25 posts tagged with "development"

Have you ever stared at a Git diff that looks like it was generated by a cat walking across your keyboard? You're not alone. While Git's default diff algorithm works well enough most days, there are times when it produces cryptic, unusable output that leaves you scratching your head.

I stumbled across Git Notes during a late-night debugging session last week, and honestly, I'm slightly annoyed that I hadn't been using this feature for years. If you've ever wanted to attach persistent metadata to commits without changing commit hashes (and who hasn't?), this hidden gem deserves your attention. And while we're exploring Git's underappreciated features, let's also look at Git trailers - another powerful tool for managing metadata in your repositories.

Version control with Git offers developers multiple ways to integrate changes across branches, with merge and rebase standing as the two primary approaches. While both accomplish the same fundamental goal—incorporating changes from one branch into another—they do so through fundamentally different mechanisms, resulting in distinct commit histories and team workflows. Understanding when to use each strategy can significantly impact your project's history clarity, team collaboration, and conflict resolution process. In this deep dive, we'll explore how each option works under the hood, examine real-world usage patterns, and provide clear guidelines for choosing the right approach for your specific situation.

Ever find yourself juggling endless passwords, worried about whether they’re secure enough? You’re not alone. In today’s digital landscape, protecting sensitive accounts and data goes beyond just a clever passphrase. Enter multi-factor authentication (MFA)—an effective layer of defense that ensures a random intruder can’t waltz in with stolen credentials.

Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) systems are a powerful way to implement MFA, producing short-lived codes that are invalid mere seconds later. If you’ve ever used an authenticator app on your phone, you’ve already seen TOTP at work. However, building your own TOTP generator can offer greater flexibility for custom workflows, automation, and even just tinkering to learn something new.

In this tutorial, we’ll walk through a PowerShell script that securely stores your TOTP secret keys in the Windows Registry, then generates fresh codes whenever you need them. By the end, you’ll have a handy, easily integrable tool that keeps your secrets encrypted and your one-time passwords safe and ready on demand. Let’s jump in!

Open-source software is everywhere. Most of the software you use daily is open-source or built on top of open-source components. Contributing to open-source software is a great way to learn new skills and gain experience. It can also be an opportunity to help others, as many people worldwide often use open-source projects. It might seem intimidating initially, but it doesn't need to be.

As a developer, you may want to load the Visual Studio environment in your default PowerShell profile. This is useful for debugging and developing.

Developing code is not easy. It is a challenge, but it is also a fun thing to do. Maintaining a project, however, is not easy either. It requires a very different skillset and time investment. When I became a maintainer of Selectize, I was able to learn a lot about the project and how to improve it, and I was able to learn so much about how to interact with the community.

When configuring a development environment, you can use the PowerShell command to display all environment variables. This can be useful for gathering information about the environment, or for debugging.

Oops! That was a mistake​

Sometimes you accidentally add a file to your repository that you don't want. It happens to all of us. Usually, it's not that big of a deal, but it can be a problem when you commit something dangerous, such as API keys, passwords, or other sensitive information.

While it is sometimes easy to determine what app is using a port, it is not always the case. For example, if you are running a web app, and you want to know what app is using port 80, you can't just look at the process list. You have to run a script to find the culprit. In the past this was a netstat command, but it can be simpler to use PowerShell.

It's the tiny details that show you care​

Although it isn't technically required for compliance, it's a great idea to ensure your visitors that rely on alternate descriptions have a good experience.

Nobody reaches their full potential alone; which is why having a career mentor is so incredibly important. Today, I'm going to talk about the other side and reveal how rewarding it can be to share your experience with future generations.

Organizations that leverage social media to amplify their voices may find that they missed a crucial step. Often, people will not speak up, if we don't let them. Let's discuss how we can be sure to include diverse points of view.

How to be a happy developer is a question we get asked a lot. We’re often asked, what do we feel, is the best way to become a better developer. I want to share my thoughts and experience of getting to where I am today with anyone who is willing to listen. Making the right choices can open up whole new worlds of opportunities and happiness for you and your family.

Being a happy developer means being able to worry less about the big things. It means not worrying about an immediate paycheck, but thinking about the long-term impact of your work on people in the future.

How to keep your WSL instance up to date​

If you are like me, you prefer to always keep your packages as up-to-date as possible. You also like to automate things when possible to avoid repetitive admin tasks.

This script will call your default WSL instance [^1], and update/upgrade all packages.

Eight tips for becoming more productive as a developer​

10 months ago I transitioned to full-time remote work. First to help my medically fragile son, and then again for Covid-19 lockdown. This is a list of things that have helped me cope, and still have a good work-life balance.