Aha! Moments When Learning Git

Git is a fast, flexible but challenging distributed version control system. Before jumping in:

Along with a book, tutorial and <a class=”… Read article

A Simple Introduction To Computer Networking

Most networking discussions are a jumble of acronyms. Forget the configuration details -- what are the insights?

Networking is about communication
Text is the simplest way to communicate
Protocols are standards for reading and writing text

Beneath the… Read article

Intro to Distributed Version Control (Illustrated)

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Traditional version control helps you backup, track and synchronize files. Distributed version control makes it easy to share changes. Done right, you can get the best of both worlds: simple merging and centralized releases.

Distributed? What’s wrong with regular… Read article

A Visual Guide to Version Control

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Version Control (aka Revision Control aka Source Control) lets you track your files over time. Why do you care? So when you mess up you can easily get back to a previous working version.

You’ve probably cooked up your… Read article

Starting Ruby on Rails: What I Wish I Knew

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Ruby on Rails is an elegant, compact and fun way to build web applications. Unfortunately, many gotchas await the new programmer. Now that I have a few rails projects under my belt, here’s my shot at sparing you… Read article

The Quick Guide to GUIDs

Our world is numbered. Books have ISBNs and products have barcodes. Cars have VINs, even people have social security numbers.

Numbers help us reference items unambiguously. “John Smith” may be many people, but Social Security Number 123-45-6789 refers to… Read article

Speed Up Your Javascript, Part 2: Downloadable Examples!

I’m happy people are finding the article on javascript optimization useful. But I made a giant, horrible mistake. A mistake that befalls many tutorials.

I didn’t include actual, working examples for you to play with. You can talk all… Read article

A Simple, Comprehensive Overview of Javascript

This isn’t a reference guide, programming tutorial or detailed overview. It’s a Javascript refresher, assuming you know another programming language and puts all the information in one place (just ctrl+f to find!). Javascript has nothing to do… Read article