Top 9 “Carry On” Coding Terms

When a non-programmer looks over at my computer screen whilst I’m coding, I’m met with varying reactions. The usual reaction is one of confusion, amazement, sometimes admiration but every now and then… bewilderment at seemingly filthy language.

The bewilderment often comes after a closer look at what I’m typing. Take for example:

> git pull

> make clean | head

Out of context, one could get the wrong idea. A lot of our commands sound like something out of a Carry On movie. Strangely enough this doesn’t usually occur to the everyday friendly neighbourhood programmer like myself. Not because our minds aren’t as filthy as the rest of the world, but just because we’re used to the technical usage of these terms.

“A lot of our commands sound like something out of a Carry On movie”

Often friends have called me out on these. “Git?”, they’d say between chuckles, “Why are you typing git?”. In my head, I’m thinking “how can you not know what ‘git’ is!?” which of course is a nonsensical question. Why should they know?

Well, here is a short blog to give you what I consider to be the top 9 misunderstood “Carry On Coding” computer commands, in no particular order. (For the technical beings amongst you, I am taking my cue from Linux BaSH scripting commands).

1. head: You see anyone typing this, don’t be alarmed. The command simply retrieves the first few lines of a file (or stream of text).
2. touch: If you see a programmer type touch me, they are simply creating a blank file called “me” if it doesn’t exist. If it does, it changes the modified date of the file as if the file has been updated.
3. git: One of the more frequent commands you may find a programmer using, it is not an insult to anyone. It is simply a tool to manage a repository of files. Ok, let me try that again – imagine a remote filing system (like Dropbox or Google Drive) which also stores every version of every file and directory. It’s something close to that. Why this tool was called “git” in the first place? Google it.

   That’s right, I have no idea.

4. tail: This is similar to head except it retrieves the last few lines of a file. That is the only rear end it is referring to.
5. kill: The only thing getting murdered with this command is a process on your computer. Think of this as a program killer. If you use Windows, think of when (not if) you have had to type Ctrl-Alt-Del to see everything that is running, and stopping (or killing) processes or applications that aren’t responding, for example.
6. killall: See kill… but referring to the app you want to kill by name.
7. wc: This is a command to count the number of words in a file. It is not a request for a public lavatory. Next.
8. df: If you’re curious about the confusion here with this term, Urban Dictionary will tell you it’s another way of saying “wtf”. Rest assured, when we type df we’re not expressing such frustration at the computer (much as we’d like to). It simply checks how much space is free on your machine. (df = disk free).
9. bash: Why am I clarifying this one? Look up Urban Dictionary. Bash is the name of a Linux command environment… erm… translates garbage coders type into things a computer can understand. That’s as far as I’ll go into that, apologies to the coders out there.

Honourable mentions: finger, unzip, fork and mount. If you’re burning with curiosity regarding the technical meaning of these, go ask a programmer. But most likely, you’re giggling like a school child and couldn’t care less about the technical meaning…

So there you have it. Hopefully that clears a few things up. If you look at a coder’s screen and think you saw something dirty, you can no longer claim ignorance!

Carry On Coding!
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iPhones suck. (Take the bait. Click Me…)

Before half the internet reacts in outrage and much troll-age, I have come to make technical peace between Google and Apple – not war. This blog title is called click-bait. Designed to communicate with the inner troll in you, or the inner fanboy. It all depends on your point of view.

What I am actually going to address are a couple of common misconceptions
– that I hate Apple.
– that only iPhones play best with other Apple products.

To start with, I’d like to think I’m fairly tech-agnostic. I like using tech that plays well with other tech. Yes, I am a Google fan. But I judge by product, not by company. I mean, my first smartwatch was the Martian Smartwatch. One of the reasons I chose it because it simply works using Bluetooth – connecting with Android, iOS and BlackBerry phones.

Now I’m going to address the first misconception easily.

I own a Mac Mini. I love it.

Now that’s out of the way. You see, Apple make great products. I owned my first MacBook back in 2007 after using Windows/Ubuntu for years, and I never looked back. (Although I did replace my MacBook Pro a couple of years ago with my Chromebook, but that’s one for another blog post…)

Point is, I’ve had a Mac in one form or another for 8 years now. You can run open source (free) software on it, I can use it for programming, and for more creative exploits – music, art, movie-making. Usually, people think that if you have a Mac, you ought to have an iPhone. That is simply not the case.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to connect to a music player to synchronise my phone with my computer. Yes, I am talking about the beast that is iTunes – feature creep incarnate.

I own a Nexus 6 currently, which is a pure Android phone. Recently, I’ve stuck with the Nexus over the past few years due to its reliability. I plug my Android using a standard micro USB cable into my Mac and can simply access my files on my phone as if it my phone was a USB memory stick. All my contacts, photos et al are all available on the cloud anyway. I can access everything through my browser.

It’s gets better though. There is a great app called AirDroid, which allows you to access your phone wirelessly. It essentially gives you a web portal into your phone. You can download and upload files into your phone.

It’s very simple. Google and Apple products can work just fine together. Android plays nice with multiple operating systems – Windows, Mac, Linux. Whichever floats your boat. iPhone doesn’t have the same kind of interoperability, it’s more of a (deliberate) closed cage. That is not the case with a Mac however. Which is why I own a Mac, but do not own an iPhone.

If you were expecting an all out Android vs iPhone war, please by my guest and comment. Help yourselves to the ammunition available and begin the flame war.

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Do You Even Tech Your Workout Bro?

Wearable tech like FitBit, Food tracker apps like MyFitnessPal… we are increasingly invited to tech our workout with technology that promises to monitor our health, work out what we need to eat, and what exercises to do.

It can all be a bit too much – which one is correct? What works best for you? Which wrist monitor is more accurate? Which app takes into account my lifestyle?

I am not writing to help you out with this at all. I’m here to add to your problem of choice.

Don’t worry, I will cover wearable technology at some point.

Earlier in the week, I’ve been slaving away at creating a mobile web app for Asgard Fit. They found my gig on Fiverr.com. I use the term “slaving away” not because it was a bad project, but because that’s what we software developers do for any project!

On the contrary, it was great to combine 2 of my interests: technology and fitness. *Asgard Fit* have a Nutrition Template spreadsheet which can be purchased from their website. Using information you enter from your vital statistics to your lifestyle, it calculates the amounts of carbohydrates, protein and fat you should ideally be taking on your rest and training days.

Now, I don’t have time for spreadsheets. I’m betting I’m not alone in that. So my task was to “appify” it into something people can access on their mobile browser.

Although I have my own ways of eating which involves Carb Backloading, I’ve been intrigued by the complex excel formulas and calculations that go into creating something like this. From it’s calculations for me, if I were not doing Carb Backloading, I believe the figures are sound – and actually correlates to a lot of principles of Carb Backloading.

Give it a try yourself, I think you’ll find it useful. There is more to come to the app which I am most likely to be involved with. I am certainly going to use it as a guide!

Now if I could just get back to workout consistency again…

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