Julia Evans

programming and exclamation marks

I have DMs muted from people I don’t follow.

Public Key

npub1ym9ddu2qh7rda8pxklq4gxw2kxhtm4cgvdvdy64z6agwy88nhuhqcnlm9y

NIP-05 Address

b0rk_at_social.jvns.ca@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqszdjkk79qtlpk7nsnt0s25r89trt4a6uyxxkxjd23dw58zrnem7tspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qzxrhwden5te0wfjkccte9ehx7umhdpjhyefwvdhk6ar55cd

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

relay.noswhere.com

relay.nostr.band

Author Public Key

npub1ym9ddu2qh7rda8pxklq4gxw2kxhtm4cgvdvdy64z6agwy88nhuhqcnlm9y

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Last Notes

2024-08-23 23:02:21

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@npub1xz0…hzks obsessed with “inessential C syntax that textbooks spend a long time covering”

2024-08-20 15:07:31

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looks like the poster experiment is a success -- we've already sold 115 copies of this Debugging Manifesto poster (they should have almost all shipped already!), so I'll probably do another poster at some point!
https://store.wizardzines.com/products/poster-debugging-manifesto

2024-08-20 02:16:40

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someone asked me recently how long it took me to get used to the rhythm of working for myself and I said “uh, maybe 3 years?”. I thought working for myself would be hard to adjust to and it was, but I'm happy I did it anyway

2024-08-20 02:05:35

i quit my job just over 5 years ago to explain computer things (https://jvns.ca/blog/2019/09/13/a-year-explaining-computer-things/). I had no idea if I would like being my own boss but ultimately it's been really cool and I'm happy to have this weird job writing zines about computers.
("I’m not planning to hire employees or anything” turned out to not be an accurate prediction, now I work with 2 part-time employees who I don't know how I would manage without)

2024-08-19 20:56:29

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haha love to see some fun XSS attempts in the logs for mess with dns
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/990/681/933/614/815/original/68193c9b6927bc19.png

2024-08-19 17:08:18

migrating Mess With DNS to use PowerDNS https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/08/19/migrating-mess-with-dns-to-use-powerdns/

2024-08-19 12:06:43

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@npub14uk…2erc this is awesome, really inspires me to work on my bench to get to a quarter of your numbers :)

2024-08-16 17:39:18

Just released a huge update to Mess With DNS (https://messwithdns.net) -- it looks the same, but now it's powered by a real DNS implementation on the backend (PowerDNS) and should be MUCH better at being standards compliant.
When we released Mess With DNS 3 years ago, the DNS implementation was pretty crappy and over the years I've gotten a lot of bug reports about it, so I’m very excited to replace my crappy implementation.
Would love to hear about any problems you run into!

2024-08-16 11:22:30

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@npub183p…jd98 oh yeah I remapped ctrl left/right away from the spaces shortcut so that I could use them in the terminal

2024-08-16 00:13:42

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@npub183p…jd98 thanks! I just realized that it’s a fish-specific keyboard shortcut, oops

2024-08-16 00:10:59

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@npub183p…jd98 interesting thanks! I'll try to figure out why it works in iTerm but not in Terminal.app

2024-08-14 22:45:47

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@npub15rp…wudh like this
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/962/800/301/836/255/original/7f1a3da6a4cf4cc6.png

2024-08-14 15:09:35

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@npub1r52…jptq it’s an exception sadly because it ships separately from everything else

2024-08-14 13:38:32

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@npub1tvk…egdw awesome thanks!
it should ship within a week or so no matter what, we don’t have much control over that

2024-08-14 13:19:23

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selling these posters is really an experiment -- I don't know if we'll ever print another poster yet!
we printed 500 of this poster and I think if we sell 100-150 of them I’ll call it a success. so far we've sold 30 so it's looking good!
https://store.wizardzines.com/products/poster-debugging-manifesto

2024-08-09 19:42:45

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@npub147u…dm5n no worries these things are so hard to track down!

2024-08-09 19:38:35

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I think I'm also going to open source the project, mostly by taking my checklist of all the things that I think I "should" do before open sourcing it and just making it open source without doing any of the things on the list
and also just leaving my terrible commit history the way it is
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/933/752/701/080/685/original/be77349315771cf2.png

2024-08-09 19:29:03

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@npub147u…dm5n what shell / terminal do you use? i'm trying to get a sense for which shells / terminals this happens with

2024-08-09 19:28:36

getting close to being done refactoring https://messwithdns.net to use powerdns (https://www.powerdns.com/) as a backend instead of my custom dns code and I'm pretty excited
gonna get to remove all of the "RFC??? what RFC?" disclaimers and have a DNS implementation that is actually correct! And fix a lot of the bugs people have reported over the years that I've been ignoring!
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/933/713/475/224/654/original/f403d46be8973abd.png

2024-08-09 18:55:05

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@npub1ay4…cgp5 can you say more? (do you mean when copying from the terminal or copying from a webpage?)

2024-08-09 17:56:46

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@npub1lwd…9y3p thanks!

2024-08-09 14:57:18

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@npub15ml…2w4s thanks!

2024-08-09 14:47:38

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@npub1ngm…8x2x can you say more?

2024-08-09 14:47:02

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@npub1pzy…pz3v thank you, I thought you'd know the answer :)

2024-08-09 14:46:17

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@npub15ml…2w4s that's such a great example thanks!
what shell are you using? trying to get a sense for which shells recognize that you're pasting (and will avoid running the command until you press enter) and which won't

2024-08-09 14:40:58

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@npub1pzy…pz3v that's a cool feature, I wonder how they identify pastes

2024-08-09 14:36:49

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@npub179x…sg8u huh I didn't realize that Wayland didn't have that, thanks! I guess I stopped using the middle click clipboard

2024-08-09 14:32:32

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@npub1ghk…8vfk can you say more?

2024-08-09 14:27:32

what some problems you've run into in the terminal with copy and paste? so far I have:
- pasting a URL with a `&` (or other character) in it without quotes
- pasting in many commands and one in the middle fails
- accidentally leaving in the '$'
- pasting in something with Fancy Quotes instead of normal quotes
- pasting a bash incantation into fish
- not knowing the keyboard shortcut to paste in a new terminal
- how Linux has two different clipboards

2024-08-08 22:09:14

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@npub17px…xxzw an eternal struggle

2024-08-08 19:21:36

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@npub1yc6…um5s thanks, updated the post to mention that!

2024-08-08 18:56:19

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trying to get back into writing little "here's a small thing I learned this week and wish I'd learned earlier” blog posts

2024-08-08 18:48:55

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@npub17ah…jny5 nice thank you!

2024-08-08 18:41:01

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@npub17ah…jny5 fixed thanks!

2024-08-08 18:34:05

Go structs are copied on assignment (and other things about Go I'd missed) https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/08/06/go-structs-copied-on-assignment/

2024-08-08 18:33:25

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@npub1fre…4szy do you remember what the magic config is?

2024-08-08 17:49:00

these debugging posters are in our warehouse now and we're almost ready to put them up for sale on the site! They're going to be $20/shipping (because they ship in a tube, shipping won't combine with anything else)
https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk/112656662994903080
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/927/659/555/925/516/original/718f9cae7d4f6927.png

2024-08-08 17:47:10

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@npub18qz…l3sd man i only learned about this PATH hashing problem recently and I find it really confusing that it never bit me, I used bash for so many years!

2024-08-08 17:38:53

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there are so many great responses about what problems people run into in the terminal environment
I think my favourite so far is how reading and writing to a file at the same file (like `grep blah file.txt > file.txt`) will just erase the file's contents (from https://cathode.church/@julia/112926974158575037)
such a great example of a behaviour that I'd guess most people only learn about by being burned by it

2024-08-08 16:20:41

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@npub1usf…a4ln thanks this is a great one

2024-08-08 15:12:10

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@npub1pvx…8k5k i’m asking for other problems you’ve run into, not solutions to these ones

2024-08-08 14:20:48

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@npub1uzg…ychd that's a great one, do you have a better solution than "restart your terminal”?

2024-08-08 14:18:09

trying to make a list of specific problems that people run into in the terminal (and their solutions), what are some problems you've run into?
here are 8 I've come with so far
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/926/830/486/468/579/original/2164f6e379b98365.png

2024-08-06 19:31:18

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@npub1ccf…pxj4 I thiiink that's normal and hopefully it'll show up in the next week, but please let us know (support@wizardzines.com) if you think something has gone wrong!

2024-08-06 17:09:02

sorting out some zine shipping mishaps this week -- we incorrectly told everyone with a lettermail order that their zines shipped on July 12, but they actually may not have shipped until July 29

2024-08-02 21:23:56

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@npub19t5…qxj6 hooray!

2024-08-02 17:25:31

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@npub1vfe…v0qe aw awesome!!

2024-08-02 14:02:36

so many people are tagging me with pictures of their How Git Works zines arriving and I love it https://hachyderm.io/@robbkidd/112888385674616885

2024-08-01 22:50:58

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@npub1vr9…v74z thanks this is good

2024-08-01 20:11:07

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@npub1p56…nsnk yep!

2024-08-01 19:29:06

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@npub1pps…h3nw thanks for the example! way easier to understand that way

2024-08-01 19:27:42

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@npub1pps…h3nw oh yeah makes sense

2024-08-01 18:38:30

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@npub1pps…h3nw i mean feel free to run that code yourself and see what happens, no point arguing about it haha

2024-08-01 18:18:21

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@npub1pps…h3nw not true https://go.dev/play/p/bSLSqvlCYPw

2024-08-01 17:26:01

this is extremely silly but somehow I never noticed that `range` in Go makes a copy (https://go.dev/tour/moretypes/16) and I may or may not have spent 2 hours of my life debugging a bug caused by this
https://go.dev/play/p/tXGGz4syZ-f
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/887/933/002/646/895/original/fc9d560cfd8eed9b.png

2024-07-27 21:28:30

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@npub1ec0…td73 thank you that was it! I had the word 'twitter' muted and it worked after I unmuted it haha

2024-07-23 16:26:49

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@npub1lln…gtaf thank you!

2024-07-23 15:04:54

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@npub16tj…q5dq thanks, I don't think I knew that!

2024-07-23 15:02:54

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@npub1ytq…9rrp well in `less` for example ctrl+C won't stop the program, it'll only stop a "task" like a search that less is running. Same for vim or `python3` and a lot of other programs

2024-07-23 14:55:58

does anyone know if there's a reason why, in the terminal, there's no keyboard shortcut for "close the current program"?
obviously there's Ctrl+C, but Ctrl+C doesn't mean "close the current program", it means something more like "stop the current task, which may be a subtask of the current program". I guess I'm imagining a keyboard shortcut that sends a SIGTERM or something.
(please only answers based on actual evidence if you have any, not speculation)

2024-07-22 13:14:23

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@npub1w5x…j36c do any of the options in the FAQ work? https://store.wizardzines.com/pages/faq (search for “gift" on the page)

2024-07-19 19:02:05

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@npub17ed…970x i’m not sure but my guess is that ctrl a does “select all” so it would be too weird for it to do something else

2024-07-16 23:25:30

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@npub1dsw…7s3y oh that makes sense! (though you can technically amend after pushing, you just have to force push which can mess things up badly)

2024-07-16 21:17:10

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@npub1dsw…7s3y interesting! by `git amend` do you mean `git commit --amend`?

2024-07-16 15:20:34

All of the preorder copies of How Git Works have been shipped! Now if you order one it'll ship within 7 days instead of "uh definitely before the end of July but we're not sure when exactly” https://wizardzines.com/zines/git/

2024-07-16 13:50:56

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@npub1hzg…9gtx congratulations! excited to hear what you do next

2024-07-15 16:54:41

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@npub1v78…we8c ahh so glad they got there!

2024-07-15 15:38:34

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@npub1wa4…x0kp thank you!

2024-07-15 15:38:32

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@npub1lkv…dau3 thank you!

2024-07-15 15:35:35

do you ever press Ctrl+C in `less`? in what situations, other than "trying to quit, unsuccessfully”?
(will probably delete this after I get an answer)

2024-07-13 02:01:43

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@npub16tn…ulsx I've been using paperjam for this recently (for example `paperjam 'book nup(2, paper=a4)’ input.pdf output.pdf`) https://mj.ucw.cz/sw/paperjam/

2024-07-12 16:42:08

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also if $12 is a lot of money for you -- we still have more free BUYONEGIVEONE copies available ❤
details here: https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk/112552672907642693

2024-07-12 16:40:18

just checked and we’re 3 away from having sold 3500 copies of How Git Works!! https://wizardzines.com/zines/git
(if you're waiting for your print copy to be shipped -- it's coming!)
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/774/506/975/625/549/original/917e25bfb0a69c99.png

2024-07-11 17:13:34

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@npub1qtr…3h8n thanks!

2024-07-11 13:48:06

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@npub1ewr…nzyd thank you this is so good! I should have known you already had a blog post about this :)

2024-07-11 01:46:17

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@npub1ajn…h50h this is what it looks like in the settings
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/765/329/282/104/433/original/6c0e5862ac7bf343.png

2024-07-11 01:31:29

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@npub1ajn…h50h fastmail on the web (or in their app)

2024-07-10 16:59:40

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@npub13aj…5h5k thanks!

2024-07-10 16:46:26

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@npub1qj5…88ry thanks, that's a great tip

2024-07-10 16:43:23

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@npub17gl…s4my looking for information, not rants thanks

2024-07-10 16:24:15

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@npub1zz5…h3nu yeah people tell me about it a lot and it seems cool but I've never really found a use for it personally for some reason

2024-07-10 16:10:01

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@npub1zty…09xj yeah I do the same thing a lot

2024-07-10 16:06:22

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@npub13wf…ch5a also this design at the top left on the zellij website is so fun, I love it
https://cdn.masto.host/socialjvnsca/media_attachments/files/112/763/048/978/187/125/original/26d89dfc534cdad9.png

2024-07-10 16:04:41

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@npub13wf…ch5a thanks, this is great

2024-07-10 15:58:17

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@npub1ewn…mcvf thanks!

2024-07-10 15:57:39

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@npub1pus…2e99 haha not sure why you would feel the need to explain that, obviously we checked to make sure it was in section 1

2024-07-10 15:56:32

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@npub1lfy…xrvp thanks!

2024-07-10 15:56:02

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@npub1q7k…vesv thanks!

2024-07-10 15:20:32

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@npub1j4x…mwjx hmm in a good way or in a bad way?

2024-07-10 15:17:12

has anyone seen a system for reporting issues with open source projects where:
1. anyone is allowed to report issues with the wrong terminology, which can't be reproduced, without the necessary information, basically doing everything "wrong" for bug reporting
2. there's no expectation that you'll get help when reporting an issue, or get any answer at all
3. every so often the maintainers look for themes in the chaos and try to identify things to improve

2024-07-10 15:13:19

was just investigating a problem where `man $PROGRAM_NAME` wasn't working and I was reminded about how time consuming investigating seemingly simple command line problems can be. We:
* updated the MANPATH to include homebrew's man dir
* ran `find / -name $PROGRAM_NAME.1.gz` to verify that the page wasn't anywhere on the system
* ultimately realized that the homebrew package just wasn't installing the man page at all
* installed the man page manually

2024-07-10 12:31:13

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@npub15dy…4r2l thanks, can’t believe I didn’t think of that :)

2024-07-10 01:34:00

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@npub1cm6…qh3m thanks!

2024-07-09 19:13:33

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@npub13dg…ejem why do you almost always want the C locale?

2024-07-09 18:55:31

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@npub1vu7…w8h2 thanks that makes a lot of sense