Here is my recent experience using ChatGPT (4). There are two document management systems, and I needed to establish bidirectional synchronization for certain documents, while allowing users to make changes in both systems.

🫴I described the initial situation in one paragraph and requested three denoscriptions for the following scenarios:
- With optimistic locking
- With pessimistic locking
- With three-way merge in case of concurrent changes

+ I asked for sequence diagrams in the Mermaid syntax.

💬ChatGPT described everything just like in a textbook: sequentially, clearly, accurately, and specifically using my example (system names, document names – it was important for the denoscription to be concrete, not abstract). It would have taken me at least an hour to prepare such a document manually.

🍰As a bonus, I asked for a two-phase commit diagram (which we actually didn't need for this task), and ChatGPT provided a denoscription of it!

Came across an article-story from 2016: The Inner JSON Effect.

Perhaps it's an old hat for many, but I read it for the first time. After googling, I found discussions on Reddit and HackerNews.

This article could have been a great April Fools' joke, but the date doesn't match. It might just be an artistic tale in the style of surrealism.

If you thought you had seen it all in your career, including various strange DIY Frankensteins, then read the article, it's just hilarious 🤣 🤡: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-inner-json-effect

I tried visualizing a flowchart based on code using ChatGPT. My request was to draw a flowchart in Mermaid syntax for the PHP code described below…

...and then there's the PHP source code, consisting of 40 lines.

The algorithm was not complex - it's a function that returns a boolean value, with several guard expressions and early exits inside. There are also some logging statements in certain places.

✅ The flowchart generated by ChatGPT using Mermaid turned out to be completely accurate, with even the locations where logging occurs being marked.

P.S. If you haven't worked with Mermaid for drawing diagrams before, give it a try: https://mermaid.js.org

Hilarious Reaction to Discovering PHP Traits

Whole video: https://youtu.be/WsnHWxO7Krw?si=MEdBvdXnhLOk5sbf

Vim - it's like the James Dean of text editors. It's got that cool, geeky vibe that says, "I'm not just any coder, I'm a Vim coder!"

I've never used it, but I thought I'd give it a whirl. I've heard whispers about this NeoVim thing - maybe I should just dive straight into that? Then, just the other day, I stumbled upon a review of this editor called Helix. It's another one of those "console" types, but it's taken the best bits of Vim and its disciples and rolled them into one. It's fresh off the press, 2021, and the creator calls it a post-modern text editor. It's written in Rust - what more could you want? I'm sold!

I installed it with brew install helix, fired it up with the hx command and, you know what? I couldn't get out of it! So far, so good 😂

I suspect the exit command is the same as Vim, but I've forgotten how, since I've never really used Vim. Talk about a real-life joke!

https://helix-editor.com

They say that most of our time isn't spent writing code, but rather reading it, exploring it, and pondering over problems.

The question in this image asks, "The most time-consuming activities?" and the most popular answer is Writing Code.

But honestly, the phrasing of the answer is a bit confusing. I suspect that many of those who responded to this question might have included the entire process under "Writing Code" - that is, exploring other people's code, thinking it over, refactoring, and debugging.

This was a multiple-choice question. I suspect that many respondents first ticked "Writing Code," mentally including all possible coding activities, and then ticked more specific options like "Understanding Code" and "Debugging."

I'd be interested to see statistics on two metrics: "Typing code in the code editor (actively typing)" vs "Reviewing code, navigating through classes/methods".

Surely, this can be collected in PhpStorm automatically out of the box or with some plugin. This data would answer the question - is fast typing speed necessary or important for effective programming? My subjective opinion is - fast typing speed is necessary and important! But I'd love to see this in numbers.

Do you know how to collect such statistics from PhpStorm?

Image source: https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2023/

Join to my new Telegram channel "5 minutes of AI" - I write about my personal experience using various AI tools in programming. This isn't just another channel with copy-pasted "hot" news, only real experience and practical notes: https://news.1rj.ru/str/en_5minAI

Cozy stream about PHP 8.3 release and PHP community https://www.youtube.com/live/VWryF035B6U?si=HHB2L2GYXFiVIFvm

Interesting approach in Fibery development team. Quote from their email newsletter:


Last year Fibery had Slow December. It is time of free exploration, self-assigned initiatives and “tasks I always wanted to do, but did not had time”. This year we are repeating it.
Rules
• No mandatory meetings (no company meetings as well). You will have uninterrupted time.
• No assigned tasks & deadlines. Nobody can say you what to do, it is your own choice.
• You are free to do whatever you want: explore some ideas, improve something in Fibery, or fix something in Fibery that you wanted to fix for 34 months but couldn’t find the time, try something new, like write a post.
• It is desirable to produce artefacts of your activity: something done, something written in text, something visual, you name it.

Nice introduction to FrankenPHP: https://youtu.be/q6FQaaFZVy4?si=vHii6aUp9RH44pU2

My world of Mechanical Keyboards in 2023

I dove into mechanical keyboards back in 2021 and even tried out a few interesting ones that year, recording a video review you can check out here (in Russian): https://youtu.be/oY6quH1jRxA?si=_I98Kiy2_0EzlGPP

Now I want to give you a quick rundown of 2023! Let's go in chronological order 👇

Mistel BAROCCO MD770 RGB – a split keyboard with a familiar layout. I only used it for a few days and it just didn't click with me, hard to explain why.

https://mistelkeyboard.com/products/5e53c3254c6f41f25c914273fb3a4d8b

Ergohaven K:02 – another split keyboard, but with only 58 keys (quite a change from the popular TKL size with 87 keys). The real challenge was the column staggered layout. It was a struggle, my muscle memory kept tripping me up, every keystroke was a challenge! I had to use it alongside a "normal" keyboard because, well, work has to get done.

https://ergohaven.xyz/k02

Idobao x YMDK ID75 Acrylic Case Kit – this is actually a DIY kit, but I got a pre-assembled used one. It's ortholinear, which was a new thing for me. At that time, I was painfully learning to type on the Ergohaven K:02, so I thought it'd be a great idea to practice on a solid ortholinear board first! It worked out well. I got the hang of the YMDK ID75's ortholinear layout pretty quickly (maybe the effort I put into the K:02 helped) and enjoyed using this keyboard for several months.

And the backlighting! Everyone who saw it in action was amazed.

https://ymdkey.com/products/idobao-x-ymdk-id75-acrylic-case-kit-via-hotswap-supported-rgb-wired

https://youtu.be/WiFIycUnXFs?si=GeaJkb-6ogz_xN_N

ZSA Moonlander Mark 1 – a well-known split keyboard brand with lots of reviews and articles. To date, it's the most expensive keyboard I've ever bought. My first impression was a letdown – I didn't get the hype. After a couple of weeks, I put it back in its box. I returned to the Moonlander a few months later, swapped out the switches – and it was like a whole new experience! I had been using MX Brown switches, which I respected, but I switched to MX Silver, which I had found too soft before. This time, they were perfect for the Moonlander, which was surprising since you wouldn't think the switches would make such a difference.

Just a note, choosing switches is very personal, so what works for me might not work for you.

Coming back to the ZSA Moonlander Mark 1 – it's the most comfortable split keyboard I've tried so far. Also I do have a dedicated key for $ (dollar sign) key on this keyboard for PHP programming 😇

https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/

Ergohaven Planeta – while the Moonlander was boxed up, I tried a "monosplit." The key layout is similar to many split keyboards – column staggered, and I was already trained on the K:02 and YMDK, so I could touch type on this layout with ease.

A big plus over the K:02 – Planeta has two extra keys! These additional keys were really useful, making the whole layout more comfortable. The cherry on top was the Dots keycaps – colorful dots that looked super cool.

https://ergohaven.xyz/planeta
https://candykeys.com/group-buys/gmk-dots

Ergohaven HPD (High Plains Drifter) – a split and curved keyboard. The curved shape is supposed to add extra ergonomics, making it easier to hit the top row keys. There are lots of videos on YouTube about this – just search for "dactyl manuform" reviews.

The thumb keys placement on the Ergohaven HPD is also well thought out – really comfortable!

Compared to my favorite, the Moonlander, the latter wins for me because of the greater number of keys, which I find important and useful for daily work.

https://ergohaven.xyz/hpd

That wraps up all my new keyboards for 2023. Here's my subjective ranking:
1. ZSA Moonlander Mark 1
2. Ergohaven HPD
3. Ergohaven Planeta
4. Ergohaven K:02
6. Idobao x YMDK ID75 Acrylic Case Kit
7. Mistel BAROCCO MD770 RGB

Plans for 2024

But the story doesn't end here! In 2024, I want to try out a few models that I've only seen in YouTube reviews so far:

ZSA Voyager – it's low-profile which I like! But I'm a bit concerned about the small number of keys. Regardless, it's worth a try. https://www.zsa.io/voyager/

Dygma Defy – it has a lot of thumb keys. I'm not sure whether this is convenient or just overkill? https://dygma.com/pages/defy

MoErgo Glove80 – it's low-profile and curved and it has 6 thumb keys on each side - all the advantages in one keyboard? Want to try! https://www.moergo.com/

Offtopic again.

While I was chilling over the New Year holidays, I watched an interesting video: a breakdown of all the possible combinations in a game of tic-tac-toe.

How many combinations are there? A naive approach to count would be: 9 * 8 * 7 * ... * 2 * 1 = 362,880.

The video's author narrows it down to 14 unique combinations. Even more, if each player makes "optimal" moves, there are only 3 combinations! Sic!

This video intrigued me so much that I went through all the combinations, sketching out a tree of possible games on a piece of grid paper!

Enjoy watching: https://youtu.be/QNFQvX-MQgI?si=tkfRsRdByZydxb-z