venta

Today, I am supposed to be reviewing a colleague's pull request[*]. Multiple thousands of lines of Node.js and extremely Promise-heavy Javascript.

I don't really know Javascript. I've never used Node. I haven't done any aysnc programming in about 15 years. So when I say "reviewing", I really mean "learning a bunch of stuff from scratch in the hope of having the least clue what it's all about".

And the worst part? Earwormed by bloody Big Fun :(

[*] A "pull request" is some quantity of new computer code, which someone has submitted for potential inclusion in our Grand Bucket o' Code.

In a radical departure from asking people what they're wearing, I would now like to ask for help with git. If you don't understand the question, just be very grateful and move on ;-)

When an incoming git pull suffers a merge failure[*], why, why, does git decide to compound the problem by staging every modified file it can lay its grubby little paws on?

I assumed that if I started typing "why does git stage..." into Google it would auto-complete with all the various phrases distressed people all over the internet have typed in. It does not, and I can't find anyone writing about it. For bonus points, tell me how to stop it doing this - but I'll settle for understanding the rationale behind it!

[*] Which, if the two versions have changed lines anywhere near each other, it will

My month of self-imposed beverage exile ended yesterday. By the middle of the day I'd managed to work my way through hot-water-with-lemon-juice (my usual first drink of the morning), fizzy cranberry squash, coffee, banana smoothie and prosecco. I added proper beer (Old Speckled Hen, as it happened) in the afternoon and improper beer (Tsing Tao) in a Chinese restaurant in the evening. Tea appears to have been an unexpected omission which I and my giant magic doesn't-fall-over-mug are now remedying.

( The problem with programmers )

And if you were intending to donate me WaterAid some money - or were waiting to see if I succeeded before you committed cash - it's not too late!

For anyone who - like me - is forced to use Windows 8/8.1, but hates lots of the non-negotiable features, I commend to you Winaero. From them, you can download two lightweight programs which:

1. Allow you to turn off the bottom-right hot corner, meaning the stupid Charms menu doesn't pop up all the time (Charms Bar Killer runs in your systray, and allows you to turn various hot corners on and off).

2. Allow you to fine-tune, and indeed turn off, the taskbar thumbnail previews meaning the the silly little windows don't pop over the thing you're trying to look at (Taskbar Thumbnail Tuner is a run-when-you-need-it selection of extra settings, including the mighty "disable thumbnails" tickybox).

(There are various registry hacks proposed on t'internet to solve both of these. I haven't tried them.)

If the above are features you like and use, then hurrah! However, in my case they were nothing but a source of irritation.

I think nearly 12 months of locating settings, finding obscure menus, and downloading extra bits means that I'm now willing to declare a sort of armed truce with Windows 8 (or, actually, 8.1 now). It has agreed to keep all its spurious Mac-esque eye-candy and ridiculous Metro nonsense out of my way, and I've conceded that a very small amount of the new functionality is useful.