I partition disks in Linux all the time. But, thanks to disk ghosting, I don't do much partitioning in Windows. When I do need to partition in Windows (like external drives), what do I use? Enter the...
Approximating GNU parted in Windows
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Identifying specific vulnerabilities in WordPress, by version
Exactly how vulnerable is your WordPress version? Ask the good folks over at the WordPress vulnerability database who have not only assembled a vulnerability list by version, but also provided a nice API for querying.
# WordPress 4.4.2 vulnerabilities, by type
$ curl -sS https://wpvulndb.com/api/v2/wordpresses/442...
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Pasting a remote file into your local clipboard (* mouse not required)
So, I'm updating a configuration file on a remote server (using MobaXterm), and I need to copy the contents into some Trello documentation running in a browser on my local Windows machine.
The old fashioned way to do it is to select it with the mouse (which MobaXterm interprets as copying to my Windows...
Friday, November 11, 2016
Bypassing private and protected visibility in PHP
Members declared protected can be accessed only within the class itself and by inherited classes. Members declared as private may only be accessed by the class that defines the member.
PHP documentation on property visibility
This is true only in an academic sense: code outside the object can...
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
The end of the mouse era
Doug Englebart invented the computer mouse nearly 50 years ago. Before HD, before GPU, before UX, the mouse let people interact with an information rich virtual space with ease.
The generation whose work productivity preceded the mouse are retiring. Today's work force learned young or grew up...
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Evoking all possible test failure modes in PHPUnit
When you're writing your own PHPUnit test listener, you need a test case that evokes all the different PHPUnit test states. Here's you go:
<?php
class EvokesTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
public function test_pass()
{
}
public function test_fail()
{
$this->fail(__FUNCTION__);
...
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Disabling Plugins in Jenkins
If a plugin upgrade causes problems, Jenkins may not restart. You'll be welcomed by an error message and a stack trace. Don't panic! Go into your Jenkins plugin directory, list files by date, and then disable the most recent ones:
$ cd $JENKINS_HOME/plugins
$ ls -ltr *.jpi
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root ...
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Big list of files to edit? vim to the rescue (again)
Did you know that you can treat the text under the cursor as a filename, and open that up for editing right in vim? Here's how:
gf will open the filename under the cursor in the current window
^Wf will open it in a split window
^Wgf will open it in a new wind...
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Today's fortune
Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around us in awareness.
— James Thurbe...
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Private methods are collaborators in disguise
Private methods cannot be unit tested, only integration tested through whatever public methods call them. I find this unsettling. I want to unit test private methods, so that I know the public methods are composed of independently verified code. What to do?
My first tactic is to avoid private methods....
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Vim gem: built-in calculation
Vim is my go-to editor. Has been for 20 years. Besides being an all-around awesome editor for composing text, it also has some handy built-ins, like calculations:
In insert mode, ^R= accepts a mathematical expression, the result of which will be inserted in place.
In normal mode, ^A increments the...
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Using vim to replace string functions with their multi-byte equivalent
The PHP INI option mbstring.func_overload override certain string functions (like strpos, substr, etc.) with multi-byte aware implementations. This makes it super easy to migrate a legacy code base to UTF-8, but immediately restricts interaction with vendor products (Symfony, Net_DNS2, etc.).
The...
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Monday, January 11, 2016
[Proposed] Elephpant Etiquette
Yes, I do believe PHP internals needs a guide to etiquette. But, no, not a code of conduct. Internals is a decades (plural) old cathedral-like meritocracy. There is no benevolent dictator. There is no functional oversight group. No rigorous process (like Go has) will work in the internals ecosystem.
Anthony's...
Friday, January 8, 2016
PHP Contributor Etiquette
I was the first to publically +1 the Code of Conduct RFC. I'd love to see a policy that fosters diversity and inclusion, because damn the PHP crowd is startlingly similar. But, after hearing the arguments, I can't endorse the code as written. It's too focused on process and punishment....
