Programming Fonts

19 Apr 2013

It is a matter of preference, no doubt, but most developers I know prefer monospaced fonts. So what are the best ones to be used?

Over the years, I’ve tried numerous fonts and the few that work good are Monaco, Menlo, and finally Ubuntu Mono. Menlo is a great font that comes with OS X and is used in X-Code. It is also the best font so far that I found

I have recently tried to work with Sublime Text 2. I have used TextWrangler before but Sublime seems so much more powerful out of the box. I read somewhere that it is possible to setup TextWrangler with various plugins and extensions to make it quite powerful too, but Sublime Text comes already quite powerful out of the box and just feels more natural. TextWrangler never really felt natural to me but it was the best option I had so far as it had more options than Smultron.

So I tried Ubuntu Mono with Sublime Text but it looks almost the same as Menlo and since I am using Menlo with Eclipse already (Ubuntu Mono regular was horrible in Eclipse) I decided to keep using Menlo despite many praises towards Ubuntu Mono. But Ubuntu might be a good alternative for other OSes that do not have the Menlo bundled with it.

Happy coding!

Using Jackson JSON Parser in Android Project

01 Mar 2013

After some research around JSON libraries I reached conclusion that Jackson would be the first choice, both because it is much more used then Gson and it seems to have performance edge over Gson as well. Unfortunately though, adding just the core and the databind jars, without using ProGuard inflates the size of the final APK by a whooping 600Kb.

Android ICS Style Buttons for a Dialog

27 Jan 2013

<!-- OK/Cancel buttons.  -->

<linearlayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:divider="?android:attr/dividerHorizontal"
android:showdividers="beginning"
android:paddingtop="16dip">

<linearlayout
    style="?android:attr/buttonBarStyle"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:measurewithlargestchild="true">

    <linearlayout
        android:id="@+id/leftSpacer"
        android:layout_weight="0.25"
        android:layout_width="0dip"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="horizontal"
        android:visibility="gone"/>

    <button
        android:id="@+id/cancel_button"
        android:layout_width="0dip"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="left"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:text="@string/cancel"
        android:maxlines="2"
        style="?android:attr/buttonBarButtonStyle">

    </button>

    <button
        android:id="@+id/ok_button"
        android:layout_width="0dip"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="right"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:text="@string/install"
        android:maxlines="2"
        android:filtertoucheswhenobscured="true"
        style="?android:attr/buttonBarButtonStyle">

        <linearlayout
            android:id="@+id/rightSpacer"
            android:layout_width="0dip"
            android:layout_weight="0.25"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:orientation="horizontal"
            android:visibility="gone"/>

    </button>
</linearlayout>
</linearlayout>

Git Wizardry - Easy Way to Get the Change Set From Git

12 Dec 2012

There is a pretty way way to get the Git commits between versions which can be used to build the change set log.

Below are the basic commands that should give you just that. But these commands are even more useful than this. This is almost too easy, this is why I call it wizardry :)

The only requirement is that you somehow know what is the commit of the latest release you did (if that's where you want to start your change set)

To find a specific commit (if you had a meaningful commit message)

 
git log --pretty=format:"%h - %an, %ar : %s" | grep "RELEASE: X.X.X"

or you can just use tag (if you have tagged the commit that preceded the release) and see where it points to or any other way you use to find the latest release commit where you want to start.

Once you found it, it's as easy as for example:

 
git log --pretty=format:"%h - %an, %ar : %s" b9c28fc..

***The revision is in .. revision and the last parameter defaults to HEAD if omitted (http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-log.html)</p>

Enjoy :)</until></since>

Git Tags Cheat Sheet

03 Dec 2012

A short list of most useful Git commands to work with git tags. These should cover 90% of your needs.

###    TAGS
#create tag (annotated = with extra meta information)
git tag -a ver1.4 -m 'my version 1.4'

#list tags
git tag

#delete tag
git tag -d XXX

#delete remote tag
#You just need to push an 'empty' reference to the remote tag name:
git push origin :tagname

#push tags to remote
#specific tag:
git push origin v1.5

#all tags:
git push origin --tags

Skype - Clever Upgrade Marketing :)

15 Nov 2012

Quite clever and funny upgrade marketing message from Skype

ProGuard - Keep Entire Package (Different Variations)

01 Nov 2012

Keeps the names of all public classes in the specified package:

-keep public class com.myapp.customcomponents.*

The following configuration keeps the names of all public classes in the specified package and its subpackages:

 
-keep public class com.myapp.customcomponents.**

The following configuration keeps the names of all public/protected classes/fields/methods in the specified package and its subpackages:

 
-keep public class com.myapp.customcomponents.** {
  public protected *;
}

Why I Hate Facebook Engineers

30 Oct 2012

I hate facebook Engineers. Yes, you heard me right. I hate them. Well, maybe not them but their hairy pointy managers and bosses who... wait a second, isn't facebook "famous" for being all staffed with engineers? So yes, I hate facebook Engineers

Now you will say but why, they are mostly smart guys and facebook is so spectafackamazing. WHY?!?... Well, for one their mobile SDK suck. Full of bugs, crashes and other pleasantries. I did at least 5 updates solely because there was some problem with Facebook and the most interesting part of that is that the updates were required after some change that was made that broke things. The integration is working 100% for 4 month and then one day goes KABOOM.

They are all warm and fuzzy now, trying to get to mobile developers, well you got under my skin for sure guys. But even now, when all news are raving how they redesigned and updated and what not their portals for mobile developers who use their SDK to integrate with them they still have problems. Just couple days ago when they started pushing into every possible media hole the news that they got the new SDK and blahblahblah

reserved but intrigued (can it be that FINALLY they got the SDK to a decent shape?!?) off I went to check it. For a long time I have been using the latest clone of their github repository and I decided to see whether it is different from the repository - indeed it was. Ok, I thought I should use the SDK and off I went to integrate it within my app just to see that it crashes 100% of the time with SSL error. Damn I though and went back to github's repo which not surprisingly did not have this problem.

That's not funny.... It never was. Seriously - pull your shit together! I don't need and don't want to spend 2–5 hours every few months to work around yet another problem you have introduced.

Cleaning Up and Removing Unused Ports in Your MacPorts

23 Oct 2012

To remove inactive ports:

sudo port uninstall inactive

To remove downloaded distfiles with:

sudo port clean --all installed

To remove orphaned (not referenced and not anymore used ports) you can use an external tool port_cutleaves

First install the tool using MacPorts

sudo port install port_cutleaves

Then run it

sudo port_cutleaves

A Quote -- Dave Barry

19 Sep 2012

“Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot masturbate”

- Dave Barry

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