Author: Jack Wellborn

Coder who dabbles in writing and is currently Austin-based after stints in New York City and Connecticut. You can find my writings at both this microblog as well as on my long form blog found at the totally trustworthy wormsandviruses.com.

I don’t think being introverted has really held me back, but one thing I do struggle with is not always knowing why I am hesitant to participate in work-related social things. For example, is x useful and am I avoiding it because I am an introvert or is x actually dumb? Fry Squinting

While I definitely enjoyed the first episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi, I have two notes: the series’s title should be “Old Ben” and it should basically be Rockford Files on Tatooine.

Imagine there is a machine that has been randomly shocking everyone daily for years, and whenever someone asks how to turn it off or reduce its frequency, a vocal minority tells them that shocking people is their right and that anyone with a problem should wear a rubber suit.

In related news, my Subaru Crosstrek was delivered yesterday. Here’s hoping that this Subaru does as well as my last two did.

I wouldn’t recommend buying a car in 2022, but if you have a currently working car that isn’t long for this world, I suggest factory ordering. Paying MSRP sucks, but it’s better than paying above MSRP or over-paying for a used vehicle.

Like @jean, I love three finger dragging, but I wish it worked from anywhere in a window and not just the title bar. It would fit right in with existing macOS gestures.

1 finger moves the cursor

2 fingers moves the content

3 fingers moves the window

4 fingers moves the screen

The Downside of Squash and Merge

Squash and merge is a common practice with Git. It’s biggest and most obvious benefit is arguably a cleaner commit history that is something like…

a Created project
b Added a feature
c Add another feature
d etc...

…whereas simply merging commits invariably can lead to something like…

a Created project
b Added directory structure
c Added a feature
d Fixed whitespacing
e Added test
f Fixed test
g etc…

But there is a downside. Commits are the building blocks that Git uses to identify atomic changes. Squashing them lowers the resolution of what Git is able to see, and by extension, prevents atomic commits from being portable across branches.

While I was aware of this trade off on some level, I recently came across a great example that illustrates the downside.

Scenario

Master has branch A, which has a sub-branch B. While I don’t make a habit of sub-branching, it has been useful on occasion when I need to isolate unrelated changes that depend on the changes of some unmerged branch.

(Master) a-b-c
              \
         a-b-c-d-e-f (Branch A)
                    \
         a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h (Branch B)

Merge

Commits from Branch A are merged into Master.

(Master) a-b-c-d-e-f
                    \    
         a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h (Branch B)

When commits from Branch B are merged into Master, there is no inherent conflict because Git knows that the commits “d”,“e”, and “f” in Branch B are the same commits that have already been merged.

(Master) a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h

Squash and Merge

Commits from Branch A are squashed and then merged into Master.

The changes from “d”,“e”, and “f” are now in the newly squashed commit “def”. Git no longer knows that these are the same changes so now there is a conflict with Branch B.

(Master) a-b-c-def!
              \    
         a-b-c-d!-e!-f!-g!-h! (Branch B)

So now before we can merge Branch B, we have to create a new commit that resolves this conflict.

(Master) a-b-c-dfh
              \    
         a-b-c-d-e-g-h-i (Branch B)

Only then can we squash and merge branch B.

(Master) a-b-c-dfh-eghi

This isn’t to advocate never using squash and merge, but to illustrate how squash and merge is really a blunt instrument. Blunt instruments are still very useful, but they should be used carefully and with consideration. If the goal is a cleaner commit history, most projects are better served by manually rebasing commits before merging branches.

A bug that was causing panics snuck through one of my PRs despite being tested vigorously. While I certainly lost some confidence as result, being able to quickly identify and fix the issue while also adding an automated test before successfully re-releasing brought it back.

Home Ownership Sliding Doors

Two years ago our neighbors sold their home to their real estate agent, who immediately leased the house for a couple of years, and is just now attempting to resell it. I don’t know how much the real estate agent ultimately paid, but Zillow shows the house had a list price of $277,990. The current asking price is $559,900. You might think that the doubled price wouldn’t attract any buyers, but I’ve already seen a home inspector and other signs that the house might already be under contract.

My wife and I bought our house in 2016. Like the house next door, its value has doubled. I don’t look at that and think “wow, what a windfall,” because those gains aren’t real unless we decide to sell this house, and then either profit by finding something cheaper or improve our quality of life by buying something better. Neither of those are really an option in this market without serious compromises1.

If anything, this housing market reminds me of the movie Sliding Doors, in that I don’t think we’d own a house in a market like this. My wife and I have met multiple families who seemingly should be able to afford a house in this neighborhood, but instead are forced to rent. When the house next door was being leased, the rent was $1850. $1850 is roughly our mortgage payment. I am deeply sympathetic to these other families trying to settle down because their situation very easily could’ve been ours. A handful of years is the difference between my wife and me owning this house outright within the decade and paying high rents indefinitely.

Owning a house in this market doesn’t make me proud or happy. It makes me mad. I am mad for those families. I am mad because this will either persist and be long term horrible, or investors will get bored/scared and it will be short-to-midterm horrible.2

  1. There are a few retirees in our neighborhood who have been able to cash out and move elsewhere, to which I say “good for them”, but they’re an edge case. ↩︎

  2. Finally, I’ll add that this really cements my feeling that while hard work is certainly a component of financial success, hard work is easily dwarfed by some good luck. ↩︎