chrisphan.com

Mastodon posts for 2025-W49

An analog clock reading 1:30 

Categories: Mastodon

Quotes a profane word for fecal matter

I can enthusiastically recommend "Oh Shit, Git!" by @ksylor and @b0rk . Twice in the last two days I have consulted this zine to fix silly mistakes I have made.

wizardzines.com/zines/oh-shit-

ohshitgit.com

They have a no-swears version, too:

wizardzines.com/zines/dangit-g

dangitgit.com/

— Chris Phan,

Really, all of @b0rk 's zines are really good. wizardzines.com

— Chris Phan,

This year, I will be posting my solutions to the on @codeberg!

codeberg.org/christopherphan/c

— Chris Phan,

Advent of code (general)

One thing I love about the is when I solve Part 1 pretty quickly, without thinking too hard about efficiency, and then adapting that approach to Part 2 is a combinatorial nightmare! (Or especially when the Part 1 approach is OK for Part 2 on the sample input, but not the actual puzzle input, which tend to be larger.)

I love being pushed to come up with a better approach. It usually makes my Part 1 better when I go back and do things better.

This has happened to me several days so far.

I'm also using (the tool, not the turn-of-the-century animated annoyance in Microsoft Office) to lint my solutions, and Clippy is great at teaching you how to write Rust better.

BTW, I have been posting my solutions on if you want to see my work:
codeberg.org/christopherphan/c

— Chris Phan,

"I'm also using (the tool, not the turn-of-the-century animated annoyance in Microsoft Office) ..."

I just spent way too much time making this graphic to go along with that aside.

An animated anthropomorphized rusty paper clip says Looks like you're writing a Rust program! and gives tips to improve some Rust code: warning: unnecessary use of `get(b).is_some()` .filter(|b| self.hampster_dancers.get(b).is_some()) help: replace it with: `contains_key(b)` (run `cargo clippy --fix --lib -p dancing-rodents` to apply 134 suggestions)

— Chris Phan,

Okay, : Decades ago, when I was probably 19 or 20, I wrote a snarky rant titled "Why the Paper Clip Sucks" about my disdain for the animated paper clip and posted it to my college web site. It ended up being quoted by @davew on his site "Scripting News", which was one of the first blogs!

scripting.com/2001/03/05.html

Sadly (or maybe not so sadly), after I graduated from college, my site went away. I have a saved copy of that essay on my machine, and maybe I will repost it some day.

Now I feel old!

Screenshot of Dave Winer's blog Scripting News : Christopher Phan: Why The Paper Clip Sucks. Of course, you can always get rid of him. This is what I do every time I start up any Office application. But before he disappears from the screen, he takes a second to wink.

— Chris Phan,