- hySite

In the last year AI effectively killed my blog. I used to post some small, interesting code findings, minimal snippets that could be written down in notes or journal – or here, in blog, where I could also find them. But in the age of agents all you need to do to solve a problem is to ask LLM for a syntax or even complete solution - particular implementation details are secondary.
Another goal for this blog was to improve my English, to practice writing more and finding right words to express what I want to say. Again, now I can write any gibberrish incoherent words wiz many gromatical mystakes and ask GPT to rewrite so it would look correct, official and (sometimes) fancy.
At my job I don't write code anymore and it feels that AI took as well any reason for my blog to exist.
Except, actually, the opposite is true.
Using Claude code to evolve software products means having the ability to stand questions, and do it correctly, clearly and fast. My speaking language might be understandable, but I still struggle to convert it into writing skills, when you can't finish the phrase with verbal fillers "kind of", "something like that" or "yeah, correct".
Ability to write in clear form, construct complex phrases and be understandable means now more than knowledge or particular framework or technology.
Therefore, I will keep trying to maintain this blog updated and practice my writing skills. God help whoever is reading this, purpose of this blog is not to be read, but to be written 😈

About laptop

In recent interview on macstories Craig Federighi said things that are quite far from regular marketing distilled message:

This was the conclusion of a long, semi-philosophical discussion about the iPad and its role in his life, but I was surprised to realize that I could say exactly the same about my MacBook Air. I’ve always tried to get the lightest laptop I could, so I could carry it with me wherever I go. It’s a portal to another world — my personal space where I can code, edit photos, write, create, learn, play, unwind, and store memories of my life. A screen and 78 keys offer endless possibilities. mba_m1

I bought an MSI Wind U100 in 2008, when netbooks were on the rise. The ability to fit it into almost any bag — even some winter coat pockets — meant a lot to me. It was like a home office in reverse: not bringing work into your cozy home, but bringing your homespace everywhere. The performance was terrible, the screen resolution was 600p, and the battery lasted a couple of hours at best. But I completed university projects on it, started learning C++, and eventually landed a developer job. I even played Diablo II and Counter-Strike 1.6 using that tiny touchpad, barely larger than a postcard.

Over the years, I’ve switched through several laptops, and they’ve always felt like an extension of myself. I’m not sure what that says about me or my desire to fit into the human world, but if I ever lost or broke my laptop, I’d feel the same as if my house had burned down. In the end, it’s just a material thing — something that can be bought and replaced — but it also forms an emotional connection.

Find or Where

I'm doing dotnet development for eight years, but just today I finally realised, what is the difference between .Find(..) and .Where(..):
When Where always makes request to database, Find looks first by id in already cached entities and only if not found, checks in database.
I must have read about it previously, but only today I have found that one particularly big chunk of a very important command works accidentally correctly because of that: we make a very big loop, in each iteration we create new entity with id from external source and saving to database happen only afterwards. Would we have used Where, entries would be duplicated (and exception thrown), but with Find it's possible to get cached version, that was not yet saved to database.
Here is small example that demonstrates what I mean:

public record Person(int Id, string Name);

using var db = new AppDbContext();
db.Database.EnsureCreated();

db.Peoples.Add(new Person(60, "John"));

db.Peoples.FirstOrDefault(p => p.Id == 60); // will return null
var jackByFind = db.Peoples.Find(60); // will return entity

It is also possible to make query to cache using DbSet<T>.Local.Where(..), but afaik there is no straightforward way to make complex query by non-key parameters to cached version and, if not found - to database.

Relay 10

In a couple of weeks would be ten years since I moved from Russia to Germany. Because of my work I urgently needed to improve my English and someone suggested to me listening to podcasts. Because I was proud owner of macbook air 2013, I quickly found Accidental Tech Podcast and it was so entertaining, that I kept listening to them even I didn’t understand (more than) a half of it. Then I found Analogu(e), then other relay shows and since 2015 they helped me not just learning language and keep up with apple news, but also with my mental health, when I migrated from my homeland country to place where I did not had any friends nor time to find ones. Relay10

Being tonight on live show felt so surreal to see people, that previously were just voices in my head. And see the community of diverse, helping and engaged people is amazing. Thanks, Mike and Stephen for making this amazing thing and thank everyone involved!

Pgsql timezones

It’s been 0️⃣ days since last time I was confused about timezones. Recently I noticed that we store local timezone in our db as timestamp with time zone: 2023-11-03T14:20:00+01:00 instead of UTC time.
When I used switch “Npgsql.EnableLegacyTimestampBehaviour” it seemed, that it saved UTC value into database, but on reading DateTime kind was Local, which was incorrect.
Long story short: I didn’t notice big red warning in Npgsql documentation. When we save UTC to db, it uses local timezone to represent values.
For example, if I change local timezone: SET TIMEZONE ‘Asia/Brunei’ it would show time as 2023-11-03T21:20:00+08:00, but data wouldn’t have changed, only how it displayed on the screen. And it transfers into C# layer properly.
More than that, RFC3339 allows it and states that it is a correct format to display UTC.

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Reason to blog

About laptop

Find or Where

Relay 10

Pgsql timezones