DEV Community: dAVE Inden

Git Workflow: Should the history of commits show the real time of your work?

dAVE Inden — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 00:49:32 +0000

As I work more and more with git and GitHub I have become really interested in the version control processes of individuals and teams for developing software.

My next thought is about if the git log of commits should be a real time representation of how long the work actually took you to complete? Does it matter? There is probably a multitude of better ways to check this work, but does anyone do this?

Let me give you an example. Let's say I am building a static site. I will have an HTML file and a CSS file. I start working on the HTML file to build out the scaffold of the markup and start to putting in placeholder content. I am making commits as I go.

Should a git log be real time? Should it show how long I actually took to do this work?

Now, let's say I have made changes to multiple files like CSS and Javascript files. The CSS is setting up styles and the Javascript is functionality. I committed each in their own commits. This way styling changes and functionality could be rolled back, if needed, on their own without undoing all of it.
But, when I did this work I wrote all of the CSS and then went straight to the Javascript before creating the commits. Once I was done with the Javascript I did a commit or the CSS and then did another commit for the Javascript file.
This makes it look like in the timestamps that the CSS is put in and then seconds later the JS is put in.
Is this an issue for some folks? Does it appear to some that the JS only took seconds to write? Should there be a difference in timestamps to show how long the JS work took? To do that I would need to make sure to do the CSS work and commit it before moving on to the JS work. I might forget to do this and end up with all of the files changed before I realize I should have committed.
Is this a big deal?

What is a SQL query you are proud of?

dAVE Inden — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 03:46:58 +0000

I wrote my first SQL queries today. I have had some exposure to them and know the basic idea of what they are doing, but I have never actually written a SQL query. Now that I am diving deeper into the world of backend development I am learning some SQL to help in my work with databases.

So far it is actually really fun to work with databases. It feels like with the constraints of the query language one has less to worry about than when programming in something like Javascript while still having the power to do some impressive things.

We have all had those moments where we impress ourselves with our creativity or ingenuity in finding a solution.
What is a time you did that when writing a SQL query? What was the query? Why did you need to write it? What are you most proud of in how you wrote it?

What is something about food you like that no one else does?

dAVE Inden — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:28:29 +0000

Hello!

I'm curious if anyone has something about food or drinks that they love and think tastes amazing, but also thinks they might just be the only person who does.

What is something you think is unique about your taste in food and drinks?

I will go first.

I really like the taste of cold, flat soda. Fizzy drinks can be great, but I think there is something really interesting (and delicious) about the flavor of a cold, flat soda. The bubbles can disguise so many other flavors.

Also, I prefer to eat peaches when they aren't ripe just yet. It is like eating a crunchy apple, but it tastes like a peach!

How about you?

What Whitney Houston taught me about Open Source Software

dAVE Inden — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 21:16:38 +0000

Cover image by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash.

It's no secret that I am a fan of Whitney Houston. I will happily argue that she is one of the greatest singers and performers ever. One of my favorite songs by her is "I Wanna Dance with Somebody."

But, outside of her amazing talent her music has actually helped me to better understand open source software. With Hacktoberfest upon us and in full swing I was reminded of how an open source project is a lot like a song. Though there may be an obvious individual working at the center of it all there are many pieces coming together to create this thing loved by many. We can easily get caught up in Whitney singing her heart out about wanting someone to dance with, but without the backup singers coming in with "dance" right on time in the bridge before the last chorus the song just isn't the same. Without their contribution the song would be very different.

This is a lot like open source software where one or a few individuals are celebrated, rightfully so, for building this cool thing, but there are lots of other people in the background adding their work too. I often see tweets like this one:

spooktina zhu 👻

@cszhu

when you love an open source framework but don't know enough to improve the code so you just make a pull request fixing a typo in the docs

03:57 AM - 02 Feb 2019

I don't think anyone should downplay their contribution to a project, especially a documentation one. Looking in the thread on that tweet I see many others feel the same way. Just because you can't add new code to a project doesn't mean your contribution isn't important or valuable to others. Non-code contributions to a project in the form of documentation or filing an issue should be celebrated just as much as adding a new feature or fixing a nasty bug. In some cases there are lots of people using a particular piece of open source software and what you add could be incredibly valuable, even if they don't know it, to many of them.

So, if you've been thinking about contributing to a project I strongly encourage you to go for it. Remember it doesn't have to be a code contribution to be useful or extremely helpful. The Hacktoberfest home page has a huge list of projects looking for contributors. Check it out and I bet you can find something where you could help.

If you have contributed to something or are working on a contribution I'd love to hear about it in the comments below. Was it your first Pull Request to an open source project? Was this your first time taking part in Hacktoberfest? What did you end up making as your contribution? Let me know! :)

Git Workflow: How much change is too much change for one commit for you?

dAVE Inden — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 15:32:29 +0000

Cover Photo by Yancy Min on Unsplash

As I work more and more with git and GitHub I have become really interested in the version control processes of individuals and teams for developing software.

Git Workflow: Do you commit to master on your solo projects?

dAVE Inden ・ Sep 10 '19

#discuss #git #opensource

Today, I am wondering about how much change is too much change for a single commit? What do you use to decide when to commit? When is it the right time for you to commit changes?

In developing software we are tasked with a variety of changes or fixes to make to an application. Sometimes it is just a typo or changing the color of a button. Sometimes we are tasked with hunting down a really ugly, difficult to reproduce bug that will take a few days to figure out and solve.

The ability to make commits with git allows us to pull the changes we make out of our application when needed. But, if the change is so drastic it can have serious consequences if the code is removed, especially when other code has come to depend on our changes.

How do you decide you have done enough change to a codebase that you should commit those changes? Is there a point for you when there is too much change for a single commit? How do you make that decision? Do you ever think about what would happen if this commit was rolled back and how the codebase would handle that when you make this decision?

Git Workflow: Do you commit to master on your solo projects?

dAVE Inden — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 13:21:30 +0000

When you are working on a project you know you will be working on solo do you still work out of branches or do you commit to master? Does it depend on the project?

Like many, I have some projects that I work on for learning and fun. On many of them I am working on them by myself. Out of all of the todos I have for them I work on them one at a time. Even though most of them aren't dependent on each other, I don't typically work on multiple at once, switching between what I am building on that project. I will work on one until completion and then work on the next.
These projects are things like Gatsby sites or React apps that have a development server I can run locally on my machine to see my changes working with the current code.
One example is my personal website. It is a Gatsby site that isn't overly complex, in my opinion. I can run the development server locally to see how things look with my new code and push the changes to the master branch which triggers a new build on Netlify. If there is an issue with the deploy I can roll back the commit and try again. I should note that this is held in a private repo and I won't have people coming across the project and possibly submitting pull requests.

What do you think of this workflow? How do you do it when working on projects by yourself? I know it doesn't practice the branching and pull request mechanics for working on a project with other people, but it seems to work for me on my solo projects. Are there benefits to creating branches and working in them on solo projects I'm not seeing?

Strive to be known for how you made people feel and not what you've done

dAVE Inden — Sun, 25 Aug 2019 20:40:02 +0000

Cover image by Christal Yuen on Unsplash

I recently left my job to focus on my education. Working as a Developer Advocate I could see the gaps in my knowledge about code that came from teaching myself the last few years and how it could hold me back a little. After a lot of discussion, both with myself and my wife, I made the scary decision to go back to school. Specifically, I am doing a coding bootcamp. I want to get a focused education to build up my software development skills and fill in the gaps of my knowledge while also having the ability to be a part of my family. I did some research on a few and landed on Lambda School. At the time of this writing I just finished my third week. I am really enjoying it and having the opportunity and privilege to go back to school is awesome. Once I am done I may go back into a Developer Advocate role or work to get a position somewhere as a Software Developer. I still have the itch and desire to be a Software Developer specifically. Being a Developer Advocate was something I really liked and I will probably come back to it after having some time as a developer under my belt. With more experience I can be of better service to people in a role like that. Ultimately, I like my work to be something where I can make a positive impact on people's lives. Perhaps I will go into teaching people how to code or something similar. For now, I just want to be part of building something.

After I gave my notice to my manager and told a few other folks who needed to know word of my departure began to get around the company. I had folks coming up to me in person or reaching out via chat or email to tell me they heard I was leaving and asking if it was true. Each one of them told me how happy they were for me to be making the choice of going back to school, but that they were sad for me to be leaving. They took the moment to let me know how much they appreciated me and my positive attitude at work or gave some example of how I made them feel happy with the things I did. Some people noted they learned a lot from me while others just thought I was awesome to be around. It was very humbling and quite special to hear these things.

This also sparked some reflection of my own and I began to wonder to myself if anyone would bring up something I did, like a specific action of some kind rather than just general sentiments. I began to question what I had actually accomplished in the years I spent at the company if no one was bringing anything up that I had done. Didn't they remember anything I did to help our customers and fellow employees? Then as I thought about it more I realized that people were taking their time to tell me how I made them feel and it was important to them that I knew I made them happy in some way. My attitude and the way I carried myself brought them a small bit of joy in their life. That is a greater impact on someone than any specific action I could have done.

I plan to take this forward with me in my career. Wherever I end up after completing Lambda School I want to make sure it is a place where I can positively impact people, both the companies customers and especially my fellow employees. I will strive to be someone who brings a positive attitude to the team and helps make people feel good about their work. If you are starting out in your career or even if you have been working somewhere for awhile, I would challenge you to do the same. It's great that we can make big sales or solve tough technical issues and those things deserve to be celebrated, but only in the moment. When it comes time to look back on what you have accomplished strive to be someone that people will remember as a person who built people up and made their lives better.

Going from Intermediate to Advanced Coding Skills: Changing the way I'm learning to code

dAVE Inden — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 03:56:00 +0000

Cover image from John Salzarulo on Unsplash

I've been teaching myself to write code for awhile now and like many I often wonder if I am doing it right. Reading blog posts and doing tutorials seems to be the most common approach people take and that is what I have done for the most part. I have used different services, some paid some free, to go through structured content to learn as much as I can. This has definitely helped me learn a lot and I feel it is a great way to get started for many.
But, this approach can only take me so far though. There is a lot of content online for learning to code, but it seems to be geared towards one of two audiences. It is either content for a beginner looking to learn, it has step by step instructions and asides explaining things in more detail to connect different ideas, or it is written for a more advanced reader, someone who doesn't need as much explanation to get the point across. There is this missing piece of the intermediate level. Arguably, this is a really hard ask for someone to create intermediate content. Writing code has so much involved with it that it is really hard to draw the line of what to leave out and what to explain more deeply when creating learning content.
At this point, I think it is on me to find new ways to challenge myself to learn new things. Not only for the sake of increasing my skills, but to also learn to do it faster than I have before. New things are always coming out and it would be good to be able to dive into something and start hacking away with it to learn how it works.
My approach has long been to go through tutorials and follow along with every step building out the example project. This is a good approach as a beginner, but I don't want to rely on someone walking me through step by step in things holding my hand throughout the whole process anymore. Continuing this will just keep me at the beginner level always needing someone to get me started rather than helping me to learn how to think through problems on my own. So, I'm changing up my approach somewhat in how I use these tutorials.
I am still watching some video tutorials, I purchased a few on Udemy for things I am interested in learning, but instead of following along I am simply watching the videos. I am using my commute time on my bus ride to work to watch them. Then, instead of building the example project I am trying to apply this new knowledge in my current projects. This way I am still using what I am learning, but I'm getting my hands dirty by working in something that I'm not being guided through step by step. I am trying to make something function and have to work through the issues I run into. This feels like it will save me time, as I am not trying to find as much time as previously to do tutorials and work on my projects, plus the challenge of making things work is more of a real world scenario for writing code professionally.
Putting this challenge to myself will hopefully help get me to the next level in my skills. What do you think? What are things you are doing to challenge yourself more in learning to write code?

I'm dAVE Inden, and I support women devs.

dAVE Inden — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 03:58:00 +0000

I will advocate for gender equality by...

Calling out terrible behavior when I see it, online or in person.
I will also call out when someone does something that isn't overtly or blatantly sexist, but still perpetuates the problems of gender inequality.
I am following more women, especially women of color online to hear their perspective on technology and use my privilege to spread their words to those that listen to me.
Working within my own tech community in Seattle to meet more women developers and help them get a job at my company if they are interested.
Ask women how I can better serve them and gender equality.

I hope to see my work & developer community...

Listen more and give more of a platform to women developers, especially women of color, so that their thoughts and opinions are heard along with everyone else.
I want to see my tech community have more women involved in conferences and meetups and not just when it comes to discussing diversity and inclusion and what it is like to be a woman in tech, but about their opinions on technology and development work itself and anything else they want to talk about.

My advice for fellow allies is...

Listen to what women are saying about their experience of being a developer.
Believe women and what they are saying about being a member of a male dominated industry.
Speak up in situations where you see women getting treated differently than their male counterparts.
Do what you can to mentor women and help them succeed in tech so that they get paid more.
Ask women if you are being a good ally and how you can improve as one.
When you speak up about something on a woman's behalf make sure it is about them and you don't become the subject of the discussion.

Sharing code examples with Carbon

dAVE Inden — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 05:42:47 +0000

I often find myself thinking about the best way to share something like a code example. Gists seem to work well, especially for something more complex than a function that makes up more than a few lines. But, when you do have something that is only a few lines of code that can seem like overkill.
My next thought goes to taking screenshots of my text editor. This has drawbacks as well since it can take multiple attempts to get something right that will embed well wherever I am putting the example.

Today I came across this tweet from @emmawedekind.
// Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1097855481052303360-903'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1097855481052303360&theme=dark" }
I was reminded that I have seen code examples that look like this before on Twitter. I really like how it looks. The code is clear, has highlighting, and the whole result just looks really polished and professional. This is the kind of resource that communicates clearly and helps to elevate the content by looking nice.
I asked Emma how they created the screenshot and they pointed out the website Carbon to me. It is a really neat site built by Dawn Labs that is free to use. You can choose from various themes to adjust the colors. There is a setting for the language you are using so that it gets the highlighting right. You can export the image out to PNG or SVG for use online or just tweet the picture directly from there if you want.
The results look really nice.

I really like how it takes the guess work out of creating code example images and leaves you able to focus on the code that you are trying to share. I definitely suggest checking it out and seeing if it can help you.

Have you used Carbon before? I'd love to see examples of how folks have used this in their own work. Let me know in the comments!

UPDATE (Mar 2nd, 2019)
Multiple folks in the comments have pointed out the accessibility issues with using only images to share code as it hinders someone using a screen reader to be able to consume the content fully. Screen readers won't read out the content of the image and instead use the Alt Text set for the image.
It's also been noted that when the code is in an image it can't be selected for copying and pasting for review in a text editor.
These are both very valid points. I still think Carbon is an awesome app and is very useful, but this goes to show that it isn't a complete solution and should be combined with other methods of sharing code to ensure everyone can get what they need.
I'd still say to use it for sharing code snippets on Twitter as there really isn't a better way to do it at this time within a tweet. You'd have to link out to a gist or another place otherwise.
As for using code images in content like articles I'd consider using the images as only headers or presentational pieces and then embedding a gist or something else that allows for a screen reader to function and for the code to be more easily shared as some have suggested. Or using the image to show the code and linking to a more consumable version within your text explaining the code.
If you are going to use the image for the main way to communicate the code make sure to set good Alt Text for it to help anyone using a screen reader.
A lot of this can be hard to get right sometimes. I found some good resources on Twitter from Marcy Sutton who replied back on this tweet.

An alt decision tree - helps in determining how much info to give in the alt attribute.

How A Screen Reader User Accesses The Web - a webinar from Smashing Magazine showing the experience of a blind individual using a screen reader online.

What do you do when you get nervous? I dance to music

dAVE Inden — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 05:46:15 +0000

Photo by Frederik Trovatten.com on Unsplash

Have you recently had to speak in front of a group of people? Have you had a job interview or done something else you were really nervous for? How did you handle it?
In the past when I would get nervous about something I would try to pump myself up and tell myself how awesome I am and how amazing I am going to be at the thing I was about to do. Taking drama class all four years of high school I did this a lot as I got nervous each time we performed in front of a big group. It got easier over time, but I still got nervous and used this method. It reminds me of Jack's speech to pump himself up for all of the 30 Rock fans out there.
Speaking in front of people about technical topics is something I am challenging myself to do more this year. It is really fun, but it is also really easy to spiral down the rabbit hole of imposter syndrome and worry about how I don't know what I'm talking about and everyone will see that and laugh at me.
To combat this now instead of building my confidence up with compliments I just dance to music that's exciting and fun. I take the moment to just be care free and have fun for a few minutes to forget what I am nervous about. It is a nice mental reset and has worked much better for me. My go to song for this is "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" by Whitney Houston.
Maybe this could work for you? At the very least, it is a very good song.
What are things that work for you to help with being nervous?