Game over

This year I decided to return to playing basketball socially after a break of about 5-6 years. Like most other sports I'd tried, I didn't have much natural talent, but enjoyed participating.

This season did not start out well. The first game back, I was enjoying being back on the court (if also realising how unfit I was!). But as the match progressed, my heel was getting sorer and sorer. Later diagnosed by the Physio as tendonitis - probably caused by going out way too hard after such a long time of not running at all.

A week off and some daily stretching (that I'm still doing months later) and I was feeling ok to get back again. A few more games and then more problems..

My back had been feeling a little uncomfortable earlier in the day, but I figured lots of stretching and I'd be fine. I played with out any issues and then drove home. But as I got out of the car, I felt my back go!

Some Chiro on the Monday, more stretching and trying to stand (instead of sitting down) at work meant, after another week off, I thought I'd be ok to come back again. I played last week without incident, though I was a little sore the next day.

Yesterday, my back was still not 100% but I figured I'd see how I went. That was probably a mistake. Part-way through the second half of the game, I went to chase the ball and felt my back go again. I took no further part in the game. Time to listen to my body and give it a proper rest.

And that's how my 2019 basketball season unceremoniously ended. Maybe I can give it another go in 2020, but if I do I think I'll need to invest in a lot better preparation. It would be disappointing if it turns out that I can't play again, but that's also a possibility. And better to retire my basketball boots and still be able to do other things, than really injure myself badly.

Azure DevOps - Default permissions for force push on a branch

This error caught me by surprise today:

C:\dev\git\project [feature ↓1 ↑2 +1 ~0 -0 !]> git push --force-with-lease
Enumerating objects: 22, done.
Counting objects: 100% (22/22), done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
Writing objects: 100% (12/12), 1.61 KiB | 824.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 12 (delta 6), reused 8 (delta 4)
remote: Analyzing objects... (12/12) (8 ms)
remote: Storing packfile... done (115 ms)
remote: Storing index... done (81 ms)
To https://mytenancy.visualstudio.com/repo/_git/project
 ! [remote rejected]       feature -> feature (TF401027: You need the Git 'ForcePush' permission to perform this action. Details: identity '93086622-abb9-4886-b994-502e7f2afc21\[email protected]', scope 'branch'.)
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://mytenancy.visualstudio.com/repo/_git/project'

I was trying to push a change to a Git branch in Azure DevOps Repos. I'd just done an interactive rebase to update history on the branch and was trying to force push my changes - something I've done countless times before.

Reviewing the permissions for this repository, the Force push (rewrite history, delete branches and tags) permission was Not Set (eg. neither explicitly allowed nor denied). Checking other projects and repositories, this was also the case, so what's different?

Well one thing that's different is that I didn't create this branch - it was created by another developer. Force pushing to a shared branch is generally frowned upon (as if it isn't coordinated it can cause all kinds of problems), and so it seems DevOps helps guard against this problem by defaulting to granting the Force Push permission just to the branch creator (and also to users who are the Project administrator - as set in the Project details page of Project Settings).

Because I didn't create the original branch and I was not a project administrator in this particular project, no push for me!

Check out the descriptions of the different permissions for Git repositories and the default Git repository and branch permissions.

In the garden - Winter 2019

It's been a while since my last garden update. Things are cooling down in Adelaide. Not to the extent of other places that get regular snow and ice, but still chilly enough.

Our apple trees are starting to mature now and we've had good crops from both trees this year. The Pink Lady still has fruit hanging on the tree, and they've coloured up really nicely and the family are enjoying eating them.

The mandarin is doing a great job. The fruit are so much tastier than the ones you buy in the shop. So far this year I have had no problems with possums/rodents eating the fruit, so I haven't worried about netting the tree. The fruit might be a little smaller than previous years, possibly due to an incredibly dry January/February. Some late rains came just in time.

The lemonade just keeps powering on. Such a productive tree. I've had to give it a few haircuts as it's really growing tall.

Narelle did a great job planting out some potted colour a few weeks ago, and we're continuing to enjoy the results.

And we got to enjoy some late flowers from this rose. Very pretty.

Time to get back in the garden and do some weeding!