/Julia Evans

What Helps People Get Comfortable On The Command Line? tl;dr: Various strategies and resources to help people become more comfortable with using the command line. It identifies three main areas to focus on: reducing risks, finding motivation, and utilizing resources. To reduce risks, the article suggests regular backups, using tools, avoiding wildcards, and building --dry-run options into scripts. Motivations might include finding a "killer command line app" or being inspired by command line wizardry. Resources include utilizing tools like explainshell, fzf, and oh-my-zsh, and seeking help from experienced friends or co-workers. Cheat sheets, aliases, and workshops are also mentioned as helpful aids.

featured in #440


Some Tactics For Writing In Public tl;dr: Julia discusses various strategies and tactics to engage with comments and feedback on her writing, especially in the context of technical blogging. Key points include: (1) Talk about facts leads to fact-based comments and discussions. (2) Sharing personal stories encourages good discussions and helps in understanding the context and different perspectives. (3) Ask technical questions or mentioning uncertainties invites answers and makes the comments section more valuable. And more. 

featured in #438


Some Blogging Myths tl;dr: (1) You need to be original. (2) You need to be an expert. (3) Posts need to be 100% correct. (4) Writing boring posts is bad. (5) You need to explain every concept. (6) Page views matter. (7) More material is always better. (8) Everyone should blog.

featured in #423


Writing Javascript Without A Build System tl;dr: “I want to talk about what’s appealing to me about build systems, why I still don’t use them, and why I find it frustrating that some frontend Javascript libraries require that you use a build system.”

featured in #410


A List Of Programming Playgrounds tl;dr: “I really like using programming playgrounds, and I got thinking the other day about how I didn’t have a great list of playgrounds to refer to.” Julia provides us with a laundry list of playgrounds across multiple categories.

featured in #406


Some Possible Reasons For 8-Bit Byte tl;dr: Julia explores the question: why does the x86 architecture use 8-bit bytes? Why not some other size? She evaluates a couple of options: (1) It’s a historical accident, another size - like 4 or 6 or 16 bits - would work just as well. (2) 8 bits is objectively the Best Option for some reason, even if history had played out differently we would still use 8-bit bytes. (3) Mix of 1 & 2.

featured in #396


Writing Javascript Without A Build System tl;dr: “I want to talk about what’s appealing to me about build systems, why I usually still don’t use them, and why I find it frustrating that some frontend Javascript libraries require that you use a build system. I’m writing this because most of the writing I see about JS assumes that you’re using a build system, and it can be hard to navigate for folks like me who write very simple small Javascript projects that don’t require a build system.”

featured in #391


Why Does 0.1 + 0.2 = 0.30000000000000004? tl;dr: "This is roughly how floating point addition works: (1) Add together the numbers with extra precision (2) Round the result to the nearest floating point number... So let’s use these rules to calculate 0.1 + 0.2. I just learned how floating point addition works yesterday so it’s possible I’ve made some mistakes in this post, but I did get the answers I expected at the end."

featured in #388


Examples Of Problems With Integers tl;dr: Examples of integer problems that Julia discusses are: (1) The small database primary key. (2) Integer overflow / underflow. (3) Decoding a binary format in Java. (4) Misinterpreting an IP address or string as an integer. (5) Security problems because of integer overflow. (6) The case of the mystery byte order. (7) modulo of negative numbers. (8) Compilers removing integer overflow checks. (9) The && typo.

featured in #384


Examples Of Floating Point Problems tl;dr: Julia wanted specific examples of floating point bugs in real-world programs and asked folks for "examples of how floating point has gone wrong for them in real programs." This post shares 8 examples of such problems. Julia writes programs to highlight the problems and ways to solve them. 

featured in #383