It's 10:45pm, Ticia (see icon) is telling me it's past bedtime, and I thought of something to post about about an hour ago, but got distracted and forgot what it was. So this post is pure filler.
Here, have a haiku:
When I'm stuck for words I often fill in the blank with one more haiku.
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NaBloPoMo stats:
7978 words in 13 posts this month (average 613/post)
81 words in 1 post today
In my previous curmudgeon post, Writing Without Distractions, I gave version control only a brief mention, and promised a follow-up post. That would be this one. This post is intended for people who are not in the software industry, including not only poets but other writers, students, people who program as a hobby, and programmers who have been in suspended animation for the last decade or three and are just now waking up.
The Wikipedia article on version control gives a pretty good overview, but it suffers from being way too general, and at the same time too focused on software development. This post is aimed at poets and other writers, and will be using the most popular version control system, git. (That Wikipedia article shares many of the same flaws as the one on version control.) My earlier post, Git: The other blockchain, was aimed at software developers and blockchain enthusiasts.
A version control system, also called a software configuration management (SCM) system, is a system for keeping track of changes in a collection of files. (The two terms have slightly different connotations and are used in different contexts, but it's like "writer" and "author" -- a distinction without much of a difference. For what it's worth, git's official website is git-scm.com/, but the first line of text on the site says that "Git is a free and open source distributed version control system". Then in the next paragraph they use the initialism SCM when they want to shorten it. Maybe it's easier to type? Go figure.)
So what does the ability to "track changes" really get you?
The part you've been waiting for -- the end. This post is already long, so I'll just refer you to the resources for now. Expect another installment, though, and please feel free to suggest future topics.
git help tutorial and git help tutorial-2.
You may also have the Git User's Manual installed on your computer.
man command to read them, but it's
easier to follow links on the web.
git help - that's right, the manual is also available by
way of git itself. That can be very convenient.
Another fine post from
The Computer Curmudgeon (also at
computer-curmudgeon.com).
Donation buttons in profile.
So, I didn't manage to make yesterday's post -- I got distracted, so instead I had to finish up what I'd been working on this morning.
Since it's moderately incomprehensible unless you've been reading this blog very closely, so there will be (perhaps totally unnecessary) notes. No [references] because they would interrupt the flow, as well as being too obvious.
Molly Electric blue. The Only possible color. Skip the drywall jokes.( notes )
I will resist the temptation to back-date this.
NaBloPoMo stats:
13506 words in 25 posts this month (average 540/post)
200 words in 1 post today
1 missed day
The theme of today's crowdfunding Creative Jam is Empowerment. Following up on yesterday's post, and the role of the Watt Balance (now called the Kibble balance, in honor of its inventor) in replacing the standard kilogram by defining the Planck constant as precisely 6.62607015×10−34 joule-seconds, I came up with:
A watt balance weighs The old standard kilogram. Planck's Constant defined. A lump of metal Is finally replaced by Something eternal.
There's something epic -- or at least haiku-worthy -- in the story of replacing an imperfect artifact with a precise definition, a century and a quarter after it was made.
Everyone is of course encouraged to join in the Creative Jam.
