Luke Oliff · Blog
Writing.
Original posts, published first on this site. Imported posts live in the archive.
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264 posts
2024
TIL: Benchmarking Commands With hyperfineOriginalhyperfine benchmarks a command over many runs and reports min, max, mean and standard deviation, so you can compare tools with real confidence.TIL
An open letter on politicsOriginalAn open letter on politics: why neutrality is a choice too, what media manipulation costs democracy, and why I judge people by the harm they will accept.Opinion
TIL: Visualising Directory Structures With treeOriginaltree prints a directory as a nested tree diagram. Perfect for documenting project layouts in READMEs or during onboarding walkthroughs.TIL
TIL: Interactive Staging With git add -pOriginalgit add -p shows each change hunk by hunk and asks whether to stage it. Commit only the relevant parts of a messy working tree.TIL
TIL: Auto-Running Commands on File Change With entrOriginalentr runs a command every time a watched file changes. Pipe a list of files in, get automatic re-runs out. Lighter than nodemon.TIL
TIL: Running Containers Without Docker With PodmanOriginalPodman runs OCI containers with the same CLI as Docker but daemonless and rootless by default. No Docker Desktop needed.TIL
TIL: Quick Network Debugging With nc (netcat)Originalnc, better known as netcat, opens raw TCP connections from the terminal: check whether a port is open or send a handcrafted HTTP request.TIL
TIL: Converting Markdown to PDF With pandocOriginalpandoc turns any Markdown file into a styled PDF with one command. Great for generating docs that non-technical stakeholders can open.TIL
TIL: Using grep -P for Perl-Compatible Regex in the TerminalOriginalgrep -P gives you full Perl regex syntax — lookaheads, non-capturing groups, and character class shortcuts the basic syntax lacks.TIL
TIL: Scripting WebSocket Tests With websocatOriginalwebsocat connects to WebSocket servers from the terminal and pipes data in both directions. Better than wscat for automated testing.TIL