I have to make a confession. I've been using different version control system for the last 25 years, but everytime I'm doing anything more complicated than basic commit/push I feel absolutely overwhelmed and terrified that I'm about to break something.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a huge waste of time (or to be on a more positive note - potential).
Just the first example "Device type in JS".
"A coarse pointer does not mean “mobile”, and a fine pointer does not guarantee “desktop”. Ask the browser about input capabilities instead of guessing the device from its user agent."
So it doesn't tell me how to identify device type. It doesn't even run the code so I could quickly compare results between my mobile and desktop devices to establish a baseline.
The conclusion is wrong. The point of using these media queries is that:
1) You can only use tiny buttons with precise pointers.
2) You can only use hover popups with pointers that can actually hover.
In practice, much of this is too much work and everyone just designs for touchscreens instead. It's rare to find a website that even bothers with using title="" for tooltips because smartphones are a disaster of UI and lack tooltips.
You’re right: it doesn’t identify the device type, so the title is misleading.
The intended point is that device type is often the wrong thing to detect: a touchscreen laptop may expose both coarse and fine pointers, while a tablet may be connected to a mouse or trackpad. The snippet detects available input capabilities instead, which is usually what the interface should respond to.
I wasn’t particularly careful with the titles, but this one should be "Detect input capabilities". Thanks for the heads-up!
Why should we treat a minor wiki page and some dude's personal site (who disagree with each other on totals) as authoritative proof Ikea is wrong about it's own catalog? Especially when it's not hard to find 1st/3rd party sources claiming an order of magnitude more products. Keep in mind, some things will also fall off the catalog over time.
I’m going to guess that a good chunk of products are named but never released. I’d love to know what products IKEA develops but decides to not release.
Not sure covid was the sole driving force. A combination of MS taking over and deciding to move it to Azure, a massive increase in traffic due to ai usage (not that this should be an excuse for a platform that should be scaleable), and Github going all in on AI usage to write its own code.
They're making it very easy for a viable alternative to pop up and take their lunch - it just wont be Gitlab.
While it annoys me how things have gone downhill, I think you missing one key detail with regards to competition. It's only "very easy" if you feel like throwing enough money at CI compute to power the majority of the open source ecosystems needs. That would be the bare minimum in order to even have a shot of achieving similar levels of network effects as Github.
I don't have data for it, but I have been a Github user since 2012 and have found it to be down often for pretty much that entire time. I always figured it's cultural to a degree–new features always seem pretty buggy/underbaked, and often continue to long term but remain unloved and incomplete.
I has never been so bad as in the couple last years. And it's getting worse.
I never had to wonder if Steam is going to be working today, so I could play my game after work, but it's been an issue with GitHub since covid. At least for me.
Fortunately, due the nature of the service, I can sit out most downtimes. Most of the time at least.
You can, and you should eject your dependencies and package them with your releases. And I don't understand why it's not a common practice.
You can even bundle your releases with a runtime, but that's not always the best solution. For something like this I'd actually prefer interpreted code I can inspect line by line rather than having a blob of unknown origin.
I've been saying this for years - the best way to wrap your head around AI and LLMs are to think about them as "a whole internet wrapped into a single zip archive, with immensely clever solution to query the data".
That's it.
Once you accept this mental model the implications are staggering.
AI is not "thinking", and it doesn't know the answer to your question because it's smart, but because it has been asked thousand of times over the internet, and it simply provides you with an already existing answer. That code it made for you? It already lived somewhere on GitHub.
But then you have to ask yourself - if we surrender to the AI, who will produce new content 10-15 years from now? If we all pivot from programming to prompt engineering, who will come up with novel solutions?
Once I've tried one SCM to track every single change to my files, and the other for bulk commits. The result was quite satisfying.
It was some 15 years ago, we just switched from CVS to SVN and everyone thought it was the end of the history, at least for SCMs. Main branch was called master, and we were locking files by simply telling our teammates not to touch them.
At one time I decided I really missed the Eclipse feature which was tracking all local changes to the files, even without an active SCM. Making tiny commits was not an option, because I want it to track every file save, and we haven't yet figured out working with branches.
So I decided to install mercurial and made a hook which made a dummy commit every time I saved a file. Everything mercurial related was ignored by SVN.
Suddenly I was able to teleport myself to a version from before the lunch while SVN history was crystal clear.
Somehow I still miss integrated, per file, timeline in IDE.
Some time ago I found Zed did not have undo-trees (like Emacs and Vim have, possible with plugin). I think DeltaDB is probably going to power undo-trees for Zed.
A good moment to remind everyone that if we took the promise for granted, that AI will in fact prevail and prompting is the one skill that will rule them all... we'll lose all domain experts in one generation.
It's less of "signaling expertise" and more about actually having said "expertise".
In my experience with LLMs it's not uncommon to be having a deep conversation about making pasta, only to be told, after asking for a sample recipe, to get a bucket of paint and a bag of concrete. Of course these hallucinations are way more subtle and easy to miss for someone who doesn't have deep domain knowledge.
It's easy to make a good call, but it's really hard to stick with it.
The main financial advice I'm giving to all relatives is to write down their decisions before buying anything. Or, if you're looking for a long term investment - asking someone close to change the password on your account without letting you know.
The major problem with investing is that most people will commit to 2-5y strategy, and panic on the first dip.
If you did your due diligence and you believe that this particular asset will grow within 5 years - when it starts dipping after few months, and nothing major has changed in your predictions - you should buy more instead of selling.
> If you did your due diligence and you believe that this particular asset will grow within 5 years...
This assumes that most people know how to do "due diligence" and that their "predictions" are accurate. Most people don't actually have the knowledge and skill to evaluate the investment vehicles (stocks, bonds, etc.) available to them so their predictions are inherently limited and flawed.
> ... when it starts dipping after few months, and nothing major has changed in your predictions - you should buy more instead of selling.
One of the biggest mistakes average people make is selecting investments with risk profiles and durations that are mismatched to their needs and objectives. This is why, for most people, it's much better to use a properly-selected model portfolio than to try to pick individual stocks.
I've learned this applies to a lot of life. Being a good manager, tech lead, consultant, etc, advisor, parent, friend, etc, is sometimes just half being a good therapist and helping them regulate.
I've watched a lot of "not officially financial advice" finance videos on YouTube (the solid people, not grifters), and while the financial theory side is interesting, when they talk about pragmatic investing and patterns of client behavior they have dealt with professionally, a large part of it is emotion management. Convincing clients to stick with a solid plan even when this month is abnormally bad, or avoid going all-in on the latest hotness, etc.
> The discs have been a formality for longer than most gamers understand or want to admit. Sony is discontinuing disc sales as a response to how gamers are buying games not the other way around.
On the contrary. It's been a very long process of boiling the frog.
I bought a physical release of Spore in 2008 and the game allowed itself to be installed a couple of times. Few years later I bought a single player RPG game for which I still own the CD but I'm not able to play it because I tied it to an online service and lost my credentials. All the games I own on Steam can be gone in one second and my children probably won't be able to get access to them even if they don't require online accounts, for which very many does.
There's a huge disconnect between online games that require servers to be played on - in which case it's sad but understandable that one day these will be gone and unplayable - and vast majority of games that are single player that still require players to be online and have credentials to some 3rd party applications.
GOG is the only vendor that actually lets you to own your games.
Steam is the only company that play fair with their customers, but I can easily see the future in which Gabe passes out and Tencent buys the company.
> But today, buying a console is an ongoing relationship with the manufacturer every microsecond you play a game.
We are fully aware of that, and that's precisely what we are opposed to.
I can buy an old PS2 with collection of games, plug it to a monitor and have fun with no hassle and without an internet connection. 10 years from now PS5 will be a dead brick, even with a bag full of games.
Steam's policy is that an already published game can only be delisted, allowing old owners to still play the game. I still own the original versions of Skyrim (before Anniversary edition, definitive edition, and all other *ditions), and I can still download it and play it, even though that version is not available for purchase in the store anymore.
Xbox and PSN don't have such luxuries AFAIK, after a game is removed from the store you cannot keep downloading and playing them.
PC is the last bastion for gaming freedom, a place to patch your game to use community servers. And for better or worse, piracy and emulation is always an option for the games that have any restrictions
> Steam's policy is that an already published game can only be delisted, allowing old owners to still play the game. I still own the original versions of Skyrim (before Anniversary edition, definitive edition, and all other *ditions), and I can still download it and play it, even though that version is not available for purchase in the store anymore.
No. Their policy is:
> This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.
And their disclaimer disavows any rights you have to use the software or for it not to become broken.
And they prohibit transferring your account or licenses in any fashion, which means they are at best only going to become void when you pass.
I'm not talking about licenses or owning the game, I'm talking about if a publisher removes a game for whatever reason, you don't immediately lose access to that game, you can play it forever after. That is their current de facto policy, with probably a few exceptions.
The discussion on wether you truly own a licensed game is a different thing from what I said.
The GTA case is because js technically an update from Rockstar, not specifically Steam's fault here. There are always to downgrade a game, but true, it is not as easy as GoG.
Would they not allow it? Rockstar is the owner of the game, they can update any removal of content if they want to. Modern games frequently change gameplay, story, and soundtrack between versions
Steams policy means that Marvel Heroes, a game that was shutdown and its developer closed, can still be downloaded by prior owners and used on the private servers.
Kind of interesting but I also had a game on GOG that got delisted and had to get a refund because it got removed.
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