August 5,

MoMA renovation

MoMA is in the midst of a fairly major renovation project. The last couple of times I went, things were pretty confusing. A lot of stuff was under construction. Here’s an article from the NY Times, from June, with some detail. I know that the entire project won’t be done until 2019, but I’m hoping that, the next time I go, things will be a little more stable.

I have a few complaints about the current status of the museum, but they’re mostly minor complaints about services and not about art. For instance, I think there’s still supposed to be a members coat check, but I have no idea where it is. And I don’t like the way they’re running the cafe now. It used to be run like a regular sit-down restaurant, but now (at least as of the last time I went), they’re running it like a hybrid cafeteria/restaurant. You order and pay for your food first, at a counter, then sit down, and they bring it to you. Not a big deal, but it makes it just a little less relaxing, and a little harder to deal with, if you decide you want an espresso and tiramisu after you’re finished with your meal. (Yeah, I know, first world problems.)

I do like the fact that the extra space will help them show more art from minority and female artists. At the same time, I hope they don’t relegate some of my favorite “white guy” art to the basement or something. I know that Starry Night isn’t going anywhere, but I am a little worried about OOF. (Yeah, I know it’s weird, but I like looking at it. In fact, I’m using it for the wallpaper on my Mac right now.)

TFS and Git

I recently started working on a new C# project at work. I’ve mostly been doing Dynamics AX (X++) work recently, so it’s been a while since I had a big C# project. With AX, TFS is pretty much the only viable option for source control. So, I just use what’s there, and don’t think about it too much.

With C#, though, it’s pretty easy to use Git too. I’m using Visual Studio 2013, which supports Git directly. I decided to start this project off in Git, just as an experiment. I knew that I’d have to put it into TFS eventually, since our department uses a TFS 2012 server, so I would need to get the source code into that server at some point. But starting off with Git seemed like a good idea, since I knew I’d be making a lot of changes early on, and possibly even discarding the whole project at some point and starting over. So I figured doing all that in a local Git repo would be an efficient and flexible way to start off.

So that’s what I did. I started off with the built-in VS 2013 Git support, which hides a lot of the complexity of Git, and makes it look more like TFS. At the same time, I started reading Pro Git, a pretty hefty book on Git that’s freely available on the web. I’ve used Git before, of course, but I’ve never really spent enough time learning the ins and outs. Pro Git is a pretty good book, and I’m learning a lot from it.

Meanwhile, I also started looking into ways in which I could use Git and TFS in parallel. My idea was that I’d keep using Git locally, allowing me to commit frequently, branch and merge, and just generally manage my work in an agile way. Then, whenever I got to a good stable point, I’d do a TFS check-in.

Skipping ahead a bit, I’ve now switched the project to TFS-only, and have a backup of my .git folder that I’m ignoring for now. I had hoped that I’d be able to switch back and forth easily, in VS 2013, but that’s really not the case. I’ve found that VS 2013, if it sees a .git folder, assumes you’re using git, regardless of any TFS info in your solution file. I had hoped that getting the TFS info into the solution file would cause VS 2013 to use TFS, while I could use Git from the command-line (or via SourceTree).

Alternately, I’ve looked into the possibility of using Git from VS 2013 and doing the TFS commits via the command-line. That actually looks like it might be a possibility, using tf.exe. I might give that a try next week.

I’ve also looked into git-tfs, which is a “two-way bridge” between Git and TFS. I think that would let me keep one branch in a local Git repo synced with TFS, while letting me work locally in a dev branch in Git that I could just merge into the main TFS branch occasionally, or something like that. I’m not entirely clear.

And yes, I know that if we could upgrade our server from TFS 2012 to TFS 2013, I could use the native Git support in TFS 2013. But that’s not something we can do right now, largely because it might not be compatible with Dynamics AX 2012, and doing the upgrade would be too much of a distraction and risk right now. (Similarly, Microsoft’s hosted TFS would be great, but almost definitely wouldn’t work with our current AX setup.)

More Airport Weirdness

My new Airport Express showed up today. Rather than just toss the old one and hook it up, I decided to take one more crack at getting the old base station working again. And, hey, it works! I had to go through the reset instructions very carefully, but I did eventually get the firmware reloaded and the unit reconfigured. If the settings get lost again, though, I’m giving up on it. If it keeps working, though, then I’ll probably use the Express in the living room and hook up my stereo to it.

Or maybe I’ll sell the old base station to these guys and make a few bucks. (That’s the nice thing about Apple equipment. You almost never have to throw anything away. There’s always somebody that wants it.)

I picked up some Airport tips from this page, by the way.

Cerebus

I just finished reading the most recent Cerebus story arc, Going Home. As usual, great storytelling, great backgrounds from Gerhard, and some great funny bits in the main story.

Some weird stuff in the back, though, including a way bizzare essay in the back of the last issue. You can read it here, on the Comics Journal’s page. I actually think Sim makes some good points, although he goes way too far with most of them. You can read more about his essay here. Have fun.