Weeknotes 174

Busy, busy week after an unremarkable ticket I was working on suddenly became important. It isn’t quite done yet, but it’s under control after some nice collaboration. It’s good to feel supported occasionally after so much siloed working.

“Just program like you’re an idiot” – amen!

Ruby Standard Gems - A useful reference for which gems, and their versions, are installed in the Ruby standard library.

There are new computers due from Apple very soon and I think I’m ready to upgrade. In a lot of ways the computer I’m using now, the MacBook Air M1 bought in 2021, is still great for my needs. It never feels slow and I love the portability.

However, there are two things that are not quite perfect 1) the battery is no longer what is was. I’ve gone from literally never worrying about power when I’m out and about, to having to be aware that I’m fully charged when I leave the house and also sometimes charging on the go; and 2) since Mocha-gate one of the two USB-C ports does not work, and I could do with getting this properly cleaned under AppleCare.

But…the new computers are apparently not Airs, and do I want to give up the extreme portability that I’ve enjoyed from this one?

RailsBump might be useful for checking whether the gems you’re using in your Rails app are compatible with different Rails versions.

Sam Stephenson released a productivity/concentration app a while ago called N10 which I bought this week and I am trying it out. Sam has given so much to the community so I decided to give back in this small way.

“ParadeDB is a modern Elasticsearch alternative built on Postgres. Built for real-time, update-heavy workloads.” – this seems cool.

I was watching this interview with Jesse Hanley of Bento this week where he mentions that he does basically all his querying of data, with the exception of simple SELECTs via primary key, via Elasticsearch because that’s what it is built for. An interesting technique and I’m glad it works for him (the rest of interview is very interesting too), but I wonder if it could all be done inside Postgres with ParadeDB.

Incidentally, if you wanna use ParadeDB with Elixir’s Ecto you can do so with Paradex.

Passwords have problems, but passkeys have more – I have to say I am lukewarm on passkeys too. (This agreement is becoming a worrying habit).

I have yet to create a single Passkey. I just don’t trust them yet, and as Gruber has said (what is happening to me?) – “if you’re using a proper password manager, your passwords should all be unique and random' – which is the case for me. I currently see Passkeys as a way for me to potentially lose access to an account, whilst having no upside.

Calculate the carbon footprint of your website – I don’t wanna brag (I do) but this website gets an A+. Simply create a text only website and you too can save the world.

I’ve been exploring Tindersticks' back catalogue a bit this week. “The Not Knowing” is lovely.