement if we jumped back and forth between Vim so that you can see the syntax highlighted SQL before each statement is executed?
jbranchaud··on PG Casts – Postgres Screencasts
and natural keys!
jbranchaud··on PG Casts – Postgres Screencasts
One of the creators here.

We'd love feedback on the screencasts and suggestions on topics that you'd like to see covered!

jbranchaud··on Strokes: Let's pretend D3 was written in ClojureScript
Is anyone working on a library similar to d3 that is written from the ground up in ClojureScript?
jbranchaud··on A list of PostgreSQL libraries, tools and resources
Sorry, no, I'm meaning example databases with 'fake' or sample data.
jbranchaud··on A list of PostgreSQL libraries, tools and resources
I just found this list of sample databases -- https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Sample_Databases

I'm not sure how good they are though.

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