post: journal entry for week starting 8th January 2024

docs/posts/2024/january/08.md

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+---
+title: Breaking ground on the new year
+date: 2024-01-08
+categories:
+  - practicalli
+---
+
+**Thoughts for the week**
+
+Rushing work is the slowest way to make progress.
+
+Exhausted after this week of work, so took a break from cycling and running.  Lots of cat naps over the weekend.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+## Practicalli Spacemacs
+
+I'm using a mix of Spacemacs and Neovim on MacOSX for work, so am steadily adding tweaks in the few areas where there are differences.  This is mostly how environment variables work (or dont work in the case of MacOSX for apps launched from the desktop launcher, e.g. spotlight).
+
+## Neovim
+
+Updated AstroNvim to 3.41.0 using Astronvim config, `SPC p A`.  Many small fixes and enhancements although didnt notice anything significantly impactful.
+
+Installed Neovim 0.9.5 by downloading the nvim.appimage from GitHub Releases page of Neovim repository.  
+
+- Copied the downloaded file to `.local/bin` and rename the file to include the version number, `nvim-0.9.5.appimage`. - 
+- Change the file to be executable, `chmod u+x nvim-0.9.5.appimage`. 
+- Updated the `.local/bin/nvim` symlink to point to the new version.
+- ran `nvim` commmand to check neovim work without configuration
+- ran `astro` command to chekc neovim works with AstroNvim configuration
+
+Upgraded successful.
+
+> Noticed I had only been using Neovim 0.9.2 on one machine, so good time to upgrade.
+
+
+## Building teams
+
+It can be challenging joining a very busy team. Blalancing the need to minimise disruption of the existing teams work with taking the teams time to enable new people to have enough knowledge to start contributing.
+
+Identifying specific knowledge transfer topics and timeboxed meetings are an effective approach, especially when coupled with good documentation and architecture diagrams.
+
+
+## MacOSX environment variables
+
+Finally found a working approach to running desktop apps that are configured with an environment variable, e.g. Neovide GUI for Neovim with the AstroNvim configuration and Emacs with a custom location (XDG) Spacemacs user configuration.  
+
+The `launchctl` command can set an environment variable that will be used with GUI apps launched from the MacOSX spotlight (or similar desktop launchers).
+
+!!! EXAMPLE "Neovide with Astronvim config"
+    ```shell
+    launchctl setenv NVIM_APPNAME astronvim
+    ```
+
+!!! EXAMPLE "Emacs with Spacemacs config"
+    ```shell 
+    launchctl setenv SPACEMACSDIR /User/practicalli/.config/spacemacs
+    ```
+
+> Adding environment variables in the user `.profile` or `.zprofile` files did not make a difference, even after a reboot of MacOSX.
+
+
+## GitHub statistics
+
+[GitHub Wrapped](https://www.githubwrapped.io/) is an online app that generates visualisation from contributions for a specific GitHub account. 
+
+![GitHub Wrapped practicalli-johnny 2023 statistics visualisation](https://github.com/practicalli/graphic-design/blob/live/github/github-wrapped-2023-practicalli-johnny.png?raw=true){loading=lazy}
+
+
+### GitHub Trends
+
+GitHub Wrapped uses GitHub Trends which can be used to create a deep dive into the GitHub API to surface metrics about code contributions. 
+
+GitHub Trends computes metrics based on your individual commits, rather than look at contributions to repositories. 
+
+Generate insights on lines written by language, repository, and time. Easily embed dynamic images into your GitHub profile to share your statistics with the world. 
+
+[Create an account with GitHub Trends](https://api.githubtrends.io/auth/signup/public) Then, paste this string into your Markdown content, substituting your username.
+
+!!! EXAMPLE "Markdown Code for GitHub trends language view"
+    ```markdown
+    [![GitHub Trends SVG](https://api.githubtrends.io/user/svg/github-username/langs)](https://githubtrends.io)
+    ```
+
+Communicate directly with [Use the GitHub Trends API](https://github.com/avgupta456/github-trends/blob/main/docs/API.md) to create customize cards.