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jamisonbryant

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Full-stack engineer specializing in PHP and DevOps

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This right on the heels of the GitLab 17.11 release announcement [0] which mentioned that they added OpenVSX support to their Web IDE. One of the biggest blockers for my team to use the Web IDE/GitLab's equivalent of "Codespaces" was the lack of extensions support.

As developers, we're spoiled for widespread (e.g.) vim keybindings support in just about any IDE via extensions. When unable to use it in something like Web IDE, it is very frustrating and makes it less useful as a product.

[0] https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2025/04/17/gitlab-17-11-re...

I tried to recreate the Xbox "Achievement Unlocked" snackbar notification, including the animated text (text slides in and notification expands to contain, then the reverse happens). The model produced a decent-looking notification layout but was unable to grasp the concept of the notif. container expanding/contracting as the text slid in/out. I am not a frontend developer, so perhaps what I was asking it for is not possible, but it seemed to me like it shouldn't have been that difficult to do.

One other unusual (but slightly entertaining) thing the model did was it used a different image for the notification "icon" every go-round. I have absolutely zero idea where it was getting the little icons (hallucinating?? maybe making a HTTP request??) but it was really interesting to see.

A neat tool, I will send it to my frontend guy at work and see what he thinks.

"Screenshots won't get you in"

I'd say this highly depends on the fastidiousness of the ticket taker and the rules of the venue. I purchased Major League Baseball tix recently through my employer which uses a 3rd-party seller site that has restrictions like this (a moving graphic behind the barcode with the admonishment not to take a screenshot because it won't work).

I was unable to attend the event that night so I sent my wife a screenshot of the ticket. Two tickets, in fact. They were taken with zero issue.

Another big benefit of Atmosphere is that its audio can play while other apps are also playing audio, such as a music or video player. This opens up even more avenues for custom mixes for when your brain needs exactly the right ambient sound combo to fall asleep.

I did. The only time I end up there anymore is when the occasional post gets posted here or one turns up in my search results. Usually loaded up in my mobile browser, with super tiny text and ads blocked.

The funny thing is, before the brouhaha I wasn't even using a third party app to access the site or any 3rd-party platform (that I'm aware of) that used the API. I was using the native vanilla app and I found it just fine.

But, as a developer I could not in good conscience continue voting with my wallet by viewing ads for a company that clearly didn't care to play nice with the developers that were part of making the platform great.

My company just invested in Stack Overflow for Teams and we've found it fairly useful for maintaining a bank of institutional knowledge in the form of Q&A. I have noticed a significant slow down in contributions since the initial corpus of knowledge was added / new tool excitement wore off. But it is still useful reference for occasional lookups and it also excels in documenting very slim edge cases and their solutions in a way that a reference manual wouldn't IMO.

Many on HN (and elsewhere) will lament the fact that there is no way to read about or test-drive your project without signing up (aside from going to GitHub). Many of us guard our emails/logins quite jealously, myself included. Please consider adding some of what you included in the description of this post on your site. Right now, it looks no different to me than a random login form I encountered on the Internet.

That being said, I caved and set up an account with a temp email and the password 'password' (might wanna check on those password security rules) just to play with it so I could give some constructive feedback. Unfortunately, generating a story isn't working (the spinner is spinning infinitely) and I see a few errors and warnings in the Developer Console. I'm not sure what the Short Stories page is supposed to show, either, but it also appears to be malfunctioning.

I don't mean to eviscerate your project - it is always exciting and scary to share something with the world. This needs a little more work before it's ready for show-and-tell, though, IMO. I'm not even sure what I would use this for. Best of luck.

Web IDE Beta 4 years ago

Thanks, I've enabled notifications on all the linked issues/epics. Eagerly anticipating the next release.

Web IDE Beta 4 years ago

With all due respect (big GitLab fan here) there are at least two features that are missing that for me makes this product unusable:

1. Inability to switch branches in the editor [0]

2. Full project search "to be enabled at a later date"

So I can't switch branches off of the default branch and I can't search the entire project. To me, this undermines your claim that the new web IDE "will provide users access to more features" and in fact I don't find it useful for hardly anything in its current state.

I get that it's a beta, but it seems a very incomplete one, at best.

[0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-web-ide/-/issues/72

One of the Android apps for HN, Harmonic, is broken as of the past 24-48h as well. Links are loading fine, but comments are not. I am not the developer so I'm unsure if this is related, but it sure seems like it might be.

Idiot Proof Git 4 years ago

Learn both. Use the easier one.

This is a great point that I will be sharing with my team. Sometimes (most of the time) I use the git cli, and sometimes I use the built-in Git pane in VS Code.

I have not used GitHub Desktop in quite a while. In your opinion does it make the commit graph easy-to-read? Because I have not found a tool _yet_ that makes that diagram easily parseable by the human eye. It just looks like a mountain of spaghetti commits linked together with a myriad of colored lines.

(I realize that part of the cause of my confusion is crappy discipline around commit history, but what can you do on a team of a certain size where you're not the lead? Just have to suck it up.)

This methodology was taught to me by my employer and requires a Slack channel. I like it.

Step 1: send yourself a message and mark it as Saved. It will now show up in your Saved items. The message should contain a section for what you did yesterday and what you're going to do today. Other than that it can be any content or formatting you like.

Step 2: set up a channel for posting your daily logs, e.g. #yesterdayandtoday

Step 3: update your daily log (saved message) as you go through your day. Add things you did TODAY in the Yesterday section, add things you know you have to do TOMORROW in the Tomorrow section.

Step 4: At the start of each day, copy-paste your saved message into the daily logs channel. Do this every day, this will form the longevity of your logs.

Finally, to review all your logs, just search for your name in the channel. Or tags, or whatever. I like to divide my log entries between tasks, accomplishments, blockers, and goals.

I've thought about tapping into the HN BigQuery dataset (or perhaps the HN API, whichever is more appropriate) to analyze the results of the Who's Hiring posts and their companion Who Wants to be Hired posts. I think aggregation of this data will paint an interesting picture for job-seekers and other technology professionals as to what's hot, what's not, what employers are looking for (and not), as well as other trends.

Does anyone know if such a resource already exists? Don't want to duplicate effort.

Check out CTO Craft. They are an exec coaching mentoring circle that comes with a slack group. There are tons of CTOs and director levels in the groups, plus mentors. Very active, a great community.

That, or read every day.

I am sadly not using a debugger because the last two or three times I've tried to set up XDebug for PHP, it just hasn't worked. I have 15 years experience with the language. Have tried multiple IDEs, multiple plugins, multiple browser extensions. Have tried multiple ways of running PHP (docker vs. native). I think the last time I might've had XDebug running properly such that I could do debugging in an IDE was probably 2018 or so. It wasn't too long ago that I found the `dd()` command, which is really quite handy and has gotten me by since then.

I'll give it another crack because I have just started a new job (new machine, new PHP, new everything) but I have my doubts it will work this time, either.

Setting up debugging for PHP has got to get a whole lot easier and user-friendly, IMO.

For temporary or read-later items, I have a Todoist project called "Links to Read" and I use the Todoist browser extension to send the page to that project.

For more permanent links, I maintain quite an extensive collection of bookmarks, all neatly organized by subject area and utility.

PHP: CakePHP

This was the very first framework I learned when I first learned PHP, and it has always just been so incredibly _easy_ to accomplish most common MVC tasks that I've stuck with it. I've become quite the expert in the framework over the years, even managing to make it bend quirky ways that it was not meant to in service of business goals. That has made me an extremely valuable resource for companies using the framework, and so I keep using it. Plus, I enjoy it immensely.

- Finding a framework or language that you truly love, and then getting to work in that platform as your day job, is pure excellence.

- Discovering new tools and adding them to your tool chain, but also understanding how to use them effortlessly because you have so much experience.

- Being able to build just about anything in a ridiculously quick amount of time (all things considered) because you've done so much already.

- Rather egotistically, being better than everybody else at something is pretty satisfying (at least to me).

These are the things that I find satisfying.

That page hurts my eyes. Not the font, the colors and motions. I do not understand why we design pages like this anymore. Does anyone like that style?

Sorry to be a Negative Nelly. I'm sure some devs worked hard on that sigh. I do like the typeface itself.

Location: Baltimore, MD

Remote: Strongly preferred

Willing to relocate: No (young family)

Technologies: PHP, JavaScript, C#, .NET, SQL, Angular, more

Resume: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ky5eUAyVIlPlN1Kw8QznRk5_...

Email: jamison [at] bryant [dot] ai

Senior full-stack engineer specializing in web technologies. Most of my experience is in the PHP stack, but have 3-4 years now of C#/.NET as well. Passionate about DevOps. Seeking a role in the emergency technology space (e.g. first responders)

Location: Baltimore, MD

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes (to Austin, TX only)

Technologies: PHP, JS, Python, SQL, HTML/CSS, C/C++/C#, Java

Resume: https://jamison.bryant.ai/pages/resume

Email: jamison at bryant dot ai

I am a full-stack developer with years of industry experience designing and maintaining enterprise systems for a variety of markets. I was laid off recently due to changes in org structure and am seeking work now. Currently reside on the east coast of USA but am RELOCATING to Austin, TX area by end of 2019 (sooner if I get a firm offer). Ex-startup owner, eager problem solver, quick learner. Let's talk!

I was home-schooled as a child, which made me intellectually advanced but socially inept. When I got to college, the myriad of social experiences to be had quickly led me astray. I think I actually went to class no more than a dozen times my first semester, and I think I sat an exam exactly once.

After that I dropped out and moved back home, choosing to attend community college for a while. Unfortunately I would repeat the experience one more time at a different university before finally getting my head screwed on straight and my priorities in order. It was at about this time that I was also diagnosed with clinical depression and began to get treatment for it, which helped immensely.

Home-schooling was an interesting experience that has given me many advantages, but it is not one I recommend to anyone because it also beleaguered my foray into the real world in a way that has had and will continue to have lasting negative consequences to this day.