Constant Random Change

Some of you might realize that while the modem works properly after following my previous post, you can’t upgrade it using the original firmware from ZyXEL. Repeating what I said in the original post, you can’t upgrade the firmware to use the official ZyXEL version because of the built in firmware.

For those of you who have some electronics experience a lot of time to spare, I’ve summarized the steps on how to change Telefonica’s P-660HW-61 firmware to ZyXEL’s original version.

Note that in the steps below, you will void your warranty and you may brick your device. I am not liable for the damages caused by this post.

FYI, I bricked my modem in my first try. You have been warned.

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At PhP 880, CD-R King’s ADSL kit is the cheapest modem/wifi router you can find in any store right now. Problem is, it won’t work out of the box for most people.

This post will explain how I replaced my PLDT DSL modem + D-Link wifi router setup with this unbelievably cheap device.

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A group who codes programs without revision control is stupid. And crazy.

Seriously, what self respecting software developer in 2009 in their right mind would use a “shared network folder” approach in sharing code instead of opting for a VCS?!?!

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Here we come to the second important purpose of revision control, namely, to automate most of the processes involved in sharing work among multiple users. Those processes and the problems involved with them are neatly described in the SVN book. Just click the link and come back here when you’re done reading the chapter (saves me the copy-paste effort ).

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Anyone who codes programs without revision control is stupid. Seriously.

The trade-offs are so high that there’s almost no reason not to use a version control systems (VCS) when programming.

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“So what is revision control?”, you might ask.

At its very core, revision control deals with tracking down changes to your work. That definition, however, is a bit misleading. For software development, it’s better to think of revision control as similar to the computer gaming concept of multiple saves.

As gamers will know, one save slot is not enough for larger games like epic RPGs or RTS games. It is not uncommon to encounter a scenario where a player realizes that he has made a terrible mistake 3-4 saves ago. If the game has only one save slot, that player is pretty much screwed as the save has already been overwritten. On the other hand, this won’t be a problem if he has saved on different save slots.

A similar problem pops up often when developing programs. A developer might realize that he made a terrible mistake in the code he wrote some time ago. Without a VCS, the developer only has one “save”: the one currently saved on his computer. He will have to search his files manually in order to pinpoint the location of the problematic code and fix or revert it.

With a VCS, however, the developer is given the ability “save” the current state of his code. As long as he commits (“commit” is “save” in revision terms) often, the above scenario is not going to be a big problem. Instead of manually searching each file for the change, he can look at the revision history which will tell him which files were changed. He can then use the various tools in the VCS to inspect and fix the problem. What would have taken the developer minutes or even hours to fix might only require a few seconds if there was a VCS in place.

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