In Git, branches are sorted alphabetically by default. This is convenient when you remember the branch name, but it's not always the most practical approach. Fortunately, the sorting order can be customized to display branches with the latest changes first:

git branch --sort=-committerdate

Optionally, -r can be added to search for a remote branch. This is particularly useful when looking for a branch previously worked on with a teammate.

I have set this as the default in my personal .gitconfig:

[branch]
    sort = -committerdate

Over time, I accumulate several local Git branches in various projects. To maintain clarity, I regularly delete all branches except the main branch.

To avoid having to constantly search for the command, I'd like to share it with you here:

git branch | grep -v "main" | xargs git branch -d

git branch lists all local branches. grep -v "main" filters out the main branch from this list, as I don't want to delete it. xargs git branch -d executes the git branch -d command on the remaining branches.

If you want to keep multiple branches, you can extend the command:

git branch | grep -v "main" | grep -v "develop" | xargs git branch -d

Here, two branches, main and develop, are filtered out from the list and thus not deleted.

I hope this tip helps you keep your system as tidy as it helps me.

My former colleague Marco invited me to codecentric's SoftwerkerCast to talk about frontend development and how backend developers can get started here.

I can recommend the SoftwerkerCast. Marco is doing a great job as host here and there are many interesting topics the podcast covered. You should find it on the platform of your choice.

Link: Episode on Spotify

Now and then I want to create PDFs and optimize the file size. I'm not necessarily in the mood to add another PDF software to my computer, and, depending on the content of the document, I don't want to complete the task online. In this situation, you can do well with Ghostscript.

The first thing you have to do is install Ghostscript on your computer. On a Mac with Homebrew, you can accomplish this with the following command:

brew install ghostscript

To optimize a PDF, I use the following command.

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile="output.pdf" input.pdf

Following "Digital Minimalism," "Deep Work" was the second book by Cal Newport that I immersed myself into. The former had an overemphasis on "success stories" which seemed disruptive to me, but in "Deep Work," Newport strikes the right balance, in my opinion.

In early 2020, I discovered Cal Newport's book "Digital Minimalism", a discovery inspired in part by Marcel's insightful blog post on the subject.

Sicherlich kein Insider-Tipp und doch möchte ich Euch "What if" von Randall Munroe wärmstens ans Herz legen.

Nach "What if" folgt also "How to", welches auf den ersten Blick die logische Fortsetzung des vorherigen Buchs von Randall Munroe ist. An vielen Stellen gelingt das gut, jetzt, wo ich das Buch abgeschlossen habe, frage ich mich, ob ich zwischen den Büchern mehr Zeit hätte lassen sollen.

A few weeks ago, I decided to reactivate my podcast, "Herr Zenzes wills wissen". For the last few years, I hosted it with Podigee, but it became too expensive for my use case. I don't produce enough content to take full advantage of the smallest package, so I can save some money by hosting the podcast myself again.

April has started with a few minor updates that I'd like to share here on the blog.