Links for 2020-05-24

content/links/20200524.md

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+title = "Links for 2020-05-24"
+date = 2020-05-24
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ["links", "rust", "zuckerberg", "facebook", "work from home", 
+"open source", "europe", "universities", "documentation", "culture war", 
+"pull requests", "dokuwiki", "licenses", "apis", "dark patterns", "zshell",
+"zsh", "git", "git ignore", "monologues", "devops", "mocking", "testing"]
++++
+
+Rust Unix Commands, Learning Rust (yes, again), Zuckerberg, Facebook and
+Working Remotely, Open Source in European University, Open Source Your Shitty
+Library, Writing Documentation, Open Source Culture War, Building Applications
+With No Invalid State, Show How You Solve Problems, Pull Requests, Dokuwiki,
+Things Wrong With Rust, Unofficial APIs, Selling Yourself, Dark Patterns,
+Picking Licenses, ZShell Tricks, Global Git Ignore, Internal Monologues,
+DevOps Lessons, Mocking in Rust.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+## [Common *nix commands written in Rust](https://gcollazo.com/common-nix-commands-written-in-rust/)
+
+I know I posted something like this recently, but I feel this list is a bit
+more complete.
+
+## [Getting Started with Rust by Building a Tiny Markdown Compiler](https://jesselawson.org/rust/getting-started-with-rust-by-building-a-tiny-markdown-compiler/)
+
+A good introduction to Rust. I really like how things that are interesting but
+could get in the way of learning the language are collapsed and just if you
+really want to know what they are talking about, you can expand it.
+
+## [Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's $800,000 donation to their 8 favorite restaurants is like the median US family giving 13 cents to each](https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-priscilla-chan-800000-donation-restaurants-us-family-equivalent-2020-5)
+
+Let's rant a bit, shall we?
+
+There are a lot of news about billionaires helping small business or people,
+sharing some expressive amount of money.
+
+But then, when you check how much they are "helping", it is just some really
+small drop of everything they had.
+
+On the other hand, it's not like Zuckerberg had $76.3 billion on his bank
+account (or pocket). It's based on the value of Facebook (the company) and the
+Zuckerberg stock.
+
+So, saying "Rich person shared a huge load of money" is wrong, as is "it's
+just peanuts" is also wrong -- although I must reckon the first is more wrong
+than the second.
+
+## [Facebook employees may face pay cut if they move to cheaper areas to work from home](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-employees-may-face-pay-cut-if-they-move-to-cheaper-areas-to-work-from-home-2020-05-21)
+
+And just to put some more perspective into what Zuckerberg does, here is
+another facet: Due COVID, Facebook allowed workers to work from home, but now
+comes the warning: Just because you're working from home, you can't just take
+your salary to a cheaper place. You must suffer, SUFFER!
+
+Ok, I may have gotten over my head on that.
+
+But there are a bunch of things you can take from this: You're not allowed to
+improve your life while not taking more from the company; cheaper places
+should mean cheaper payment; and on, and on.
+
+Dunno what Zuckerberg idea is behind this (except maybe make more money).
+
+## [Why European universities are choosing open source software](https://opensource.com/article/20/5/open-source-higher-education)
+
+This is actually good news. When I was on Uni, one of the problems I faced was
+the incongruent idea that you need some specific software to do your
+homework, but those were paid, closed source options and, thus, the only
+option was to either stay at uni (something really hard when you have to work
+to pay for it) or pirate it.
+
+Now, honestly, that's the "free as in beer" part of the "free software" (which
+is not actually true, but it happens), but in the long run, I guess people
+learning to code can also gather more accustomed to having the source around,
+and maybe even used to see how things works.
+
+## [It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty](https://www.drmaciver.com/2015/04/its-ok-for-your-open-source-library-to-be-a-bit-shitty/)
+
+That's one of the things most developers still are afraid of: You're working
+on an open source license, but you fear into making it available everywhere
+'cause "it's not perfect".
+
+There are reasons to keep an open source content not available yet: You're
+working through licenses and copyrights. Apart from that, you can really
+released a version that is not up to scratch, 'cause showing what it is -- and
+update as necessary -- is way more impressive than releasing a perfect version
+in the first shot.
+
+## [RFCs and asynchronous-first culture](https://notes.eatonphil.com/rfcs-and-asynchronous-first-culture.html)
+
+One of the things that really caught my eye here is the idea that, when doing
+some graphical design, people go to sketches and mockups instead of jumping
+directly into the final design. And doing documentation (and emails, for that
+matter) we need some sort of "sketches" for it.
+
+## [The Culture War in Open Source is On](https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-culture-war-in-open-source-is-on)
+
+Oh boy, here we go again...
+
+Yes yes, there is something going inside the open source culture: Stallman was
+forced out of the FSF and Eric Raymond was kicked out of OSI maillist.
+
+But here is the thing: Even if Stallman started the GNU project and kick
+started the whole free software movement, he also saw no problem in underage
+girls with older men, only changing position days before being kicked out of
+the FSF board; Eric Raymond may have written "The Cathedral and the Bazaar",
+but also became a gun nut, claimed gay men are, basically, paedophiles and
+that a cop shooting a suspicious black man is not racism, but self defense --
+and nobody found it weird when he mentioned "black man" and not simply "man"?
+
+Open source and free software won. There is a lot more people coming in the
+movement than before, and showing that people are welcomed here is the point.
+When people are actually damaging the image of the movement, they are not
+helping.
+
+On another note, I remember that in early 2000s, we were already discussing
+how Raymond's attitudes and opinions were actually harmful to the ecosystem.
+That was more than 20 years ago, and it seems he didn't change a bit. Good
+riddance.
+
+Honestly, the "war" we have is simply "You may be a cool, technical person,
+but your shitty attitude won't be allowed here anymore."
+
+## [Constructive vs Predicative Data](https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/constructive/)
+
+I really like this kind of posts, which explores how information could be
+accidentally wrong, while a different approach can prevent a wrong state.
+
+## [To get a better programming job, explain your problem-solving skills](https://codewithoutrules.com/2020/05/18/job-search-skills/)
+
+You know, there is something deeper here than it seems.
+
+The interviews I did on bigger companies, I didn't feel they were trying to
+find the way I solved problems; they were looking if I knew the answer right
+away.
+
+So, one can see the title in two ways: Either you can get a better programming
+job by showing your problem solving skills OR better jobs want to see your
+problem solving skills (poor jobs do not).
+
+## [On Writing a Great Pull Request](https://blog.codeminer42.com/on-writing-a-great-pull-request-37c60ce6f31d/)
+
+More people should read posts like this. I had to deal a lot with pull
+requests with no information whatsoever about what was being done. Worse,
+sometimes, the title of the pull requests was actually the branch name.
+
+## [Argon Dokuwiki Template](https://github.com/IceWreck/Argon-Dokuwiki-Template#argon-dokuwiki-template)
+
+I used Dokuwiki a long time ago, and even then the interface felt a bit
+outdated. Now there is some pretty theme for it -- although I'm not sure I'm
+in need to Dokuwiki at this point.
+
+## [Things I hate about Rust](https://blog.yossarian.net/2020/05/20/Things-I-hate-about-rust)
+
+Sure, no language is perfect and ranting about the wrong things is a way to
+improve it, but some points are actually without merit.
+
+For example, complaining about Rust multiple string types: I understand the
+problem with `&str` and `String`, but `OsString` has a reason to exist --
+operating systems that are UTF-8 while their filesystem is not. So how do you
+deal with it? You make everything UTF-8 and let the filesystem create stupidly
+named files?
+
+## [Unofficial APIs](https://github.com/Rolstenhouse/unofficial-apis)
+
+A list of services APIs that are not official. Just in case you want to play
+with something that doesn't offer a real API.
+
+## [Sell yourself, Sell Your Work...](https://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/SellYourselfSellYourWork.html?te20hn)
+
+That's one thing I do really bad: I don't know how to sell myself. I just hope
+this blog -- and opinions, and technical posts and even stupid ideas -- can
+serve as a way to do it so.
+
+## [Dark Patterns: Past, Present, and Future](https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3400901)
+
+I've been seeing a lot of those patterns recently. There is one missing bit,
+though: How do we get rid of them?
+
+## [Choose A License](https://choosealicense.com/appendix/)
+
+Want to check what each license allow you to do? Here is a neat table with
+several licenses and what you need to do and what you _can_ do with them.
+
+## [Some zshrc tricks](https://www.arp242.net/zshrc.html)
+
+I may have switched to ZShell recently, so this kind of post is actually
+pretty damn useful.
+
+... but the thing that caught my eye was the way to put aliases for
+directories, which helps a lot in getting to the right place, but I'm using
+[Scotty](https://github.com/wdullaer/scotty) and that makes something like
+that somewhat useless.
+
+## [Global Gitignore Files Are Cool and So Are You](https://www.viget.com/articles/global-gitignore-files-are-cool-and-so-are-you-1/)
+
+Ah, that's one thing I have been missing: Global ignores. That would allow me
+to ignore VIM swap files on every project at once.
+
+## [Today I Learned That Not Everyone Has An Internal Monologue And It Has Ruined My Day.](https://insidemymind.me/2020/01/28/today-i-learned-that-not-everyone-has-an-internal-monologue-and-it-has-ruined-my-day/)
+
+Far from ruining my day, but I also found this really... curious, to put
+mildly.
+
+But lacking a internal monologue may also explain why some people don't
+like books -- the dialogues may be a bit missing, and it may be hard to follow
+the story.
+
+## [(A few) Ops Lessons We All Learn The Hard Way](https://www.netmeister.org/blog/ops-lessons.html)
+
+Ah, some awesome things we think it always true with devops but aren't.
+
+## [Introducing faux](https://nrxus.github.io/faux/#--introducing-faux--)
+
+A nice looking Mocking library for Rust.
+
+---
+
+This post was built with the help of
+
+* [Freddy](https://social.privacytools.io/@freddyym)
+* [HN Tooter](https://mastodon.social/@hntooter)
+* [Michael J. Gratton](https://octodon.social/@mjog)
+* [newsbot](https://mastodon.social/@newsbot)
+* [Starfish](https://social.linux.pizza/@redstarfish)
+* [sungo](https://sungo.space/sungo)