Posts

Reducing software dependencies is one way to reduce an application’s attack surface. I’ve laid out how perlimports can be used to manage and reduce Perl dependencies in both modern and legacy applications. It’s not difficult, but it should be done with care.

Recently I got access to GitHub’s Copilot Chat. I have been trying to figure out how (and if) Copilot can help to improve my productivity. Initially I did not think yet another article on AI would have any point, but many smart, competent software developers do not use AI (yet?). Some of them may not be aware of how they can leverage AI and some may rightly just be wary of all the hype. My plan is to share some practical examples and you can judge for yourself if it is worth your time.

When you’re constantly producing code and documentation, mistakes will happen. Some will be easy to spot and others may elude you. We know that attention to detail counts. If someone finds a typo in your documentation or their code, they may be inclined to ask themselves what else may be wrong. In order to avoid the impression of carelessness, let’s automate the finding and fixing of typos.

Anyone who spends a lot of time working with Git will eventually need to do some form of context switching. Sometimes this adds very little overhead to your workflow, but other times, it can be a real pain. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of some common strategies for dealing with context switching.

I love writing bash scripts, but there are some aspects of it which I find to be a bit tedious. I’ve written “is” to try to make shell programming a little more enjoyable. Let’s look at how to get started with it.

I have a browser tab problem. This is how I solved it without using Chrome extensions.

The slides and video for my “Whither Perl” talk are now available.

A demonstration of how to use Docker to fix a test which fails under Perl 5.37