Christos Zisopoulos christos

Falsehoods programmers believe about prices

You can store a price in a floating point variable.
All currencies are subdivided in 1/100th units (like US dollar/cents, euro/eurocents etc.).
All currencies are subdivided in decimal units (like dinar/fils)
All currencies currently in circulation are subdivided in decimal units. (to exclude shillings, pennies) (counter-example: MGA)
All currencies are subdivided. (counter-examples: KRW, COP, JPY... Or subdivisions can be deprecated.)
Prices can't have more precision than the smaller sub-unit of the currency. (e.g. gas prices)
For any currency you can have a price of 1. (ZWL)
Every country has its own currency. (EUR is the best example, but also Franc CFA, etc.)

Build your own private, encrypted, open-source Dropbox-esque sync folder

Prerequisites:

One or more clients running a UNIX-like OS. Examples are given for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, although all software components are available for other platforms as well (e.g. OS X). YMMV
A cheap Ubuntu 12.04 VPS with storage. I recommend Backupsy, they offer 250GB storage for $5/month. Ask Google for coupon codes.

Software components used:

Unison for file synchronization
EncFS for folder encryption

Frontend Development

Attention: the list was moved to

https://github.com/dypsilon/frontend-dev-bookmarks

This page is not maintained anymore, please update your bookmarks.

Make it real

Ideas are cheap. Make a prototype, sketch a CLI session, draw a wireframe. Discuss around concrete examples, not hand-waving abstractions. Don't say you did something, provide a URL that proves it.

Ship it

Nothing is real until it's being used by a real user. This doesn't mean you make a prototype in the morning and blog about it in the evening. It means you find one person you believe your product will help and try to get them to use it.

	# config/initializers/sidekiq.rb
	if Sidekiq.server?
	config = ActiveRecord::Base.connection.pool.spec.config
	ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(config.merge(pool: Sidekiq.options.fetch(:concurrency)))
	end

	def build_path
	"build/iPhoneOS-6.0-Release/"
	end

	def ipa_name
	'"Today\'s Shirts.ipa"'
	end

	def dsym_name
	'"Today\'s Shirts.dSYM"'

	# spec/support/timezone.rb
	module TimeZoneHelpers
	extend ActiveSupport::Concern

	def self.randomise_timezone!
	offsets = ActiveSupport::TimeZone.all.group_by(&:formatted_offset)
	zones = offsets[offsets.keys.sample] # Random offset to better vary the time zone differences
	Time.zone = zones.sample # Random zone from the offset (can be just 1st, but let's do random)
	puts "Current rand time zone: #{Time.zone}. Repro: Time.zone = #{Time.zone.name.inspect}"
	end

	# Changing terminal color in MacOSX when SSHing (so you know at a glance that you're no longer in Kansas)
	# Adapted from http://www.rngtng.com/2011/01/14/mac-os-x-terminal-visual-indication-for-your-ssh-connection/
	# 1. Create a theme in your terminal setting with the name "SSH" and the desired colors, background, etc.
	# 2. Add this to your .bash_profile (or .bashrc, I always forget the difference ;))
	# 3. Optional but useful: in the terminal, go to Settings > Startup and set "New tabs open with" to
	# "default settings" (otherwise, if you open a new tab from the changed one, you get a local tab with
	# the SSH colors)

	function tabc() {
	NAME=$1; if [ -z "$NAME" ]; then NAME="Default"; fi # if you have trouble with this, change

	@implementation UITextView (RSExtras)


	static BOOL stringCharacterIsAllowedAsPartOfLink(NSString *s) {

	/*[s length] is assumed to be 0 or 1. s may be nil.
	Totally not a strict check.*/

	if (s == nil \|\| [s length] < 1)
	return NO;