Author: Sergey Vasilyev

Samurai Developers

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There are software developers much more skilled than what is usually called “guru”. I call them “samurai” developers.

While junior developers like the beauty of code they write, intermediate developers like the beauty of system architecture they design, and senior (guru) developers like the business effectiveness of market products they roll out, samurai developers like the beauty of doing nothing. Literally.

By the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, and the word was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class. The samurai followed a set of rules that came to be known as bushidō. /Wikipedia/

So here is a code of conduct of the samurai developer. It is definitely not bushidō direct adaptation, but mostly a poetic interpretation of what is associated with samurais.

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CapsLock keyboard layouts switching in Parallels Desktop

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I like Mac OS X very much. But I also have to use MS Windows for some tasks that Mac OS X cannot do, such as full-featured MS Office, MS Project, MS Visio, MindJet/MindManager, stock trading terminals, most games, etc.

And I also like to switch my keyboard layouts with CapsLock instead of default Cmd+Space or Alt+Shift.  You would never believe how convenient it is until you try it for yourself.

But when I use both Parallels Desktop with MS Windows as a guest OS and PCKeyboardHack for CapsLock keyboard layout switching, I find myself limited to only one of these scenarios:

  • Use CapsLock to switch keyboard layouts in Windows as in Mac OS X, but Cmd+Tab goes to Windows and switches between Windows applications instead of Mac OS X applications.
  • Use Cmd+Tab to switch between Mac OS X applications, but Windows keyboard layouts should be switched with native Alt+Shift or Ctrl+Shift, not with CapsLock as in Mac OS X.

Actually, this limitation affects all Mac OS X system shortcuts, not only Cmd+Tab. For example, Cmd+Shift+4 does not work for screenshots, Cmd+Ctrl+N does not work for Evernote, etc.

The perfect scenario — Cmd+Tab for Mac OS X applications and CapsLock for keyboard layouts both in Mac OS X and Windows — is impossible with these tools. Here is a solution how to implement this perfect scenario.

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CapsLock input source switching in Mac OS X

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As a software developer and true introvert, I type a lot. I type for coding, I type for blogging, I type for chatting, I type for sexing ;-) My two most used keyboard layouts are English and Russian; I also use Esperanto sometimes. And as I type, I want to switch the keyboard layouts fast and insensibly.

Mac OS X default installation suggests Cmd+Space keyboard shortcut for selecting the input source, yet it is configurable. Windows suggests Alt+Shift or Ctrl+Shift, and you cannot change it to anything more sophisticated.

Both these options are far from convenient since they require the user to press two keys simultaneously, which is not good when you type fast and focus on the content rather than typing itself. Two-key shortcut in the corner of the keyboard forces you to move your whole palm from its position over the keyboard, and then to reposition it back — this causes a break in text flow for a fraction of second.

There is much better option for Mac OS X: select input sources with CapsLock key, which is almost never used for its direct purpose of locking the capital case mode (two Shifts are more than enough). Besides it is only one single key to press, you can also press it with your left little finger, keeping your other fingers on their positions, thus not causing the break.

I know there are lots of manuals how to do that. Here is yet another one just for further references in this blog, and as a beginning episode of a keyboard tricks series.

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Sticky Authorship

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sticky authorship

There is a little emotional and psychological problem I call “sticky authorship” syndrome. When you create something — a web site, a picture, an application — you inevitably become its author for life. No matter how long time ago it was, and how perfect you are nowadays, you are still the author and your work still characterizes your professional level.

Since our past produce (as seen from the future) are always far from perfect, we are usually ashamed by its mere existence. And we desire to re-make it, despite of the absence of time to do that or the boredom we will suffer while doing that. Inability or reluctance to remake it causes stress and depression.

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Lower EQ is better for you

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Brain and masksEmotional intelligence (EQ) is considered to be much more important than usual intelligence metrics, such as IQ. We use IQ only to solve logical problems. And we use EQ to solve every other problem we meet in our life: at work, at home, in family, with friends, on the streets, so on. This is EQ that defines our everyday behavior, not IQ.

Once in a while, 13 months and 13 days ago I did an EQ test. 13 months and 13 days ago my score was 61 out of 100. After 13 months and 13 days of training my EQ by observing and noticing others’ emotions, taking others’ emotions into consideration, introspecting my own thoughts and emotions, so on, I’ve ended up with 77 out of 100.

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Family and Corporation

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I noticed that bigger companies have more married employees.

Some time ago, I had an interview with Yandex: all six interviewers (two times by three) were ring-bearing diligent family men. So evidently diligent and so evidently “family men” even in their image, their outfit, that this has caught my eye. Even if some of them were not “family men”, they successfully simulated as the ones.

This dependency is very obvious: to support a family one need money, and not just money, but stable money flow, even when crisis or wars happen; and personal ambitions of growing and improving go to the background. And only the big corporations have such stability. Also, all personal energy goes to supporting the family and to raising the children, so there is nothing left for self-improvement.

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Latent Evil of Coherent Teams

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On one hand, coherent teams with everyone being a friend to the others are cool, especially if you are part of such a team. These teams can move heaven and earth when their members’ skills and talents are properly fit. Self-organized, self-managed, self-controlled, so on. Perfect form of “human capital”.

On the other hand, such teams are atomic and indivisible. And that is terrible if you are a business owner; or a manager of some level outside of the team. Firing a team member — firing the team leaders — firing the whole team — failing the business. Bus factor = 1.

It turns out, that the perfect form of human capital is the worst evil.

Based on the story of www.lenta.ru in March 2014.

We are (not) in hell

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Catholic Church in the Western world has three after-life places: Paradise, Hell, and Limbo.

Orthodox Church in Russia has only two: Paradise and Hell.

You know why? Because Russia is Limbo.

Just look at these pictures, which show us what happens with a human soul after he or she dies, according to Catholic and Orthodox beliefs:

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Automatically activate virtualenv on cd (even in mc)

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If you work with Python, you probably work with virtualenv. If you work with virtualenv, you probably work with virtualenvwrapper. Nevertheless, if you work a lot with many virtualenvs at the same time, you may become tired of al these “. bin/activate” or “workon smthng”.

You just want to cd into your project directory, and have everyhting ready to work. Especially if you use two-pane file managers, such as Midnight Commander, for file operations and tree browsing, and prefer not to type shell commands when it is not neccessary.

Here is how I do that:

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