š· day 4 - nostalgia
I found myself locked out of a recent GitLab free account I created for a specific purpose. Frustratingly, I have yet to be informed why my account was closed, and there has been no communication from GitLab. Iāve since recreated everything in GitHub. To be locked out without any communication is poor.
š· day 3 - shadow
š· day 2 - curve
š· day 1 - tree
Web development like it's 2009
I am in favour of Simon Willisonās āno build frontendā web development approach.
If youāve found web development frustrating over the past 5-10 years, hereās something that has worked great for me: give yourself permission to avoid any form of frontend build system (so no npm / React / TypeScript / JSX / Babel / Vite / Tailwind etc) and code in HTML and JavaScript like itās 2009.
Iāve been building Writeabout in Sinatra, and Iāve reached the point where I need to add a bit of JavaScript to allow the changing of the light, dark, and system themes. I already have these implemented in the original Rails code as Stimulus controllers, but Iām sure it wonāt be too much work to rewrite them as plain old JavaScript.
I donāt have a favourable opinion of frontend web development. Iāve always found it unnecessarily complicated and constantly changing, but rarely for the better. For the last few years, Iāve used TailwindCSS because its build step in Rails applications is minimalāthe productivity gains outweigh the added complexity. Beyond small learning projects, Iāve resisted adopting anything like React or TypeScript.
I love blog posts like this. Itās about the benefits of a pen and a notebook for software developers.
That post led to another post by the author about how they take notes at work as a software developer and a few others I have read.
Definitely a blog worth subscribing to.
Thatās the 2nd time in a matter of weeks Iāve used a YAML file as a data source instead of going to straight to creating a table in the database.
The YAML file bridges that gap nicely of not needing the database quite yet, but we do need to store some structured data.
Thatās pretty much most of my repositories moved from GitHub to sourcehut.
Writeabout is still on GitHub but is undergoing a Sinatra rewrite. Once thatās complete, Iāll mark the one on GitHub as archived and publicise the new one on Sourcehut.
More of my projects will gradually appear on sourcehut.
Finding the Right Git Platform for Personal Projects
I migrated one of my two GitHub accounts to GitLab a few weeks ago. The move itself had nothing to do with missing features or pricing. It was primarily to try out something else that wasnāt GitHub.
At my job, I spend most of my days on GitHub. When working on my little projects, stepping back into GitHub feels like I am back at work again. With the lines blurring between work and personal coding, I started to think that when I spent time coding on my projects, it still felt like āworkā.
So, for one GitHub account, I migrated that account to GitLab. Itās been a great move, and despite being on GitLabās free tier, I can still match feature for feature what I was paying GitHub for. And when it comes to working with that account, I donāt feel like I am back at my desk.
After the move, I considered moving my other private repositories to GitLab, but GitLab would be more than I needed. It has many great tools for maintaining code bases, but I donāt need them for smaller projects.
I needed something other than GitHub or GitLab.
Enter SourceHut, created by Drew DeVault. SourceHut is a collection of open-source development tools that are a good alternative to GitHub and GitLab.
Iāve been considering using SourceHut for a while, but I have only started seriously considering it in the last couple of weeks.
Today, I created my account and initialised a single repository to get me started. A much more straightforward and basic user interface is strange, but it works. I have become accustomed to the feature-rich user interfaces of GitHub and GitLab. While SourceHut lacks many of the features found in the two bigger platforms, the simplicity of the SourceHut user interface makes it refreshing to use, with just the essentials.
Over the next few weeks, I will migrate more repositories, and then I can demote my GitHub account to be used only for work.