Category: Uncategorized

This video about jet turbine blades made me say “That’s CRAZY!!!!” out loud several times.

The engineering here is incredible.

https://youtu.be/QtxVdC7pBQM

A kid wants to run a lemonade stand. But they need cash to get started.

Dad: I already gave you £5 pocket money

Kid: That’s not enough!

Dad: I tell you what. I have lemonade in the fridge. I’ll sell it to you for £3 to get you started.

Kid: Deal!

(Later…)

Dad: How’s the stand going?

Kid: Not good. I’ve sold nothing.

Dad: How much is it?

Kid: £3 for the lot.

Dad: I’ve got £3. I’ll buy it from you. And hey, now I’ve given you £8! This is a good business! You want to buy more lemonade?

This just doesn't sound like programming! The whole vibe of this conversation was that of a really smart person flailing around trying to coax a thing with semi-random behaviour to do an important task, and then blaming himself for getting stressed about the thing not doing what you asked it to.

It just reminded me of getting a young kid to do something.

And that usually ended in both of us crying.

"So I'm stuck. It's writing too much code. The code is way too ugly. It’s not using [the UI library] it's just making shit up. [So I got it to do some stuff], and it did that that's what actually unlocked it. So it started to understand what I was asking of it. And slowly it started getting better. But… no dude, you're so stupid, that's so stupid… It just like doesn't… it doesn't like. And I did learn to, like, it's going to get something wrong and I should not be stressed out about it.”

Yes. This IS a terrible analogy. But it occurred to me and I thought it should be shared.

But really. Actual quotes.

"I looked at the code… medium. What happens inevitably, it gets tripped up. It can't do it…

I set it all up… use [things]… generate a requirements doc… I was pretty specific… it like scaffolded that out. It went very broad and built everything but I think that is actually part of the problem. It might have totally invented API endpoints.”

I was listening to two (actually quite reasonable) people talking on a podcast about using AI to code today.

And I realised… it's not like having a junior developer. It's like teaching a baby to walk.

– Anything could go wrong at any moment.
– You don't have a clue what to say to make the right things happen.
– To some extent, the thing will just do the amazing thing sometimes…
– … but it may not repeat the amazing thing the next time, even in the same conditions.

Does anyone ever do a nuanced take on these big internet outages that includes a proper evaluation of the trade-offs and what the alternatives are?

I see lots of complaining about how everything is dependent on the same three or four services.

But rarely a discussion of what we could do instead amd why we choose not to do those things.

🤷

One of those "I don't post about work much" things, but last week my ACF colleagues dropped ACF PRO 6.7 Beta 1 with…

Inline Editing for ACF Blocks!

Live, instant, intuitive editing using ACF in the background. Looks amazing! 🙌

https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-pro-6-7-beta-1/

I care so frickin much about climate change.

But I also feel so completely helpless about it.

Until the People In Charge give a damn and are willing to act, what can we really do?

At some point I want to modernise my blog theme abd make https://rosswintle.uk more of a “digital garden”.

But honestly. I’ve not actually built a CMS-controlled website for about 2 years now. I get stuck every time I try WordPress editing these days and I can’t get my head around full site editing and block themes.

Where to even start? I feel kinda lost on how to make a website.

(I’m doing a LOT of web development – but it’s tooling for others not my own sites!)

Right. I think everything is up-to-date now. Other than the things that need rebuilding. I’ll get to those.

Next up on side-project to-do list is getting https://caniphp.com/ ready for v8.5!

Not long to go now!!!

Lesson 12 of my LoopConf talk was “Read your own code”.

Chris Ferdinandi knows this lesson. And the tip on leaving reviewer notes is good too.

https://gomakethings.com/review-your-own-git-pull-requests/

I'm hardly a connoisseur of fine video games, but one of my favourite games on the little PlayDate console is Hyper Meteor, and its now on Steam.

A tiny asteroids-like game, but so much fun, perfect difficulty level, I keep coming back again and again.

I'm gonna wreck a controller playing this gem.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1425590/HYPER_METEOR/

This is incredible. And funny. If you understand why.

“Horrible edge cases to consider when dealing with music”

https://dustri.org/b/horrible-edge-cases-to-consider-when-dealing-with-music.html

After this week's firehose, I’m back on my wanting-to-improve-school-comms train again. I'm utterly convinced that there's a relatively simple solution to 80% of most school comms issues. But I also know that schools are focussed on education and children's care, not comms, and would find process change hard.

As always, teachers and people who work in schools have my utmost respect.

All the other talks are up too. Go watch them!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLod7ww284cBGTxkmJqysez86KK_1vCYyB

Oh, yay! I didn’t think my LoopConf talk recording was going to be free to watch. But it’s out on YouTube.

This was an epic labour of love. I’m so glad I can share it with you.

My 25 Lessons from 25 years of software development in (a little over) 25 minutes.

https://youtu.be/cyxQ82L298Y