DEV Community: Ankur Biswas

Which language is your doorway to programming world?

Ankur Biswas — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 06:54:58 +0000

Mine is C Language.

Git hacks you should know about

Ankur Biswas — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 11:43:00 +0000

In this post, we're going discuss some very useful tricks on Git which literally can save your ass if you screwed up things on Git. Now, without any further ado, let’s get started 🏃🏻‍♂️

Fix last commit message

Have this ever happened to you that you actually want to commit "Final comment" but what you actually typed is "Final commment". Well, it's a shame if other people found out that your comment consists of three m's.
Thankfully there's a fix for this issue.

git commit --amend

Just open your project directory on your terminal and type the above command. This will open up your editor and allow you to make a change to that last commit message. This is a real life saver for me.

Change branch name

Let's suppose that, you want to create a branch named release but somehow you named your branch relaese. Don't panic, there's a solution for this too.

git branch -m relaese release

This will save your butt. But if you have already pushed this branch, then there are a couple of extra steps required. The solution for then will be, you need to delete the old branch from the remote and push up the new one.

git push origin --delete relaese
git push origin release

Added a wrong file in the repo

If you ever commit something in your repo that you shouldn't suppose to then you know how bad the situation is. It could be a rogue ENV file, a build directory, a picture of your dog (suppose 😐) that you accidentally saved to the wrong folder? It’s all fixable.

If you haven't commited it yet then you only have to reset the file.

git reset /assets/img/unknown.jpg

If you have gone committing that change, no need to worry. You just need to run an extra step before:

git reset --soft HEAD~1
git reset /assets/img/unknown.jpg
rm /assets/img/unknown.jpg
git commit

This will undo the commit, remove the image, then add a new commit in its place.

Everything went wrong

This is your ace of spades! When whatever you do go wrong and you have no clue what to do then this is your solution. For example, when you have copy-pasted one too many solutions from Stack Overflow and your repo is in a worse state than it was when you started, then this is your lifesaver.

git reflog

It shows you a list of all the things you've done so far. It then allows you to use Git's time-traveling skills to go back to any point in the past.

When you run this command, it shows something like this:-

4gg9702 (HEAD -> release) HEAD@{0}: Branch: renamed refs/heads/relaese to refs/heads/release
4gg9702 (HEAD -> relaese) HEAD@{2}: checkout: moving from master to release
3c8f619 (master) HEAD@{3}: reset: moving to HEAD~
4gg9702 (HEAD -> feature-branch) HEAD@{4}: commit: Adds the client logo
3c8f619 (master) HEAD@{5}: reset: moving to HEAD~1
48b743e HEAD@{6}: commit: Adds the client logo to the project
3c8f619 (master) HEAD@{7}: reset: moving to HEAD
3c8f619 (master) HEAD@{8}: commit (amend): Added contributing info to the site
egb38b3 HEAD@{9}: reset: moving to HEAD
egb38b3 HEAD@{10}: commit (amend): Added contributing info to the site
811e1c6 HEAD@{11}: commit: Addded contributing info to the site
fgcb806 HEAD@{12}: commit (initial): Initial commit

Remember the left-side column, represents the index. If you want to go back to any point in the history, run the below command, replacing {index} with that reference, e.g. egb38b3.

git reset HEAD@{index}

Have some Git tricks your own? Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading! If you found this helpful, don’t forget to share this with your friends and followers!

Productivity tools for your MacBook

Ankur Biswas — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 12:05:19 +0000

Hey guys, I'm back with another post where I'll be listing down some productivity tools for your MacBook which you may or may not know about. This list of tools has been listed down in alphabetical order. Without any further delay let's get started 🏃🏻‍♂️

Alfred

Alfred is an award-winning app which boosts efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. Search your Mac and the web, and be more productive with custom actions to control your Mac.

BetterTouchTool

A great, feature-packed app that allows you to configure many gestures for your Magic Mouse, Macbook Trackpad, Magic Trackpad and also Mouse Gestures for normal mice.

Choosy

UI, URL API and a browser extension set for managing rules where and how to open links. It can prompt you to select from the browsers on your Mac, so you can decide which browser is right for a particular link.

Karabiner

Powerful and stable keyboard customizer for OS X.

Keyboard Maestro

Automate routine actions based on triggers from keyboard, menu, location, added devices, and more.

Keytty

App to keep your hands on the keyboard. Move, click, scroll, drag and more with a few strokes.

Mos

A simple tool can offer the smooth scrolling and reverse the mouse scrolling direction on your Mac.

OmniPlan

The best way to visualize, maintain and simplify your projects. Project Management made easy.

Qbserve

Time tracking automation: freelance project tracking, timesheets, invoicing & real-time productivity feedback.

SensibleSideButtons

Use the side buttons on your mouse to move forward and backward in many apps, like in Windows.

Timing

Automatic time and productivity tracking for Mac. Helps you stay on track with your work and ensures no billable hours get lost if you are billing hourly.

Trello

A collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards.

Ukelele

Unicode Keyboard Layout Editor.

That's it for this list guys. Hope you find it useful. If you like this post, then don't forget to share this with your friends and if you find apps you haven't heard before then don't forget to mention that with me on the comments below.

List of Awesome MacBook screensavers

Ankur Biswas — Tue, 19 Feb 2019 05:26:02 +0000

In this post, I'm going to share some of my favorite screensavers for MacBook which will make your MacBook much prettier when you leave it alone for a few minutes. Here we go 🏃🏻‍♂️

Padbury Clock

Word Clock

Simple Clock

Grid Clock

Fliqlo

Fractal Clock

Word Clock

If you like these screensavers, share them with your buddies! What are your favorite screensavers? Let me know in the comments!

Pro tips for Visual Studio Code to be productive in 2018 👨🏻‍💻

Ankur Biswas — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 11:07:15 +0000

Over the last few years, Visual Studio Code has grown very popular over the open-source IDE market. VS Code was publicly released in 2015 and now used by 35% of all developers according to 2018 Stack Overflow survey. In this article, I am going to share a few tips and tricks of VS Code that would help you to be productive.

Git and Gitlens

Git is the most popular software used by developers. Managing Git from your IDE is much easier than the command line. The Git panel allows you to stage, commit, stash, and undo changes. GitLens extension for VS Code offers you much more. The most useful feature of GitLens is that it shows you who committed what and when on every line of code in the project.

Live Share

VS Code Live Share is a brand new feature that is still just in developer preview. It allows you to share your workspace in realtime, live editing, pin to the user to follow their cursor, group debugging and many more. It’s really helpful if you work remotely or when you need to collaborate with someone who isn’t around.

JSON to Code

Have you ever been working with an API in TypeScript and wished you could have its response strong-typed in your project? Paste JSON as Code converts your JSON into an interface usable in strong-typed languages with a single command.

Rename All Occurrences

Refactoring is a necessary aspect of writing and maintaining clean code, but it can be quite the headache — especially when you’re refactoring a large module or an otherwise huge chunk of code. So instead of hunting through dozens of files just to rename a variable or method, let VS Code do it for you.

If you select a variable/method and hit F2, you can edit the name and it will change every instance of that variable’s name throughout the entire current working project.

If you only want to change within the current file, use the Command + F2 (on Mac) or Ctrl + F2 (on Windows) keyboard shortcut and VS Code will spawn a cursor at every instance throughout the current file.

Go to Definition

When you’re programming or scripting, often times you’ll run into a variable or method that you don’t recognize. So what do you do? You could spend several minutes searching for the right file, or you could press Command (on Mac) or Ctrl (on Windows) key and click the variable/method with your mouse. VS Code will take you to its definition right away.

Or you could just hover your cursor over the variable/method along with pressing the Command (on Mac) or Ctrl (on Windows) key, it will show you the definition right in line where your cursor is.

Edit Multiple Lines at Once

If you ever need to insert or delete multiple instances of text throughout a document, all you have to do is create multiple cursors. You can do this by holding down Option (on Mac) or Alt (on Windows) and clicking anywhere in the text. Every click creates a new cursor.

This is particularly useful for things like HTML, where you might want to add many instances of the same class or change the format of several hyperlinks.

Debugger

The debugger deserves a video all to iteself — thankfully, VS Code has already made one of those.

Keybindings and the Command Pallette

If you want to get things done fast, memorize your hot keys. You can look over the essentials in the cheat sheet or by opening the keybindings page.

The command pallette is your best friend. You can open it with Command + P (on Mac) or Ctrl + P (on Windows). As a developer, you’re likely juggling many files simultaneously. Start typing the file name and get full-text search results from the workspace — so much faster than clicking through the directory tree.

You can start typing with a > to get a list of available tasks.
Or start with an @ to get a list of symbols in the current file.

Custom Keybindings

One useful keybinding missing from VS code is Save All. Let’s create our own keybinding to save all modified files in the workspace with Command + Shift + S (on Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + S (on Windows).

If you find this helpful don’t forget to leave some claps 👏🏻 and don’t forget to share this with your friends and followers! If you have some tips regarding VS Code, feel free to comment

Btw I'm on Medium as well. Check it out here.