Practicalli Personal Journal

A new dawn a new day its a new life

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As we come to the end of 2025 I continue to contemplate what is next?

Do I want to continue in the software engineering industry with its many systemic faults?

Or should I branch out and do something completely different?

80,000 hours is a guide to careers that have a positive impact on the world.

My searching for a new home are currently focusing on the East coast of Scotland (which is dryer than London at the moment). Aberdeen (the granite city) has good support for cycling and a few cycle clubs in the area.

Wired up my Playstation 4 and VR headset to start playing games again. During more severe covid symptoms I couldnt wear the VR headset as it put too much pressure on my head. From an hour of play today, the VR headset felt okay.

I had a few quick games of Stardust and one surprisingly successful game of Polybius.

Holiday stuffing

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Feeling a little sick so binging on movies and shows on Apple TV+. On Monday afternoon Apple TV+ would not stream content (the play button disappeared) although I could browse the catalogue of shows. After several hours the play button came back, although contacting Apple support was quite pointless.

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A relaxing week trying out some new vegetarian and vegan meals. Pieminister Mooless Moo pie is a plant based stake and ale pie, using jackfruit for the stake pieces. The pastry was lovely and crispy and the pie was very filling. The only downside to the pie for me was it was the taste and texture was too much like beef and I've never really liked that even when I did eat meat.

New potatoes, Edamame, Spinach and Garden Peas complement the pie, along with some very thick Bisto Best Vegetable Gravy (I add way too many granules to make the gravy nice and thick).

Finding My Joy

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In season 2, episode 2 of "The Big Door Prize" they talk about "Finding your Joy". This seems like an inspiring new years resolution, or at least a theme I should focus on for 2025.

You only live one life and you should take time out to enjoy it. There were many aspects to 2024 that constrained my joy, so I will endeavour to may 2025 a most joyous year.

Practicalli Updates:

Clojure Data Inspector tools - overview and portal page updated

What is past is prologue

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

!!! QUOTE If a technology was truly dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it on the internet

Dead is mainstream

When people state that some technology or practice is dead via the internet, it typically means that thing is the mainstream.

If something was truely dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it as that topic would not relate to anyone.

This technique is essentially click-bate and trying to persuade you to 'buy-in' to something else (usually for the profit of aother person)

Long Cold Winter

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Converted some audio files to Opus codec, which provides a really optimum compression and allows for relatively low bit rates and results in much smaller files with the same quality.

Neovim upcoming changes

neovim 0.11 has some breaking changes, so assume early in 2025
astronvim v5 once neovim 0.11 released
:fontawesome-brands-github: mason-tool-installer.nvim to simplify mason config in astronvim v5 - discussed in Atronvim Discord community. maston-tool-installer still :fontawesome-brands-github: uses the mason registry for tool versions.

Starting to update my CV from recent commercial experiences, focusing on the areas of product, delivery and people.

Making use of Black Friday

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Black Friday as a concept is confusing as it no longer has anything to do with a specific Friday and currently seems to cover at least 2 weeks of promotions. I did get some good prices even before Black Friday actually started.

Adventures with SSD and NAS Versions kept me busy over the weekend, resurrecting an older NAS unit with Solid State Drives for a very quiet media storage device.

Practicalli plans for the rest of the year

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Starting to plan work for the Practicalli content for the next 3 months.

On the Practicalli GitHub Org, action log retention time was minimised to a week (from 90 days) as I don't need to wade through that history and it will save a bit of storage in the Cloud. I am surprised GitHub have such a high default for their free plans.

Upgraded to a Dell 40 inch 5k2k monitor for work and it makes a huge difference. Its a beautiful monitor and it works really well with Linux and the tiling window of Regolith Desktop (i3).

I am continuing my search for a new place to live, even further into the countryside with easy access to hiking and cycling activities.

Although I am always thankful for an opportunity to work with a commercial company, I do feel the weight lifted from my shoulders now that relationship has concluded. Within hours I started to feel the return of much of the energy I have been lacking for the last few months.

They do say a change is as good as a rest, so investing time in Practicalli content is giving me an energy boost.

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The king is probably dead long live the king

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

!!! QUOTE You are only a leader if people are willing to follow

It has been hard to shake the concern that my current commercial role has not worked out, probably not really been working for quite a while in hindsight. Was it ever really working?

Some aspects have greatly improved but there are some fundamental communication constraints that I really didn't understand the cause of (plenty of assumptions, but not enough communication or time to really address these challenges).

There are the common systemic challenges that come from working at any startup that is working hard to establish itself as a long term sustainable business. This was a given. A new person coming into this environment that has been running for many years leaves a lot of context unknown and typically unspoken.

I continued to try identify the causes throughout the week and trying to evaluate if there is any appetite and opportunity to address these within our typical schedule. It did feel that the more I tried to connect the quicker the feeling of connection slipped away.

I believe my frustration and disappointment have been leaking out over the last month, which I am disappointed about as well.

It is always a challenge for an engineering manager to identify where they can add value. For much of the current role I never seemed to connect with the team at a deep enough level. It is too easy to feel I am simply not needed by the team as the communication has been very limited. In once exceptional case, it was easy to feel my presence was simply not wanted.

Tuesday I was really exhausted, partly because of the continued cough but also the concerns that I still wasn't able to break through to the team (especially if they feel unsafe to ask questions). I am not sleeping well and need to find energy to exercise more.

Wednesday I made time for self-reflection as part of the company feedback initiative. I did struggle to quantify to myself what I had done. In hindsight I should have spend more time on this and consulted my journal, although I still feel I would come up short of my own lofty goals for the role.

Friday was the end of my commercial current role.

The title of this article is from the first episode of the first series of the Black Adder TV show. There were quite a few Shakepearean quotes used for comic effect.

The wonderful complexity of people

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

!!! QUOTE "A Tail of Two Cities - Charles Dickens" It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

!!! QUOTE "Johnny Stevenson (maybe others)" People are wonderfully complex experiences

My feelings of disappointed with my current commercial role are returning to the forefront of my mind. Many aspects of the role and company seem to be clear in peoples minds but not always effectively shared. I think I understand the role and then something else happens that makes me feel I don't. I believe something will need to change soon for the benefit of all.

There have been a few highlights with the role, but I expected more of myself and the company. I do set high expectations for myself, although have learned to be more kind about what I can realistically achieve and 'which battles to fight' (figuratively speaking of course).

During this engagement I have continually reset my expectations about what could be achieved and what I could realistically achieve. There are a couple of peers where there has been conflict without understanding of why I am seen as the cause. I have tried to explore but if people do have issues with me its not clearly being communicated to me.

In hindsight, many opportunities to get support from my manger and peers were missed. Mostly as we had so many challenges to discuss and partly due to pressures of delivery.

When a person doesn't have clarity around a problem then there is very little they can do to resolve or adapt.

A self-reflection review is in progress and its is a good opportunity to take my own time to reflect on my current role and if its still the right fit for me.

Back to work

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Busy week at work getting ready for a new team member. I spent Friday afternoon building up a relationship and getting accustom to spending time working together. Several weeks of work had been done to get ready for the new starter.

One of the interesting challenges for anyone starting a new job is to ensure too much enthusiasm doesnt lead to missing important steps. It will be a good first check-in with the new starter to see if they have been too enthusiastic or taken a more measured approach.

Current issues

DONE security: add clj-watson to clojure cli config

Holiday in Paramout Plus

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

After being ill for most of the week I am finally starting to enjoying my second week of holiday, binging on some Paramount+ and having a lazy Sunday enjoying the extra hour in bed after the end of summer time.

Updating Practicalli Journal and Clojure CLI Config repositories, fixing links and markdown issues from the Megalinter reports.

Updating to Megalinter 0.8.1 GitHub action on Practicalli repositories as I work on them. The upgrade will include each repository in the Grafana dashboards for Practicalli projects.

Issues

DOING security: add clj-watson to clojure cli config
DOING zsh environment varaibles not loading into jvm

Hacking on Practicalli content

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I am enjoying my 2 week at home vacation (stay-cation) and have already completely rewired my desk, laptops, Monitors and NAS storage devices on the electronic standing desk. It feels a lot more organised and easier to find everything as everything has its place.

Now I can focus on getting lots of Practicalli content done (as well as catch up with shows on Paramount+ and maybe a little Polybus on the Playstation4 VR headset)

I am interested in switching to the Hyprland, although its changing fast so I dug out an older laptop and installed Arch Linux with Hyprland using the archinstall tool. Unfortunately the laptop I used doesnt seem to support Hyprland or something is missing from the install.

I am taking a stay-cation as I am still recovering from Covid and the weather is also quite grim. I am getting out for walks each day and on Friday I completed a short cycle ride as it was nice and sunny outside. Unfortunately my chest started feeling like it was on fire a few minutes into the ride, so I slowed down and limited myself to 10km.

I was feeling really sleepy after the ride, so I kept myself awake by sorting through the cardboard boxes in my attic. Many boxes made the ultimate sacrifice (for an uncluttered house) and went to the recycling service.

Practicalli content planning

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Hyprland promises to be a great experience but also a potential time drain, so will save most of the investigation and further configuration until the winter break (or if I need a little distraction of the new shiny for motivation).

Taking two weeks off from work and have some time to work on Practicalli content.

Linux Wayland Compositor & Hyprland

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A friend recommended Hyprland window manager which is similar to i3 window manager I currently used, but more optomised for the Wayland compositor.

Practicalli currently uses Regolith Desktop, a complete Linux desktop that leverages Gnome and i3 tiling window manager.

Regolith Desktop provides quite a rich experience using the regolith-desktop Debian package. I have not had much success with Regolith when running with Wayland (specifically Sway).

Sway compositor is an implementation of wayland for i3 window manager. Some of my applications do not see to play nice with Sway (e.g. chromium browser scrolling, simplescreenrecorder cannot run on wayland).

OBS did seem to work okay on wayland, given a sufficiently recent version.

A friend recommended Hyprland, a tiling compositor that provides the latest Wayland features and lots of eye candy. Its pretty easy to setup on Debian, although there is much additional setup before it would be comparable to Regolith Desktop.

Neovim Grug plugin is being considered as an alternative to the Spectre tool for search and replacing across a project.

Here Comes The Rain

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Thunderstorms abound which will be good for the vegetables growing in my garden (beetroot, courgettes, parsnips and onions)

MegaLinter Grafana Dashboards

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As Practicalli projects are being updated to Megalinter version 8 it seemed a good time to try the Megalinter API reporter to publish data to use with Grafana. A chance to learn more about creating Dashboards and if Grafana is any easier than DataDog.

!!! WARNING "Megalinter not publishing logs on Grafana yet" Unfortunately I havent been able to make the Megalinter API Reporter work with this journal project, Clojure CLI Config or a new megalinter-test project I created.

Health is a little better after resting over the weekend, although still have lots of symptoms.

!!! EXAMPLE "Megalinter Grafana dashboard example project" :fontawesome-brands-github: Practicalli Megalinter-Test{target=_blank .md-button}

NOTE: I am trying to diagnose why this project does not seem to be sending logs to Grafana.

Megalinter 8 and monthly version updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Megalinter updates to version 8 using the megalinter runner tool, adding a Makefile task to simplify the command line (so I dont have to remember the command).

Material for MkDocs provides a nice diff view using the diff language for a code block. Add or copy a diff into the code block, ensuring the - and + signs are included and the diff is automatically highlighted. See the Megalinter section of this post for an example.

Feeling quite low the last few weeks, mostly due to continued Covid symptoms, low blood oxygen and lack of energy. Waking up I feel like I have experienced carbon dioxide poisoning (which I have experienced working on a mushroom farm). I am disorientated, dizzy and feel quite terrible.

Clojure 1.12 and Learn Clojure book

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Work on Practicalli Learn Clojure book, a practical guide to getting comfortable working with Clojure. A full guide to using Clojure is in the Practicalli Clojure book.

Added RSS feed for Journal, although I feel that all these blogs should be merged into the https://practical.li/blog site for a single collection or articles. The articles can be categorised to keep them separate.

Health is still recovering from a little Covid symptoms. Took Monday off work and slept most of the day.

Clojure specific Which-key menu

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst looking for a Neovim way to have language specific configuration, I discovered the after/ftplugin approach. This allows a configuration to be loaded when a buffer is switched to a specific language.

Tetris and the fall of the USSR (and Neovim Conjure menu)

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Enjoyed watching the Tetris movie and wondered just how much was real and dramatised. Reading the background to the game it does seem the main thread of the movie is accurate, with perhaps some additional dramatic effect. It was a very enjoyable movie regardless.

I do remember the break-up of the USSR when it happened, first with Gorbachev as leader and then Boris Yeltsin. Then the Oligarchs (super rich) moved in and supported a more draconian leader in Putin (assumingly so they could keep hold of all their money).

I also remember Robert Maxwell as a disgraced billionaire that stole from his own company and mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht.

HTTP Message Signing investigation

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

API Security is typically managed by issuing a token for authentication. Only requests that include a valid token are processed, any requests with an expired or missing token are rejected. HTTP code 401 Unauthorised error message is returned for rejected requests.

When dealing with very sensitive data and higher risk actions common in financial services, additional security mechanisms are required. So I have been looking at mTLS and HTTP Message Signatures (RFC9421) this week.

Not going to be a productive week as I am full of flu. Given the time of year its most likely a variant of Covid. So far I've only had a headache, congested chest / nose / ears and some fatigue. Taking lots of paracetamol and drinking lots of water to try keep the inflammation at bay.

Edit: I was mostly okay by the weekend, although still had a sore throat and coughing.

A very hot week

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Its a bit too hot for rational thought... and caught flu at the end of the week, so not much happened.

Time for some project maintenance courtesy of the scheduled version GitHub workflow, run at the start of each month.

Data Driven Components & Neovim updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

:fontawesome-brands-github: Practicalli Astro config for Clojure development with Neovim initial release.

Presented my experiences with Component libraries to London Clojurians this week, specifically comparing Integrant and Donut-party/system. I discussed my Service REPL workflow to show the benefits and constraints of these two libraries.

For component libraries to work well, then code should be reloadable. There are a few parts of the Clojure language that do make it harder to reload code, (deftype, defrecord, etc), although I tend to avoid those parts anyway.

Issues this week

:fontawesome-brands-github: practicalli/astro:

Montly Clojure Library updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Exploring the mysteries of the Bazel build tool at work. Whilst technically its a very powerful tool it really lacks a good developer experience.

Its supposed to be a more powerful make, although ironically I use a Makefile so that Bazel is much easier to use.

It could be an opportunity to use Babashka, but that would be more work than using a Makefile as I dont have much Babashka experience.

Monthly Library Updates for Practicalli Projects

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Monthly updates for Practicalli projects, driven by a scheduled version GitHub workflow that uses antq to report on project library dependencies and GitHub action library versions.

Release: Clojure CLI Config - 2024-07-07
Release: Project Templates - 2024-07-07

Which-key version 3 released, fixing localleader issue and providing a horizontal menu option.

Flexiana Interview

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I enjoyed the interview with Flexiana team this week, they are very friendly and it we had some very interesting discussions. I included my interview preparation notes which were mosty the same as shared in the video.

A blip with Emacs 29.4 release stopped the which-key menu from showing when in a major mode. This affected both the leader and local leader key. Within a couple of hours the issue was resolved before I really figured out the cause. I installed Emacs 29.4 on Termux to replicate an issue that was reported in the #spacemacs channel of the Clojurians Community slack community.

Updating Practicalli Neovim

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Practicalli Astro config is not very stable so its time to refactor the Practicalli Neovim book now that the Practicalli Astro configuration is established.

Conjure LSP bug & Cycling video editing

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Updated to Kitty 0.35.1 easily and switching between dark and light themes working instantly again.

Diagnosed a 'new buffer' error with Conjure when using Neovim 0.9.0 and when opening a Clojure file, although everything works well in 0.10.0. EDIT: The maintainer added a fix to the develop branch for testing.

#582 REVIEW: Conjure throws new Buffer error{target=_blank .md-button}

Video editing of footage taken by the front mounted camera on my bicycle. Advanced cycle training at Gravesend at the start of June.:fontawesome-brands-youtube: Bigfoot Cycling Club at Gravesent Cyclopark

Took a few days away from the computer to work on the garden as its nice and sunny. A mostly sunny ride on Saturday around the Kent countryside.

Neovim on Termux enhancements

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More Neovim updates and getting closer to a release of Practicalli Astro-config

I have been using Neovim (and Emacs) on Termux, so I can code on my Android tablet or Android smart phone. I typically use an external keyboard (e.g. Keyboard.io Atreus or Model100), especially when considerable typing is involved.

As the hardware and compilation tooling is different for Android Linux (compared to amd64 linux) the Clojure and Lua LSP language servers would not install via the Mason manager. As these two languages are in the top 3 languages I use, then it is a great boost to get these servers working locally and configuring Neovim to use them instead.

I use the date command when I had a need to tweak the time on my Linux computer, saves launching the Settings app and using the mouse.

!!! INFO "Timezones made easy" time.is makes figuring out timezones really simple. See the current time in any timezone across the world.

time.is very useful for events where people attend from different timezones. Set the local time and share a link for others who will see the event time in their own timezone.

Neovim

I'm making some changes to the Practicalli AstroNvim configuration (AstroNvim4) over the next few days.

All my personal Neovim & plugin options (and associated workflow biases) will only be in lua/plugins/practicalli.lua. With these options only in one file, anyone else using the configuration can easily disable them.

I will encourage other users to create there own lua/plugins/personal.lua customisation so any changes from upstream will be easier to merge.

The GitHub repository will be renamed to practicalli/astro-config which its much easier to write and say during screencasts. GitHub should redirect when pulling updates

This week I will update Practicalli Neovim book install guide with new repo and further info on how to use the config effectively (especially with your own customisations)

Then the first official release of the config will be created via GitHub releases.

If I have time, there are lots of things to add to Practicalli Neovim book too (including a few more plugins I'm using in the config)

Fixing Neovim Treesitter breaking changes

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The sun is out, the sky is blue... and I had the opportunity to understand some Neovim plugins a little more, in order to fix a breaking change with Neovim Treesitter support for Clojure.

!!! INFO "Pull Requests this week"

- MERGED: [#7 queries: clojure has-type? updated to kind-eq?](https://github.com/PaterJason/nvim-treesitter-sexp/pull/7) for nvim-treesitter-sexp project

Multiple SSH keys for Commercial and Community work

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Its easy to go down a rabbit hole of your own making when trying to make something complex work. Taking a step back allows for a much simpler approach to be considered.

I realised there was a much simpler approach to managing multiple SSH keys, especially when one of those keys is for commercial work that requires Single Sign-On authorisation.

Refactor AstroNvim Clojure pack

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 20 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pull requests this week

:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Add Clojure comment patterns to ts-comments.nvim
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Modularise Astrocommunity Clojure pack
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Update AstroNvim Cloure pack description & simplify examples
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Fix vim-visual-multi dependency name

Total commits this week: 37

Submitted a pull request to refactor the AstroNvim Community Clojure language pack which I contributed in June 2023.

add nvim-treesitter-sexp plugin
add example of disabling / configuring parinfer plugin
add ts-comment.nvim to support ;; and ; comment characters
remove autocmd from conjure plugin (no longer needed)
remove most of the opinionated conjure configuration overrides, although still hiding the repl log buffer (HUD) by default as its nicer as a separate tab. Maybe if I can have it open by default as a tab, then I could live with having the HUD open on REPL startup (a nice way to check things are working)

Still sleepy from travel to the company off-site last week and the cycle ride on Saturday. Although I did manage some work in the garden on Sunday.

Company offsite week

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Travelled for a work event in Portugal with a chance to meet people I work with face to face for the first time. It was a very enjoyable and also quite intensive event. I kept myself busy to help combat fatigue from travelling and manage a swim each morning and evening whilst I was at the hotel.

I am accustom to working remotely since 2010, having worked for companies based outside of the UK. It is always very valuable to meet people face to face and can start or strengthen a relationship.

Gardening in the mornings

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A new month so time to update libraries across Practicalli projects.

Bank holiday Monday and two personal holidays this week, so only two days at work and very few meetings, yay!. Time to prepare for the company offsite event next week and see how lightly I can pack.

I made a big impact on upgrading the garden this week. All the paving stones at the end of the garden were levelled so the shed is no longer on a slope. A thick weed surpressing membrane was fitted underneath all the paving stones.

The raised garden bed was be reworked by adjusting the top of the railway sleepers to be level to the top of the paving stones. This adds a nice clean line with the garden and makes maintenance in and around the garden easier. Weed surpressing membrane was added to the side and underneath of each sleeper. Spare wood panels was used to keep the membrane in plate and to also add more robustness to the sleepers.

Most of the work was done in the early mornings as the weather was quite hot.

500 Commit Streak on GitHub

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

500 day commit streak on GitHub reached today. This was legitimately achieved by doing a small amount of work each day.

I am not actively coding and committing on a regular basis in my current role, so the large majority of these commits are for Practicalli or Open Source projects.

Continuing to simplify the Practicalli AstroNvim User Config, so changes from the AstroNvim template are in new files or in community.lua.

The most visual opinionated changes are in practicalli.lua, such as dashboard logo and theme.

Motivated to work on the :fontawesome-solid-book-open: Practicalli Sustainable Life book after joining a sustainability working group at the company.

Practicalli Project Template updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Adding some nice little improvements to the :fontawesome-brands-github: Practicalli Project Templates

Its April Fool

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Adding SSH keys to the YubiKey hardware security key provides convenience of SSH key use, especially when required for multiple computers.

Using a YubiKey to keep a single SSH key pair removes the need to generate a key pair for each computer.

Using one SSH key avoids the need for multiple entries in the allowed-signatures file to check locally that a commit has been signed.

Git Multiple SSH Keys & Neovim

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A short week at work made even shorter by a company day to celebrate going live. A chance to unwind and reflect.

Neovim 0.10 is planned for 1 May 2024. Plugins should be unafected, although actively developing plugins like Neogit are trying to used parts of the Neovim API. The parts of Neogit that use 0.10 api should be more efficient, although I assume there wont be a noticable difference in functionality.

I will update Neovim to 0.10 when AstroNvim confirms it is working well with that release.

Having a Donut Party with system components

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Not quite back to full health yet, so took it easy at the weekend.

More work on restoring spare bicycles so I can sell them or otherwise find a good home.

Continued the refactor of the Practicalli Service template, specifically refining the design of the system config and helper functions to support a development REPL workflow.

Debian Linux almost everywhere

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Enjoying being back in Debian Linux world, with regolith desktop as the tiling window manager.

I have several Lenovo laptops and all but one are now upgraded to Debian Linux, using the testing version of the distribution.

The most significant difference with Debian Linux is the use of a separate root account for administration, rather than using sudo in Ubuntu Linux.

Springing back into life slowly

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The last month has been tough due to illness, although still managed to do a little work with Practicalli to keep me motivated (both for work and my own personal health)

I though the Practicalli Project Templates had broken when I tried to create a new service project. It took me an hour or so to realise I had simply been using the command with the wrong argument, doh!

Alias Shell that updates Shell

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As this week is mosly tweaks for Zsh history, I've titled this journal entry to be a play on words from the Shakesphere play 'Alls well that ends well'.

The fd built-in command for Zsh is a very effective way to keep the command history clean.

Engineering Practices

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Illness is all around. Around 12% of people in Germany are currenly ill through covid, flu or a stomach virus. I have some relatively mild symptoms this week.

The hunt for a new place to live continues, investigating lots of facinating places in Scotland. Discovered an Ecopark with sustainably built housing. There is one house for sale and some new builds in the near future. Requested a build plan for the new build houses.

The editors strike back

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting edge cases with evil-cleverparens and another question about choice of editor for complete beginners to programming.

Covid strikes again. Wiped out by the end of the week.

Striving toward consistency

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Will feel good to have all Practicalli website content have a consisten look.

Material for MkDocs really helps me convey information effectively (at least in my own view).

Still have a few covid symptoms, but not as much this week. Usually only in the mornings.

No one is omnipotent

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Understand what is the most valuable thing and focus on attaing it.

Technical writing is a skill that regularly needs practice.

Quiet before the storm

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Its not as windy as previous weeks, but there is another storm on its way.

Feeling too tired for exercise over the weekend, need to pace myself at work a little better.

Hopefully as the weather gets warmer or at least sunnier it will be easier to do more outside activities.

Warmer weather

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Practicalli AstroNvim User Config changed to be as additive as possible, leaving the template as unchanged as possible.

The sunnier weather is a boots to motivation, although its still very windy. At least I can get into the garden without sinking.

Another Saturday morning ride, a tough experience although not completely exhausted afterward.

Breaking ground on the new year

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Rushing work is the slowest way to make progress.

Exhausted after this week of work, so took a break from cycling and running. Lots of cat naps over the weekend.

A freezing start to a new year

Practicalli Johnny — Sat, 06 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Organising my digital music and audio books so they all fit nicely on my smart phone (using Opus audio format and VLC to play the music).

Arch Linux recommends not using pacman -Syu to update all packages and today I experience why. I can no longer login to the desktop :facepalm: EDIT: this seems to be specific to the NWG-shell configuration, as the vanilla hyprland desktop does work.

I assume this is a breaking change of hyprland that NWG-shell has not resolved. This is another reason to start again with hyprland and build my own config (although this will be a big time sink, so can wait).

Its freezing temperatures outside in London, UK at the moment, so I am trying to get outside when the sun is still shining. The paths are slippy and so are the roads, so even if I felt up to cycling outside, then it could be quite tricky.

A new dawn a new day its a new life

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As we come to the end of 2025 I continue to contemplate what is next?

Do I want to continue in the software engineering industry with its many systemic faults?

Or should I branch out and do something completely different?

80,000 hours is a guide to careers that have a positive impact on the world.

I had a few quick games of Stardust and one surprisingly successful game of Polybius.

Holiday stuffing

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

{align=right loading=lazy style="width:360px"}

New potatoes, Edamame, Spinach and Garden Peas complement the pie, along with some very thick Bisto Best Vegetable Gravy (I add way too many granules to make the gravy nice and thick).

Finding My Joy

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In season 2, episode 2 of "The Big Door Prize" they talk about "Finding your Joy". This seems like an inspiring new years resolution, or at least a theme I should focus on for 2025.

You only live one life and you should take time out to enjoy it. There were many aspects to 2024 that constrained my joy, so I will endeavour to may 2025 a most joyous year.

Practicalli Updates:

Clojure Data Inspector tools - overview and portal page updated

What is past is prologue

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

!!! QUOTE If a technology was truly dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it on the internet

Dead is mainstream

When people state that some technology or practice is dead via the internet, it typically means that thing is the mainstream.

If something was truely dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it as that topic would not relate to anyone.

This technique is essentially click-bate and trying to persuade you to 'buy-in' to something else (usually for the profit of aother person)

Long Cold Winter

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Converted some audio files to Opus codec, which provides a really optimum compression and allows for relatively low bit rates and results in much smaller files with the same quality.

Neovim upcoming changes

neovim 0.11 has some breaking changes, so assume early in 2025
astronvim v5 once neovim 0.11 released
:fontawesome-brands-github: mason-tool-installer.nvim to simplify mason config in astronvim v5 - discussed in Atronvim Discord community. maston-tool-installer still :fontawesome-brands-github: uses the mason registry for tool versions.

Starting to update my CV from recent commercial experiences, focusing on the areas of product, delivery and people.

Making use of Black Friday

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Adventures with SSD and NAS Versions kept me busy over the weekend, resurrecting an older NAS unit with Solid State Drives for a very quiet media storage device.

Practicalli plans for the rest of the year

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Starting to plan work for the Practicalli content for the next 3 months.

Upgraded to a Dell 40 inch 5k2k monitor for work and it makes a huge difference. Its a beautiful monitor and it works really well with Linux and the tiling window of Regolith Desktop (i3).

I am continuing my search for a new place to live, even further into the countryside with easy access to hiking and cycling activities.

They do say a change is as good as a rest, so investing time in Practicalli content is giving me an energy boost.

{loading=lazy}

The king is probably dead long live the king

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

!!! QUOTE You are only a leader if people are willing to follow

It has been hard to shake the concern that my current commercial role has not worked out, probably not really been working for quite a while in hindsight. Was it ever really working?

I believe my frustration and disappointment have been leaking out over the last month, which I am disappointed about as well.

Friday was the end of my commercial current role.

The title of this article is from the first episode of the first series of the Black Adder TV show. There were quite a few Shakepearean quotes used for comic effect.

The wonderful complexity of people

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

!!! QUOTE "A Tail of Two Cities - Charles Dickens" It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

!!! QUOTE "Johnny Stevenson (maybe others)" People are wonderfully complex experiences

In hindsight, many opportunities to get support from my manger and peers were missed. Mostly as we had so many challenges to discuss and partly due to pressures of delivery.

When a person doesn't have clarity around a problem then there is very little they can do to resolve or adapt.

A self-reflection review is in progress and its is a good opportunity to take my own time to reflect on my current role and if its still the right fit for me.

Back to work

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Current issues

DONE security: add clj-watson to clojure cli config

Holiday in Paramout Plus

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Updating Practicalli Journal and Clojure CLI Config repositories, fixing links and markdown issues from the Megalinter reports.

Updating to Megalinter 0.8.1 GitHub action on Practicalli repositories as I work on them. The upgrade will include each repository in the Grafana dashboards for Practicalli projects.

Issues

DOING security: add clj-watson to clojure cli config
DOING zsh environment varaibles not loading into jvm

Hacking on Practicalli content

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Now I can focus on getting lots of Practicalli content done (as well as catch up with shows on Paramount+ and maybe a little Polybus on the Playstation4 VR headset)

Practicalli content planning

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Taking two weeks off from work and have some time to work on Practicalli content.

Linux Wayland Compositor & Hyprland

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A friend recommended Hyprland window manager which is similar to i3 window manager I currently used, but more optomised for the Wayland compositor.

Practicalli currently uses Regolith Desktop, a complete Linux desktop that leverages Gnome and i3 tiling window manager.

Regolith Desktop provides quite a rich experience using the regolith-desktop Debian package. I have not had much success with Regolith when running with Wayland (specifically Sway).

OBS did seem to work okay on wayland, given a sufficiently recent version.

Neovim Grug plugin is being considered as an alternative to the Spectre tool for search and replacing across a project.

Here Comes The Rain

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Thunderstorms abound which will be good for the vegetables growing in my garden (beetroot, courgettes, parsnips and onions)

MegaLinter Grafana Dashboards

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Health is a little better after resting over the weekend, although still have lots of symptoms.

!!! EXAMPLE "Megalinter Grafana dashboard example project" :fontawesome-brands-github: Practicalli Megalinter-Test{target=_blank .md-button}

NOTE: I am trying to diagnose why this project does not seem to be sending logs to Grafana.

Megalinter 8 and monthly version updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Megalinter updates to version 8 using the megalinter runner tool, adding a Makefile task to simplify the command line (so I dont have to remember the command).

Clojure 1.12 and Learn Clojure book

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Work on Practicalli Learn Clojure book, a practical guide to getting comfortable working with Clojure. A full guide to using Clojure is in the Practicalli Clojure book.

Health is still recovering from a little Covid symptoms. Took Monday off work and slept most of the day.

Clojure specific Which-key menu

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Tetris and the fall of the USSR (and Neovim Conjure menu)

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I also remember Robert Maxwell as a disgraced billionaire that stole from his own company and mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht.

HTTP Message Signing investigation

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Edit: I was mostly okay by the weekend, although still had a sore throat and coughing.

A very hot week

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Its a bit too hot for rational thought... and caught flu at the end of the week, so not much happened.

Time for some project maintenance courtesy of the scheduled version GitHub workflow, run at the start of each month.

Data Driven Components & Neovim updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

:fontawesome-brands-github: Practicalli Astro config for Clojure development with Neovim initial release.

Issues this week

:fontawesome-brands-github: practicalli/astro:

Montly Clojure Library updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Exploring the mysteries of the Bazel build tool at work. Whilst technically its a very powerful tool it really lacks a good developer experience.

Its supposed to be a more powerful make, although ironically I use a Makefile so that Bazel is much easier to use.

It could be an opportunity to use Babashka, but that would be more work than using a Makefile as I dont have much Babashka experience.

Monthly Library Updates for Practicalli Projects

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Monthly updates for Practicalli projects, driven by a scheduled version GitHub workflow that uses antq to report on project library dependencies and GitHub action library versions.

Release: Clojure CLI Config - 2024-07-07
Release: Project Templates - 2024-07-07

Which-key version 3 released, fixing localleader issue and providing a horizontal menu option.

Flexiana Interview

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Updating Practicalli Neovim

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Practicalli Astro config is not very stable so its time to refactor the Practicalli Neovim book now that the Practicalli Astro configuration is established.

Conjure LSP bug & Cycling video editing

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Updated to Kitty 0.35.1 easily and switching between dark and light themes working instantly again.

#582 REVIEW: Conjure throws new Buffer error{target=_blank .md-button}

Took a few days away from the computer to work on the garden as its nice and sunny. A mostly sunny ride on Saturday around the Kent countryside.

Neovim on Termux enhancements

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More Neovim updates and getting closer to a release of Practicalli Astro-config

I use the date command when I had a need to tweak the time on my Linux computer, saves launching the Settings app and using the mouse.

!!! INFO "Timezones made easy" time.is makes figuring out timezones really simple. See the current time in any timezone across the world.

time.is very useful for events where people attend from different timezones. Set the local time and share a link for others who will see the event time in their own timezone.

Neovim

I'm making some changes to the Practicalli AstroNvim configuration (AstroNvim4) over the next few days.

I will encourage other users to create there own lua/plugins/personal.lua customisation so any changes from upstream will be easier to merge.

The GitHub repository will be renamed to practicalli/astro-config which its much easier to write and say during screencasts. GitHub should redirect when pulling updates

This week I will update Practicalli Neovim book install guide with new repo and further info on how to use the config effectively (especially with your own customisations)

Then the first official release of the config will be created via GitHub releases.

If I have time, there are lots of things to add to Practicalli Neovim book too (including a few more plugins I'm using in the config)

Fixing Neovim Treesitter breaking changes

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The sun is out, the sky is blue... and I had the opportunity to understand some Neovim plugins a little more, in order to fix a breaking change with Neovim Treesitter support for Clojure.

!!! INFO "Pull Requests this week"

- MERGED: [#7 queries: clojure has-type? updated to kind-eq?](https://github.com/PaterJason/nvim-treesitter-sexp/pull/7) for nvim-treesitter-sexp project

Multiple SSH keys for Commercial and Community work

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Its easy to go down a rabbit hole of your own making when trying to make something complex work. Taking a step back allows for a much simpler approach to be considered.

I realised there was a much simpler approach to managing multiple SSH keys, especially when one of those keys is for commercial work that requires Single Sign-On authorisation.

Refactor AstroNvim Clojure pack

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 20 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pull requests this week

:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Add Clojure comment patterns to ts-comments.nvim
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Modularise Astrocommunity Clojure pack
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Update AstroNvim Cloure pack description & simplify examples
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Fix vim-visual-multi dependency name

Total commits this week: 37

Submitted a pull request to refactor the AstroNvim Community Clojure language pack which I contributed in June 2023.

add nvim-treesitter-sexp plugin
add example of disabling / configuring parinfer plugin
add ts-comment.nvim to support ;; and ; comment characters
remove autocmd from conjure plugin (no longer needed)
remove most of the opinionated conjure configuration overrides, although still hiding the repl log buffer (HUD) by default as its nicer as a separate tab. Maybe if I can have it open by default as a tab, then I could live with having the HUD open on REPL startup (a nice way to check things are working)

Still sleepy from travel to the company off-site last week and the cycle ride on Saturday. Although I did manage some work in the garden on Sunday.

Company offsite week

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I am accustom to working remotely since 2010, having worked for companies based outside of the UK. It is always very valuable to meet people face to face and can start or strengthen a relationship.

Gardening in the mornings

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A new month so time to update libraries across Practicalli projects.

Bank holiday Monday and two personal holidays this week, so only two days at work and very few meetings, yay!. Time to prepare for the company offsite event next week and see how lightly I can pack.

Most of the work was done in the early mornings as the weather was quite hot.

500 Commit Streak on GitHub

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

500 day commit streak on GitHub reached today. This was legitimately achieved by doing a small amount of work each day.

I am not actively coding and committing on a regular basis in my current role, so the large majority of these commits are for Practicalli or Open Source projects.

Continuing to simplify the Practicalli AstroNvim User Config, so changes from the AstroNvim template are in new files or in community.lua.

The most visual opinionated changes are in practicalli.lua, such as dashboard logo and theme.

Motivated to work on the :fontawesome-solid-book-open: Practicalli Sustainable Life book after joining a sustainability working group at the company.

Practicalli Project Template updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Adding some nice little improvements to the :fontawesome-brands-github: Practicalli Project Templates

Its April Fool

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Adding SSH keys to the YubiKey hardware security key provides convenience of SSH key use, especially when required for multiple computers.

Using a YubiKey to keep a single SSH key pair removes the need to generate a key pair for each computer.

Using one SSH key avoids the need for multiple entries in the allowed-signatures file to check locally that a commit has been signed.

Git Multiple SSH Keys & Neovim

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A short week at work made even shorter by a company day to celebrate going live. A chance to unwind and reflect.

I will update Neovim to 0.10 when AstroNvim confirms it is working well with that release.

Having a Donut Party with system components

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Not quite back to full health yet, so took it easy at the weekend.

More work on restoring spare bicycles so I can sell them or otherwise find a good home.

Continued the refactor of the Practicalli Service template, specifically refining the design of the system config and helper functions to support a development REPL workflow.

Debian Linux almost everywhere

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Enjoying being back in Debian Linux world, with regolith desktop as the tiling window manager.

I have several Lenovo laptops and all but one are now upgraded to Debian Linux, using the testing version of the distribution.

The most significant difference with Debian Linux is the use of a separate root account for administration, rather than using sudo in Ubuntu Linux.

Springing back into life slowly

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The last month has been tough due to illness, although still managed to do a little work with Practicalli to keep me motivated (both for work and my own personal health)

Alias Shell that updates Shell

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As this week is mosly tweaks for Zsh history, I've titled this journal entry to be a play on words from the Shakesphere play 'Alls well that ends well'.

The fd built-in command for Zsh is a very effective way to keep the command history clean.

Engineering Practices

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Illness is all around. Around 12% of people in Germany are currenly ill through covid, flu or a stomach virus. I have some relatively mild symptoms this week.

The editors strike back

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting edge cases with evil-cleverparens and another question about choice of editor for complete beginners to programming.

Covid strikes again. Wiped out by the end of the week.

Striving toward consistency

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Will feel good to have all Practicalli website content have a consisten look.

Material for MkDocs really helps me convey information effectively (at least in my own view).

Still have a few covid symptoms, but not as much this week. Usually only in the mornings.

No one is omnipotent

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Understand what is the most valuable thing and focus on attaing it.

Technical writing is a skill that regularly needs practice.

Quiet before the storm

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Its not as windy as previous weeks, but there is another storm on its way.

Feeling too tired for exercise over the weekend, need to pace myself at work a little better.

Hopefully as the weather gets warmer or at least sunnier it will be easier to do more outside activities.

Warmer weather

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Practicalli AstroNvim User Config changed to be as additive as possible, leaving the template as unchanged as possible.

The sunnier weather is a boots to motivation, although its still very windy. At least I can get into the garden without sinking.

Another Saturday morning ride, a tough experience although not completely exhausted afterward.

Breaking ground on the new year

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Rushing work is the slowest way to make progress.

Exhausted after this week of work, so took a break from cycling and running. Lots of cat naps over the weekend.

A freezing start to a new year

Practicalli Johnny — Sat, 06 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Organising my digital music and audio books so they all fit nicely on my smart phone (using Opus audio format and VLC to play the music).

A freezing start to a new year

Practicalli Johnny — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 10:56:08 +0000

Organising my digital music and audio books so they all fit nicely on my smart phone (using Opus audio format and VLC to play the music).

A new dawn a new day its a new life

Practicalli Johnny — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:58 +0000

As we come to the end of 2025 I continue to contemplate what is next?

Do I want to continue in the software engineering industry with its many systemic faults?

Or should I branch out and do something completely different?

80,000 hours is a guide to careers that have a positive impact on the world.

I had a few quick games of Stardust and one surprisingly successful game of Polybius.

Holiday stuffing

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 18:31:27 +0000

{align=right loading=lazy style="width:360px"}

New potatoes, Edamame, Spinach and Garden Peas complement the pie, along with some very thick Bisto Best Vegetable Gravy (I add way too many granules to make the gravy nice and thick).

Finding My Joy

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 18:42:20 +0000

In season 2, episode 2 of "The Big Door Prize" they talk about "Finding your Joy". This seems like an inspiring new years resolution, or at least a theme I should focus on for 2025.

You only live one life and you should take time out to enjoy it. There were many aspects to 2024 that constrained my joy, so I will endeavour to may 2025 a most joyous year.

Practicalli Updates:

Clojure Data Inspector tools - overview and portal page updated

What is past is prologue

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 13:23:01 +0000

!!! QUOTE If a technology was truly dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it on the internet

Dead is mainstream

When people state that some technology or practice is dead via the internet, it typically means that thing is the mainstream.

If something was truely dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it as that topic would not relate to anyone.

This technique is essentially click-bate and trying to persuade you to 'buy-in' to something else (usually for the profit of aother person)

Long Cold Winter

Practicalli Johnny — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 11:22:17 +0000

Converted some audio files to Opus codec, which provides a really optimum compression and allows for relatively low bit rates and results in much smaller files with the same quality.

Neovim upcoming changes

neovim 0.11 has some breaking changes, so assume early in 2025
astronvim v5 once neovim 0.11 released
:fontawesome-brands-github: mason-tool-installer.nvim to simplify mason config in astronvim v5 - discussed in Atronvim Discord community. maston-tool-installer still :fontawesome-brands-github: uses the mason registry for tool versions.

Starting to update my CV from recent commercial experiences, focusing on the areas of product, delivery and people.

Making use of Black Friday

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 18:18:38 +0000

Adventures with SSD and NAS Versions kept me busy over the weekend, resurrecting an older NAS unit with Solid State Drives for a very quiet media storage device.

Linux Wayland Compositor & Hyprland

Practicalli Johnny — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 22:52:13 +0000

A friend recommended Hyprland window manager which is similar to i3 window manager I currently used, but more optomised for the Wayland compositor.

Practicalli currently uses Regolith Desktop, a complete Linux desktop that leverages Gnome and i3 tiling window manager.

Regolith Desktop provides quite a rich experience using the regolith-desktop Debian package. I have not had much success with Regolith when running with Wayland (specifically Sway).

OBS did seem to work okay on wayland, given a sufficiently recent version.

Neovim Grug plugin is being considered as an alternative to the Spectre tool for search and replacing across a project.

Practicalli plans for the rest of the year

Practicalli Johnny — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 13:36:03 +0000

Starting to plan work for the Practicalli content for the next 3 months.

Upgraded to a Dell 40 inch 5k2k monitor for work and it makes a huge difference. Its a beautiful monitor and it works really well with Linux and the tiling window of Regolith Desktop (i3).

I am continuing my search for a new place to live, even further into the countryside with easy access to hiking and cycling activities.

They do say a change is as good as a rest, so investing time in Practicalli content is giving me an energy boost.

{loading=lazy}

The wonderful complexity of people

Practicalli Johnny — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 17:03:42 +0000

!!! QUOTE "A Tail of Two Cities - Charles Dickens" It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

!!! QUOTE "Johnny Stevenson (maybe others)" People are wonderfully complex experiences

In hindsight, many opportunities to get support from my manger and peers were missed. Mostly as we had so many challenges to discuss and partly due to pressures of delivery.

When a person doesn't have clarity around a problem then there is very little they can do to resolve or adapt.

A self-reflection review is in progress and its is a good opportunity to take my own time to reflect on my current role and if its still the right fit for me.

The king is probably dead long live the king

Practicalli Johnny — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 17:03:42 +0000

!!! QUOTE You are only a leader if people are willing to follow

It has been hard to shake the concern that my current commercial role has not worked out, probably not really been working for quite a while in hindsight. Was it ever really working?

I believe my frustration and disappointment have been leaking out over the last month, which I am disappointed about as well.

Friday was the end of my commercial current role.

The title of this article is from the first episode of the first series of the Black Adder TV show. There were quite a few Shakepearean quotes used for comic effect.

Debian Linux migration

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 11:16:06 +0000

Enjoying Debian Linux and freedom from Snaps

Holiday in Paramout Plus

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 11:16:06 +0000

Updating Practicalli Journal and Clojure CLI Config repositories, fixing links and markdown issues from the Megalinter reports.

Updating to Megalinter 0.8.1 GitHub action on Practicalli repositories as I work on them. The upgrade will include each repository in the Grafana dashboards for Practicalli projects.

Issues

DOING security: add clj-watson to clojure cli config
DOING zsh environment varaibles not loading into jvm

Practicalli Project Spring 2023

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 11:16:06 +0000

{align=right loading=lazy style="height:150px;width:150px"}

Due to covid illness during 2022 the planned work has been spread over late 2022 - early 2023.

Back to work

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 19:37:11 +0000

Current issues

DONE security: add clj-watson to clojure cli config

Practicalli work over the winter break

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

The company I work for takes a break over the winter, so I have some time to spend on Practicalli content.

Onboarding to a new role, hacking Clojure & Neovim

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Nervous excitement about starting a new role and hopeful I dont mess it up.

Enjoying writing a regular practicalli again, which is something I missed when not working.

Discussing new role expectations

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Learning a little more about the responsibilities and expectations of the new role, which seems very much as expected.

Health and new chair

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

The BeYou chair is being delivered today, will it live up to my expectations?

Its April Fool

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Adding SSH keys to the YubiKey hardware security key provides convenience of SSH key use, especially when required for multiple computers.

Using a YubiKey to keep a single SSH key pair removes the need to generate a key pair for each computer.

Using one SSH key avoids the need for multiple entries in the allowed-signatures file to check locally that a commit has been signed.

Warmer weather

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Practicalli AstroNvim User Config changed to be as additive as possible, leaving the template as unchanged as possible.

The sunnier weather is a boots to motivation, although its still very windy. At least I can get into the garden without sinking.

Another Saturday morning ride, a tough experience although not completely exhausted afterward.

Flexiana Interview

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Fixing Neovim Treesitter breaking changes

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

The sun is out, the sky is blue... and I had the opportunity to understand some Neovim plugins a little more, in order to fix a breaking change with Neovim Treesitter support for Clojure.

!!! INFO "Pull Requests this week"

- MERGED: [#7 queries: clojure has-type? updated to kind-eq?](https://github.com/PaterJason/nvim-treesitter-sexp/pull/7) for nvim-treesitter-sexp project

Neovim on Termux enhancements

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

More Neovim updates and getting closer to a release of Practicalli Astro-config

I use the date command when I had a need to tweak the time on my Linux computer, saves launching the Settings app and using the mouse.

!!! INFO "Timezones made easy" time.is makes figuring out timezones really simple. See the current time in any timezone across the world.

time.is very useful for events where people attend from different timezones. Set the local time and share a link for others who will see the event time in their own timezone.

Neovim

I'm making some changes to the Practicalli AstroNvim configuration (AstroNvim4) over the next few days.

I will encourage other users to create there own lua/plugins/personal.lua customisation so any changes from upstream will be easier to merge.

The GitHub repository will be renamed to practicalli/astro-config which its much easier to write and say during screencasts. GitHub should redirect when pulling updates

This week I will update Practicalli Neovim book install guide with new repo and further info on how to use the config effectively (especially with your own customisations)

Then the first official release of the config will be created via GitHub releases.

If I have time, there are lots of things to add to Practicalli Neovim book too (including a few more plugins I'm using in the config)

Springing back into life slowly

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

The last month has been tough due to illness, although still managed to do a little work with Practicalli to keep me motivated (both for work and my own personal health)

Having a Donut Party with system components

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Not quite back to full health yet, so took it easy at the weekend.

More work on restoring spare bicycles so I can sell them or otherwise find a good home.

Continued the refactor of the Practicalli Service template, specifically refining the design of the system config and helper functions to support a development REPL workflow.

Git Multiple SSH Keys & Neovim

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

A short week at work made even shorter by a company day to celebrate going live. A chance to unwind and reflect.

I will update Neovim to 0.10 when AstroNvim confirms it is working well with that release.

Company offsite week

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

I am accustom to working remotely since 2010, having worked for companies based outside of the UK. It is always very valuable to meet people face to face and can start or strengthen a relationship.

Refactor AstroNvim Clojure pack

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Pull requests this week

:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Add Clojure comment patterns to ts-comments.nvim
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Modularise Astrocommunity Clojure pack
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Update AstroNvim Cloure pack description & simplify examples
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Fix vim-visual-multi dependency name

Total commits this week: 37

Submitted a pull request to refactor the AstroNvim Community Clojure language pack which I contributed in June 2023.

add nvim-treesitter-sexp plugin
add example of disabling / configuring parinfer plugin
add ts-comment.nvim to support ;; and ; comment characters
remove autocmd from conjure plugin (no longer needed)
remove most of the opinionated conjure configuration overrides, although still hiding the repl log buffer (HUD) by default as its nicer as a separate tab. Maybe if I can have it open by default as a tab, then I could live with having the HUD open on REPL startup (a nice way to check things are working)

Still sleepy from travel to the company off-site last week and the cycle ride on Saturday. Although I did manage some work in the garden on Sunday.

Practicalli content planning

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Taking two weeks off from work and have some time to work on Practicalli content.

Hacking on Practicalli content

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Now I can focus on getting lots of Practicalli content done (as well as catch up with shows on Paramount+ and maybe a little Polybus on the Playstation4 VR headset)

Megalinter 8 and monthly version updates

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Megalinter updates to version 8 using the megalinter runner tool, adding a Makefile task to simplify the command line (so I dont have to remember the command).

MegaLinter Grafana Dashboards

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Health is a little better after resting over the weekend, although still have lots of symptoms.

!!! EXAMPLE "Megalinter Grafana dashboard example project" :fontawesome-brands-github: Practicalli Megalinter-Test{target=_blank .md-button}

NOTE: I am trying to diagnose why this project does not seem to be sending logs to Grafana.

Here Comes The Rain

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Thunderstorms abound which will be good for the vegetables growing in my garden (beetroot, courgettes, parsnips and onions)

Day 98: Coaching and 4Clojure 53

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:22:46 +0000

Continued coaching one of my regular students

Took Poppy (one of my cats) to the vets for a checkup. Apart from a some plaque build Poppy is fine. More toothpaste and teeth cleaning for Poppy.

Cycled into Wagamama Southbank for another coaching session, getting my teeth stuck into 4Clojure challenge #53, a tricky one eventually solved with partition and partition-by.

!!! INFO "4Clojure solution" 4Clojure #53 solution{target=_blank}

Day 100: 4Clojure

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:22:46 +0000

100 days of code challenge completed. Was it worth it? Well yes, it got me coding almost every day, and overall I certainly achieved more than 100 hours of coding, more like several 100 hours of coding.

I didnt do was work on a specific project every day, but that would have felt more like work and I enjoyed having a break from that routine.

Will I do a 100 days of code challenge again? Not sure, its quite a hard thing to be consistent with. I will certainly keep a developer journal from now on as it has been very useful.

!!! INFO "4Clojure solution"

Write up of the 4Clojure exercises I covered in yesterdays Clojure study group broadcast.Popped out for a few essentials in the last day I am prepared to go shopping before the holidays :)- [4Clojure #17](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/7ff29a9f7014fde30e133f88f78c15d8729ed68e){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #18](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/f75d84c2ab82b0b74c6b87b29935c2a4e175cfc0){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #19](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/0a4a8561b951284aa90910f339cdae9c20225007){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #20](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/91616e84ed16803a76734a443a7a4b3b65c20262){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #21](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/5fe42949b7123c42a6b8d1f6ab8df2c7afc8f200){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #22](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/d7444b2f3f2f39937c4889cb080724ac790ec374){target=_blank}

How much root cause analysis to do?

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:22:57 +0000

Winter starts on Friday 22nd December, although its already much colder this year.

Early to bed tonight as I start commercial work on Monday morning.

First day at the new company

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:22:57 +0000

How does it feel to be employed... wonderful.

On-boarding at the new job

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:22:57 +0000

Balancing enthusiasm to be productive with learning enough first so as not to be dangerous

Conjure LSP bug & Cycling video editing

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:18:26 +0000

Updated to Kitty 0.35.1 easily and switching between dark and light themes working instantly again.

#582 REVIEW: Conjure throws new Buffer error{target=_blank .md-button}

Took a few days away from the computer to work on the garden as its nice and sunny. A mostly sunny ride on Saturday around the Kent countryside.

Practicalli Project Update 5

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 23:42:40 +0000

{align=right loading=lazy style="height:150px;width:150px"}

A range of updates, new content and tool reviews and testing. Helping lots of students on Exercism in the last week.

Practicalli Project Update 2

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 23:42:40 +0000

{align=right loading=lazy style="height:150px;width:150px"}

Invested time to understand the changes coming to the Clojure CLI tools and understand the opportunities that Clojure exec (:exec-fn & :exec-args) brings to aliases. These changes provided a catalyst to start redesigning the aliases used in practicalli/clojure-cli-config.

Monthly library updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

The last monthly review of library dependency versions in Clojure CLI Config aliases for 2023

Running walking coughing

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

Run Johnny Run... then have a sleepy day.

Visiting the new office

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

Party on dudes...

Weekly journal & Neovide

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

The Practicalli journal will move to a weekly cadence now I have a full time job with Griffin Bank.

I do write a daily journal for my activities in Griffin and will share information that is not sensitive or business valuable.

Neovim updates and Neovide

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

Enjoying the new role as there is so much to do that I can get involved with.

Also enjoying Neovide GUI for Neovim, although its more convienient to simply run astro for Neovim in a terminal. When I am comfortable setting the base directory or working with multiple project, then Neovide will be more convienient to use.

End of line... for 2023

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

My personal plans for 2024 are not set in stone, but I would like to relocate to the countryside by the summer.

Predictions for 2024:

the year of the AI lawsuits as more companies and individuals realise they content has been used to train AI models without permission or recompense.
Anthropocene is declared a new geographic era in the history of the earth, marking the significant change humanity has made to the planet (not for the good).

Planing Practicalli 2024

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

How could the community help people find relevant and quality libraries to use for their own development projects?

Continuing the move to Debian Linux

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

Organising my laptop collection is a fascinating journey down a long history of laptops, many of which I had forgotten about. Most of the laptops still work and run new versions of Linux pretty well.

I really enjoyed using the EzePc laptops as they were so easy to carry around to all the community events I used to go to. Although they would have benefited from a nice Atreus keyboard from Keyboard.io.

Debian is very useful for older i686 to i386 cpu based hardware. Firefox-esr is the only browser that seems to still support these older chipsets.

A freezing start to a new year

Practicalli Johnny — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 10:56:08 +0000

Organising my digital music and audio books so they all fit nicely on my smart phone (using Opus audio format and VLC to play the music).

A new dawn a new day its a new life

Practicalli Johnny — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:58 +0000

As we come to the end of 2025 I continue to contemplate what is next?

Do I want to continue in the software engineering industry with its many systemic faults?

Or should I branch out and do something completely different?

80,000 hours is a guide to careers that have a positive impact on the world.

I had a few quick games of Stardust and one surprisingly successful game of Polybius.

Holiday stuffing

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 18:31:27 +0000

{align=right loading=lazy style="width:360px"}

New potatoes, Edamame, Spinach and Garden Peas complement the pie, along with some very thick Bisto Best Vegetable Gravy (I add way too many granules to make the gravy nice and thick).

Finding My Joy

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 18:42:20 +0000

In season 2, episode 2 of "The Big Door Prize" they talk about "Finding your Joy". This seems like an inspiring new years resolution, or at least a theme I should focus on for 2025.

You only live one life and you should take time out to enjoy it. There were many aspects to 2024 that constrained my joy, so I will endeavour to may 2025 a most joyous year.

Practicalli Updates:

Clojure Data Inspector tools - overview and portal page updated

What is past is prologue

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 13:23:01 +0000

!!! QUOTE If a technology was truly dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it on the internet

Dead is mainstream

When people state that some technology or practice is dead via the internet, it typically means that thing is the mainstream.

If something was truely dead, no one would feel the need to talk about it as that topic would not relate to anyone.

This technique is essentially click-bate and trying to persuade you to 'buy-in' to something else (usually for the profit of aother person)

Long Cold Winter

Practicalli Johnny — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 11:22:17 +0000

Converted some audio files to Opus codec, which provides a really optimum compression and allows for relatively low bit rates and results in much smaller files with the same quality.

Neovim upcoming changes

neovim 0.11 has some breaking changes, so assume early in 2025
astronvim v5 once neovim 0.11 released
:fontawesome-brands-github: mason-tool-installer.nvim to simplify mason config in astronvim v5 - discussed in Atronvim Discord community. maston-tool-installer still :fontawesome-brands-github: uses the mason registry for tool versions.

Starting to update my CV from recent commercial experiences, focusing on the areas of product, delivery and people.

Making use of Black Friday

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 18:18:38 +0000

Adventures with SSD and NAS Versions kept me busy over the weekend, resurrecting an older NAS unit with Solid State Drives for a very quiet media storage device.

Linux Wayland Compositor & Hyprland

Practicalli Johnny — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 22:52:13 +0000

A friend recommended Hyprland window manager which is similar to i3 window manager I currently used, but more optomised for the Wayland compositor.

Practicalli currently uses Regolith Desktop, a complete Linux desktop that leverages Gnome and i3 tiling window manager.

Regolith Desktop provides quite a rich experience using the regolith-desktop Debian package. I have not had much success with Regolith when running with Wayland (specifically Sway).

OBS did seem to work okay on wayland, given a sufficiently recent version.

Neovim Grug plugin is being considered as an alternative to the Spectre tool for search and replacing across a project.

Practicalli plans for the rest of the year

Practicalli Johnny — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 13:36:03 +0000

Starting to plan work for the Practicalli content for the next 3 months.

Upgraded to a Dell 40 inch 5k2k monitor for work and it makes a huge difference. Its a beautiful monitor and it works really well with Linux and the tiling window of Regolith Desktop (i3).

I am continuing my search for a new place to live, even further into the countryside with easy access to hiking and cycling activities.

They do say a change is as good as a rest, so investing time in Practicalli content is giving me an energy boost.

{loading=lazy}

The wonderful complexity of people

Practicalli Johnny — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 17:03:42 +0000

!!! QUOTE "A Tail of Two Cities - Charles Dickens" It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

!!! QUOTE "Johnny Stevenson (maybe others)" People are wonderfully complex experiences

In hindsight, many opportunities to get support from my manger and peers were missed. Mostly as we had so many challenges to discuss and partly due to pressures of delivery.

When a person doesn't have clarity around a problem then there is very little they can do to resolve or adapt.

A self-reflection review is in progress and its is a good opportunity to take my own time to reflect on my current role and if its still the right fit for me.

The king is probably dead long live the king

Practicalli Johnny — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 17:03:42 +0000

!!! QUOTE You are only a leader if people are willing to follow

It has been hard to shake the concern that my current commercial role has not worked out, probably not really been working for quite a while in hindsight. Was it ever really working?

I believe my frustration and disappointment have been leaking out over the last month, which I am disappointed about as well.

Friday was the end of my commercial current role.

The title of this article is from the first episode of the first series of the Black Adder TV show. There were quite a few Shakepearean quotes used for comic effect.

Debian Linux migration

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 11:16:06 +0000

Enjoying Debian Linux and freedom from Snaps

Holiday in Paramout Plus

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 11:16:06 +0000

Updating Practicalli Journal and Clojure CLI Config repositories, fixing links and markdown issues from the Megalinter reports.

Updating to Megalinter 0.8.1 GitHub action on Practicalli repositories as I work on them. The upgrade will include each repository in the Grafana dashboards for Practicalli projects.

Issues

DOING security: add clj-watson to clojure cli config
DOING zsh environment varaibles not loading into jvm

Practicalli Project Spring 2023

Practicalli Johnny — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 11:16:06 +0000

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Due to covid illness during 2022 the planned work has been spread over late 2022 - early 2023.

Back to work

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 19:37:11 +0000

Current issues

DONE security: add clj-watson to clojure cli config

Practicalli work over the winter break

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

The company I work for takes a break over the winter, so I have some time to spend on Practicalli content.

Onboarding to a new role, hacking Clojure & Neovim

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Nervous excitement about starting a new role and hopeful I dont mess it up.

Enjoying writing a regular practicalli again, which is something I missed when not working.

Discussing new role expectations

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Learning a little more about the responsibilities and expectations of the new role, which seems very much as expected.

Health and new chair

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

The BeYou chair is being delivered today, will it live up to my expectations?

Its April Fool

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Adding SSH keys to the YubiKey hardware security key provides convenience of SSH key use, especially when required for multiple computers.

Using a YubiKey to keep a single SSH key pair removes the need to generate a key pair for each computer.

Using one SSH key avoids the need for multiple entries in the allowed-signatures file to check locally that a commit has been signed.

Warmer weather

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Practicalli AstroNvim User Config changed to be as additive as possible, leaving the template as unchanged as possible.

The sunnier weather is a boots to motivation, although its still very windy. At least I can get into the garden without sinking.

Another Saturday morning ride, a tough experience although not completely exhausted afterward.

Flexiana Interview

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Fixing Neovim Treesitter breaking changes

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

The sun is out, the sky is blue... and I had the opportunity to understand some Neovim plugins a little more, in order to fix a breaking change with Neovim Treesitter support for Clojure.

!!! INFO "Pull Requests this week"

- MERGED: [#7 queries: clojure has-type? updated to kind-eq?](https://github.com/PaterJason/nvim-treesitter-sexp/pull/7) for nvim-treesitter-sexp project

Neovim on Termux enhancements

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

More Neovim updates and getting closer to a release of Practicalli Astro-config

I use the date command when I had a need to tweak the time on my Linux computer, saves launching the Settings app and using the mouse.

!!! INFO "Timezones made easy" time.is makes figuring out timezones really simple. See the current time in any timezone across the world.

time.is very useful for events where people attend from different timezones. Set the local time and share a link for others who will see the event time in their own timezone.

Neovim

I'm making some changes to the Practicalli AstroNvim configuration (AstroNvim4) over the next few days.

I will encourage other users to create there own lua/plugins/personal.lua customisation so any changes from upstream will be easier to merge.

The GitHub repository will be renamed to practicalli/astro-config which its much easier to write and say during screencasts. GitHub should redirect when pulling updates

This week I will update Practicalli Neovim book install guide with new repo and further info on how to use the config effectively (especially with your own customisations)

Then the first official release of the config will be created via GitHub releases.

If I have time, there are lots of things to add to Practicalli Neovim book too (including a few more plugins I'm using in the config)

Springing back into life slowly

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

The last month has been tough due to illness, although still managed to do a little work with Practicalli to keep me motivated (both for work and my own personal health)

Having a Donut Party with system components

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Not quite back to full health yet, so took it easy at the weekend.

More work on restoring spare bicycles so I can sell them or otherwise find a good home.

Continued the refactor of the Practicalli Service template, specifically refining the design of the system config and helper functions to support a development REPL workflow.

Git Multiple SSH Keys & Neovim

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

A short week at work made even shorter by a company day to celebrate going live. A chance to unwind and reflect.

I will update Neovim to 0.10 when AstroNvim confirms it is working well with that release.

Company offsite week

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

I am accustom to working remotely since 2010, having worked for companies based outside of the UK. It is always very valuable to meet people face to face and can start or strengthen a relationship.

Refactor AstroNvim Clojure pack

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Pull requests this week

:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Add Clojure comment patterns to ts-comments.nvim
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Modularise Astrocommunity Clojure pack
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Update AstroNvim Cloure pack description & simplify examples
:fontawesome-solid-code-pull-request: MERGED Fix vim-visual-multi dependency name

Total commits this week: 37

Submitted a pull request to refactor the AstroNvim Community Clojure language pack which I contributed in June 2023.

add nvim-treesitter-sexp plugin
add example of disabling / configuring parinfer plugin
add ts-comment.nvim to support ;; and ; comment characters
remove autocmd from conjure plugin (no longer needed)
remove most of the opinionated conjure configuration overrides, although still hiding the repl log buffer (HUD) by default as its nicer as a separate tab. Maybe if I can have it open by default as a tab, then I could live with having the HUD open on REPL startup (a nice way to check things are working)

Still sleepy from travel to the company off-site last week and the cycle ride on Saturday. Although I did manage some work in the garden on Sunday.

Practicalli content planning

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Taking two weeks off from work and have some time to work on Practicalli content.

Hacking on Practicalli content

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Now I can focus on getting lots of Practicalli content done (as well as catch up with shows on Paramount+ and maybe a little Polybus on the Playstation4 VR headset)

Megalinter 8 and monthly version updates

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Megalinter updates to version 8 using the megalinter runner tool, adding a Makefile task to simplify the command line (so I dont have to remember the command).

MegaLinter Grafana Dashboards

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Health is a little better after resting over the weekend, although still have lots of symptoms.

!!! EXAMPLE "Megalinter Grafana dashboard example project" :fontawesome-brands-github: Practicalli Megalinter-Test{target=_blank .md-button}

NOTE: I am trying to diagnose why this project does not seem to be sending logs to Grafana.

Here Comes The Rain

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:01 +0000

Thunderstorms abound which will be good for the vegetables growing in my garden (beetroot, courgettes, parsnips and onions)

Day 98: Coaching and 4Clojure 53

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:22:46 +0000

Continued coaching one of my regular students

Took Poppy (one of my cats) to the vets for a checkup. Apart from a some plaque build Poppy is fine. More toothpaste and teeth cleaning for Poppy.

Cycled into Wagamama Southbank for another coaching session, getting my teeth stuck into 4Clojure challenge #53, a tricky one eventually solved with partition and partition-by.

!!! INFO "4Clojure solution" 4Clojure #53 solution{target=_blank}

Day 100: 4Clojure

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:22:46 +0000

I didnt do was work on a specific project every day, but that would have felt more like work and I enjoyed having a break from that routine.

Will I do a 100 days of code challenge again? Not sure, its quite a hard thing to be consistent with. I will certainly keep a developer journal from now on as it has been very useful.

!!! INFO "4Clojure solution"

Write up of the 4Clojure exercises I covered in yesterdays Clojure study group broadcast.Popped out for a few essentials in the last day I am prepared to go shopping before the holidays :)- [4Clojure #17](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/7ff29a9f7014fde30e133f88f78c15d8729ed68e){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #18](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/f75d84c2ab82b0b74c6b87b29935c2a4e175cfc0){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #19](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/0a4a8561b951284aa90910f339cdae9c20225007){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #20](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/91616e84ed16803a76734a443a7a4b3b65c20262){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #21](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/5fe42949b7123c42a6b8d1f6ab8df2c7afc8f200){target=_blank}- [4Clojure #22](https://github.com/jr0cket/four-clojure/commit/d7444b2f3f2f39937c4889cb080724ac790ec374){target=_blank}

How much root cause analysis to do?

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:22:57 +0000

Winter starts on Friday 22nd December, although its already much colder this year.

Early to bed tonight as I start commercial work on Monday morning.

First day at the new company

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:22:57 +0000

How does it feel to be employed... wonderful.

On-boarding at the new job

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:22:57 +0000

Balancing enthusiasm to be productive with learning enough first so as not to be dangerous

Conjure LSP bug & Cycling video editing

Practicalli Johnny — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:18:26 +0000

Updated to Kitty 0.35.1 easily and switching between dark and light themes working instantly again.

#582 REVIEW: Conjure throws new Buffer error{target=_blank .md-button}

Took a few days away from the computer to work on the garden as its nice and sunny. A mostly sunny ride on Saturday around the Kent countryside.

Practicalli Project Update 5

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 23:42:40 +0000

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A range of updates, new content and tool reviews and testing. Helping lots of students on Exercism in the last week.

Practicalli Project Update 2

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 23:42:40 +0000

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Monthly library updates

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

The last monthly review of library dependency versions in Clojure CLI Config aliases for 2023

Running walking coughing

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

Run Johnny Run... then have a sleepy day.

Visiting the new office

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

Party on dudes...

Weekly journal & Neovide

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

The Practicalli journal will move to a weekly cadence now I have a full time job with Griffin Bank.

I do write a daily journal for my activities in Griffin and will share information that is not sensitive or business valuable.

Neovim updates and Neovide

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

Enjoying the new role as there is so much to do that I can get involved with.

End of line... for 2023

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

My personal plans for 2024 are not set in stone, but I would like to relocate to the countryside by the summer.

Predictions for 2024:

the year of the AI lawsuits as more companies and individuals realise they content has been used to train AI models without permission or recompense.
Anthropocene is declared a new geographic era in the history of the earth, marking the significant change humanity has made to the planet (not for the good).

Planing Practicalli 2024

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

How could the community help people find relevant and quality libraries to use for their own development projects?

Continuing the move to Debian Linux

Practicalli Johnny — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:33:04 +0000

Organising my laptop collection is a fascinating journey down a long history of laptops, many of which I had forgotten about. Most of the laptops still work and run new versions of Linux pretty well.

Debian is very useful for older i686 to i386 cpu based hardware. Firefox-esr is the only browser that seems to still support these older chipsets.