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One of the most useful things as a GitHub user is their command line interface tool. I discover more uses for it every day. Ever want to share a git stash or put it somewhere that it won’t disappear on you? The GitHub CLI has you covered:

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to figure out a strategy to improve my running. In 2022 you would expect two years of being locked down to have lead to great innovation in running focused fitness apps. So I dove in to see what I could find. Unfortunately it was not great.

Yesterday I got the produced videos from Code for Boston’s 2022 Demo Night. Instead of doing the video work ourselves we tried contracting out a vendor this year. This means they were filmed with better cameras, and they plugged directly into the AV system in our venue for high quality audio. With about half of our participants being remote, we thought it was worth providing a higher quality experience for our virtual event attendees. They are now available in a handy YouTube playlist.

Going into the world of Civic Tech I felt optimistic. Like many folks that enter the field, you get excited by the possibility of technology and share a kinship with others that want to work in the public interest. After joining government I discovered how challenging the work is. Unnamed norms and invisible blockers impeded my ability to move projects forward. Stakeholders with different agendas sabotaged or hijacked projects with methods that seemed…dark. In this post I will name some of these dark arts that I experienced so you can identify them, and even propose a few of my own.

A few days ago I tweeted about false impressions of no code tools. In the thread I explain that while no code tools are easy to use for non-coders, they are much more complex for software engineers. This is a function of two things: coded alternatives to no or low code tools are easier to use for existing software developers, and if you need to customize a no or low code tool with code, it is much more challenging than customizing a code based system. As a result I propose Matt’s law for deciding whether to use no or low code tools: can you use it without coders? If the answer is yes and you’re willing to accept the limitations of the tool, it’s worth it. If the answer is no, you’ve outgrown the platform.