Background​

To better learn Swift, I’ve been trying to use it as a truly general-purpose programming language instead of purely iOS development. I’m currently building an iOS app that requires multiple versions of the same vector graphics (SVGs). I couldn’t find an open-source solution for my needs, so I decided to start scripting. Typically, I would have used Python or Node.js, but I powered through with Swift in the spirit of immersion.

Background​

I co-teach an advanced placement computer science class at Heights High School in Houston with the TEALS program. The curriculum utilizes the Java programming language and has an emphasis on object-oriented programming. From a school IT system perspective, we have limited options for the software we can distribute to the students’ laptops. During my first year of volunteering, we opted to use BlueJ for the first couple of months before exposing them to Eclipse, a more heavy-duty integrated development environment. Both editors have their challenges and limitations for novices, so we began to evaluate several other options, including Visual Studio Code. After considering numerous factors, including the complexity of installation, editor features, and accessibility, we opted to try a radically different option: Repl.it.

Hardware​

For 200 USD, the laptop is extremely well-made. The keyboard is comfortable for typing (although PINE64 only had the ISO keyboard model available which is an adjustment for me). The body is made out of metal and doesn’t feel cheap. The sound is serviceable though one of the weaker parts of the laptop. I consistently get download speeds of up to 50mbps over AT&T fiber at home. The battery life has been good so far. There are no glaring design flaws to speak of. Here’s an overview of the specs:

About College Football Recruiting​

Despite being played by amateur student-athletes, college football has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Most likely due to the emotional connection to an academic institution and the incredibly entertaining and volatile lack of parity and consistency amongst teams, college football fans tend to be even more diehard than their NFL counterparts, particularly in the South. Though college football is played by undergraduate and graduate students, players are scouted as recruits as early as middle school. These recruits are evaluated based on several factors that indicate their success at both the collegiate and professional levels of football. Whether physical attributes like height and weight or skill sets like blocking and catching, all of these attributes plus countless others are synthesized into a rating. Recruits are then offered by universities culminating in commitments and signings. A good recruiting class can be an indication of future success for a college football team provided that the coaching staff develops talents as expected.

Overview​

This project serves as an end-to-end working example for testing, building, linting, and deploying an AWS Lambda Node.js function to multiple environments using AWS CloudFormation, Azure Pipelines, and Azure DevOps. The complete source code is located in this GitHub repository, and the build output is publicly available via Azure DevOps.

Use Case, Source Code, and Demo Site​

For a weekend project, I wanted to build a nontrivial Mendix widget that required additional NPM packages, interacted with entity attributes, and had internal React state not managed by Mendix entities. Having just used the Ace editor to build a querying environment for my fantasy football league’s databases and views, I thought building similar functionality in a Mendix application would be an excellent fit.

Contents​

• .NET 5: The Future
• Unique Azure Functions Features
• Microsoft Edge Chromium
• .NET Support for Jupyter Notebooks

Contents​

Visual Studio Live in San Diego was an amazing opportunity to learn about new Microsoft technology like Azure’s artificial intelligence offerings and .NET Core 3.0. I attended some talks about leadership and Agile as well. I’ve put together several proofs of concept and documented what I learned about:

Example SonarCloud/SonarScanner C# Integration for Travis CI​

SonarQube is a very powerful source code continuous inspection tool. It’s incredibly valuable to have integrated into a project’s CI/CD pipeline to help maintain code quality and prevent issues. In the process of adding this to some existing open-source C# projects, I discovered that there’s not quality, up-to-date documentation on integrating C# inspection with Travis CI. This GitHub project serves as a functioning example.

The Idea​

For a quick weekend project, I wanted to see how feasible setting up a cloud gaming rig would be. Using EC2 from AWS and about 10 USD, I was able to get a proof of concept set up and several games installed and running. I did run into a few issues that this post should address how to get around.