Links #115

Vadim Kravcenko on aging code and the wisdom of old code. This was really good, and it’s not a viewpoint I see often. “The longer your code has been around, survived different cataclysms (read: business pivots), and evolved, the more robust it is. The team that has built it before you had time to debug, to optimize, to improve — the code has accumulated years worth of bugfixes that are in places you cant even imagine.”

Amy Harris on being “a single and childless woman in a church that is so focused on marriage and child-rearing.” A good perspective on family.

Daniel Huffman on making Blender relief maps less Blender-y. I’ll admit to liking the aesthetic of those maps, but that’s looking at them as art; from a cartographic angle, yes, it’s a bit much. This also made me want to make more maps in Blender.

Loz Blain on an underwater bicycle. Cool.

Mandy Brown on the practice of bookending your work days. I’ve done something vaguely similar to this (well, half of this) and it’s been helpful. I think one of the most helpful techniques I’ve adopted at work has been keeping a log of what I work on. When I come back the next day, or even just from lunch, it’s so much easier to pick up where I left off. Externalizing memory makes context refreshes smooth.

Jonathan Beebe on how JavaScript got good. Yep. I really enjoy writing JS these days.

And I’ll like it even more if this do expressions proposal makes it into the language. I’ve wanted this (instead of those awkward nested ternaries) for a while. Hope it happens!