Want to know the size of a directory or directories?
du -sh [directory/directories]
"du" = disk usage, -sh = "sum the disk usage of the directories and make it human readable"
ex: du -sh /var/www
(though I probably wouldn't recommend running the command due to the size of the "www" directory)
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Future Development
Being a developer is an interesting as well as an extremely frustrating job. I could work two weeks on a project with an additional two or three days debugging for my five second pay-off. As crazy as that might sound, I could not imagine doing anything else (except for maybe music or art....or philosophy...or even cultural studies).
Being a programmer, and more specifically web developer, has it's share of interesting problems that I couldn't find in any other field. This is the only field that I've come across that has new paradigms, revolutions, and shifts every couple of years if not faster. This requires an extensive amount of reading and research to stay at the top of the field consistently. Due to the reinventing nature of the field, traps and pit-falls can easily happen to the best of us. Either reading too much, which only allows for a theoretical approach without implementation or experience to reading too little which puts one behind the rest of their peers is a hard thing to balance. When reading the latest and greatest technology out, how does one know whether invest time into learning or simply just skip over? I struggle with this constantly.
By trade, I'm a PHP developer. The platform that I build on is an ever-changing, fast-paced one. But there is one thing that seems to make itself extremely obvious in the future of my field: javascript. Yes, this may sound like old news to some because javascript has been out since the mid '90s, but with the trend of where the Web is going, only recently javascript has started to make huge leaps and bounds ahead of anything as a staple of future web development. Tools such as jQuery (yes, also been around since the mid 2000), node.js, and many others has A) brought development with javascript to an extremely high level, B) development possible on the front end as well as the back (yes, all ECMAscripts are agnostic in theory, but the practice of such was rare) and C) it has branched out to mobile development such as pure scripting game engines, jqtouch, phone gap, and many others.
I've always been decent enough in javascript to get done what needed to get done, but lately I've been spending the majority of my time learning the language's popular design patterns and best practices. There is a wealth of information out there to turn a novice into an experienced developer. I've been spending some serious time developing jQuery plugins because I truly believe that my work will last longer in javascript than any other technology at the moment. It is a gamble, but I think it is a safe gamble.
Being a programmer, and more specifically web developer, has it's share of interesting problems that I couldn't find in any other field. This is the only field that I've come across that has new paradigms, revolutions, and shifts every couple of years if not faster. This requires an extensive amount of reading and research to stay at the top of the field consistently. Due to the reinventing nature of the field, traps and pit-falls can easily happen to the best of us. Either reading too much, which only allows for a theoretical approach without implementation or experience to reading too little which puts one behind the rest of their peers is a hard thing to balance. When reading the latest and greatest technology out, how does one know whether invest time into learning or simply just skip over? I struggle with this constantly.
By trade, I'm a PHP developer. The platform that I build on is an ever-changing, fast-paced one. But there is one thing that seems to make itself extremely obvious in the future of my field: javascript. Yes, this may sound like old news to some because javascript has been out since the mid '90s, but with the trend of where the Web is going, only recently javascript has started to make huge leaps and bounds ahead of anything as a staple of future web development. Tools such as jQuery (yes, also been around since the mid 2000), node.js, and many others has A) brought development with javascript to an extremely high level, B) development possible on the front end as well as the back (yes, all ECMAscripts are agnostic in theory, but the practice of such was rare) and C) it has branched out to mobile development such as pure scripting game engines, jqtouch, phone gap, and many others.
I've always been decent enough in javascript to get done what needed to get done, but lately I've been spending the majority of my time learning the language's popular design patterns and best practices. There is a wealth of information out there to turn a novice into an experienced developer. I've been spending some serious time developing jQuery plugins because I truly believe that my work will last longer in javascript than any other technology at the moment. It is a gamble, but I think it is a safe gamble.
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