Safety Valve

Note: This text was originally written for the redhoterlang.org blog in 2011, but since that is now defunct, I'm republishing it here to make it available online again. When I wrote this, we had only been using the resulting repository for a few months and our experience with git was quite limited. Now three years later, I can say that I'm very very happy indeed that I spent a lot of effort importing the entire development history into git. Being able to run "git log" or "git blame" and see every change back to when the initial code base was created almost 10 years ago is incredibly useful. Our development department at Klarna has grown quite a lot the last year [2009-2010], and because we are trying to be as agile as we can, using scrum and kanban, this has meant more teams, more branches, and more coordination and merging of branches. When summer came, we knew we had a big batch of recruits due to start in August, and that we had to do something about o...

[Edit: since the redhoterlang.org blog is now defunct, I have republished the text here. ] As mentioned in my previous post, I did some work this summer with manipulating Subversion dump files using Erlang. I've written a probably way too long text about this for the RedHotErlang blog maintained by my friend and colleague, the legendary Tobbe T. If you're interested in this sort of thing - for example, if you're currently thinking about how to convert your messy Subversion repository to Git - you might want to read it. Or perhaps you just want something to help you go to sleep. Otherwise, you're forgiven if you don't follow that link.

Wow - I've not updated the blog for a year and a half. Amazing how writing a book can turn you off all other kinds of written expression (apart from the odd Tweet). The book's been out for a month now and I'm quite happy with how it turned out. But following the release, I haven't had the energy to do anything creative when I get home after work, so I've just been playing video games and, well, not writing . I've felt entitled to it, though: for the last year, I've not had time for anything else, so I've built up a huge backlog of books, films and games that I'm now suddenly able to start working my way through. The only problem with that is that it too can start to feel like work. In particular, my long list of TODO-notes and feature requests for my pet programming projects has felt too overwhelming to try to pick up. In many cases, I've completely forgotten where I was, so it typically takes half a day just to look over the code and figure out...

While midsummer eve was as cold and foggy as any I can remember, these following days have been beautiful. The winds are still a bit chilly, which can be deceptive since it makes you forget how much sun you're actually exposing your poor skin to. I spent most of a day mowing the grass around the house, and got myself a really superb redneck tan. An hour or two ago, a White-tailed eagle circled a few times over our house, as usual supremely unimpressed by the gang of annoyed seagulls that tried to chase it away. A cuckoo is, well, cuckooing, in the distance, and the water is glittering. In fact, it's bloody hard to get any real work done in a place like this. Over and out.

When I planned my trip to California for the Erlang Factory conference, I followed a friend's advice and set aside a couple of days to go and see Yosemite Valley . I don't regret it - it was absolutely fantastic. Yosemite is about 4 hours drive east from San Francisco, up in the high Sierra Nevadas, and it's one of the most stunning landscapes you can imagine. Nothing I had read about it beforehand had prepared me for the feeling of actually being there and seeing this amazing valley in real life; not even Google Earth (although I recommend trying that for yourself - the 3D detail is really good). Of course I took a lot of photos , but it's not until now that I'm done going through the lot of them (discarding more than half), so I've waited with writing about the trip. I stayed two nights in Curry Village, a camp site of permanent tent-cabins (complete with beds, but no heat) that are the cheapest option if you don't bring your own camping equipment and want...

A couple of weeks ago, I went to San Francisco for the Bay Area Erlang Factory . The conference was great, but I also took a few days off to be able to do some touristy things on my own first (not to mention working off the 9 hour jet lag). I had a lazy sunday in SF and took the opportunity to visit Alcatraz for the first time. I was really lucky with the weather and took a whole bunch of photos .

" The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages ", the classic book by Simon Peyton-Jones (et al.) has been out of print for years, but has now been released as a free book in several juicy formats. Just follow the link.