Zen Doodles

First part of the pantheon screencast I am making. Your feedback is much appreciated :)

There are two kinds of files we need to ignore (or exclude) in version control. Git handles both cases nicely, but every time I set up a new repository, I have to remind myself which one is which.

To be honest, I have discounted the women in technology issue for ages. In my 12 years of coding, the only time I recall being truly discriminated against for being a woman was when I was working for another woman. Now perhaps I’ve been sheltered from comments or issues by good bosses, and I’ve had some outstanding ones, but I honestly have not found it to be a problem.

Recently, someone I am working with at the World Bank asked me about updating my repository from an external source without having a lot of crazy merge issues. At the time I was not sure I understood the question, but I've decided to document my process for the benefit of any folks who might be having similar issues.

Let's say we are working with an open source project where we've made some custom changes. Now we'd like to update our project to the most recent revision. Here is my workflow:

Edit: I'm on Drupal now, but many of the ideas here still apply...

A friend asked me today, “WordPress? WTF?”

I do work primarily with Drupal, so the question is relevant. (Although, I would like to take a moment to point out how much I enjoy programming in a variety of languages. Right now, Drupal consistently pays the bills.)

I’m very excited to be starting work with the World Bank on Open Atrium. Open Atrium is a flavor of Drupal which is intended to be used as an intranet. Perhaps as exciting, I will likely get to collaborate with the folks over at Development Seed. I’ve been admiring their work quite a bit lately. Most notably, the features module and their work on drush and drush make have made my job much easier more than once.

I am very excited to announce that ABCTE will be making an honest coder of me. I’ve been working for them for nearly 6 months on a full time consultant basis with the Midtown Group, in the hopes of just such a thing.

The work is Drupal based with just enough custom code to make it something I can sink my teeth into. The organization has an education focus which folks who know me will recognize as something I’m passionate about. The upcoming projects are exciting, and I’m very much looking forward to working with Sean, Mi-Young, Bill, and the whole organization.

Oh yes! I am pleased to announce that I am now officially doing Drupal development work for American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence on a 3 month contract. It’s great news for me, and a fantastic opportunity. I even get to work remotely.

I’ve got my fingers crossed. If I play my cards right, this could turn into a permanent position. Congratulatory comments are welcome now…

Ah yes, Apache. I am a web developer. I should know something about it, right? It turns out, up until recently, I knew just enough to get myself into trouble. Oh sure, I could walk through a tutorial or online instructions to get this or that thing working, but really getting into the why or wherefore of what I was doing was not a priority.

I have a Wiki. Actually it’s new. I just installed it last night. In another life, the company I worked for had one that developers used for notes on specific projects and whatnot. So, since my new project doesn’t really have a good place for these kind of notes, I decided to install one. Not a public Wiki for all to see, just something for notes that wouldn’t be appropriate in a blog.