Today was a great day for QUESTS! I throw away the rubbish, I bought coffee, I even helped my wife cleaning up our house in the countryside...

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When GitHub rolled out its simple but powerful Issue Tracker, I finally realized that GitHub was the only thing I needed to manage my open source projects: I didn't need to use LightHouse or RubyForge anymore, because GitHub's issues were more than enough for me.

If you have a project hosted on GitHub yourself, you already know what you can do with GitHub issues; you can:

• Open them
• Sort them
• Tag them
• Prioritize them
• Vote them
• Search them
• Close them
• ...

But the important thing is that GitHub issues are very snappy, simple and FAST.

Like with to do list, I don't think you need 12,789 fields for your bugs and features, possibility to add attachments, folders or subfolders: you need something that doesn't get in your way. At least that's the way I see it, and GitHub issues are perfect for the job, and for managing your entire project backlog.

Of course, like all things, you must use them properly, following some kind of logic. Here's my take on that.

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The language itself has a very simple grammar, nevertheless I was quite pleased of the result (see the gallery of images below).

The syntax file is now versioned in my stash, but you can also get it from vim.org.

Yesterday my wife and I went to Belgioioso Castle with our Tai Chi teacher, for the annual Tai Chi Festival. We didn't bring our gear and we didn't practice (although we could have), but we enjoyed watching skilled masters performing some interesting patterns.

Although I normally don't post about Tai Chi or my non-programming hobbies, I thought I'd share some of the amazing stuff we saw.

 

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ridding@elitenethosting.com to me

Hello,

How much do you ask for this domain for sale?

Our company buy and sell domains and developed sites.

If you have other domains for sale feel free to send your list.

Looking forward to do business with you.

Regards,

Brad Ridding

CEO

Elite Network Solutions LLC

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information that is for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any

viewing, copying or distribution of, or reliance on this message by

unintended recipients is strictly prohibited. If you have received this

message in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message

and deleting it from your computer.

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For a while I've been keeping an eye on the whole NoSQL movement. Not because I need a highly-scalable storage solution, but rather because I'm interested in storing arbitrary documents in a database and being able to retrieve them easily enough.

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Last month I finally had a chance to spend some time (and money) in Florida, so besides going to the beach and meeting alligators I decided to get myself a nice gadget for Christmas. Technically speaking it's a present for my wife, but I picked it. 

Originally I was going to get myself a netbook, not because I particularly needed one, just because -- I thought -- for $300 I may as well get a computer.
I was actually tempted to buy a Kindle or a Nook, but then I decided against it: why spending the same amount of money on so ethibg you can only use to read books? Nonsense: a netbook is ten times better.

So I went to Best Buy and decided to ask one of the guys for tips. surprisingly, the shop assistant was very honest and told me "well, if it was up to me I'd get the cheapest possible: you are probay gonna change it in a year or so, right"?
Errr... No, actually. So I started looking at tablets and other similar gadgets: I mostly wanted something with WiFi connectivity, as that was the only thing I really missed in my Palm Treo 750 (yes, Windows Mobile, I know, I know... But I was young then!). 

At this point, my wife comes along and goes: "Can't you just get an iPod touch then? It has what you need and it's sexy as well" (note: yes, since she got her mac she's kind of partial to Apple).

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Fossil is a software configuration management system. Fossil is software that is designed to control and track the development of a software project and to record the history of the project. There are many such systems in use today. Fossil strives to distinguish itself from the others by being extremely simple to setup and operate.

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There are 8 features to consider when choosing a programming language:

 

20 points -- is is solid? would you write a control program for an aircraft or a pacemaker? 

15 points -- can you write a database system (like mysql) in that language, including the deamons?

15 points -- libraries: regex, reading XML, manipulating complex numbers, graphics;

10 points -- active community + books + web pages

10 points -- can write fast IO and easily read complex input and binary input? fancy formatting?

10 points -- can you write web pages;

10 points -- support for OOP?

10 points -- available at least on 2 platforms, Windows and/or Linux and/or Mac.

Rate the language on a scale of 0 to 100. At 75+ you should use it.

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Today I received a gift from my company: an influenza prevention kit. I just couldn't believe it until I saw some of my colleagues getting it at the reception desk, so I asked for one myself.

The kit contains:

• #1 gel detergent for your hands
• #2 medical face masks
• #2 pairs of medical gloves
• #1 packet of paper handkerchiefs 
• #5 anti-bacterial wipes

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