ACCU World of Code

The Lone C++ Coder's Blog from The Lone C++ Coder's Blog

Now that GNU Emacs 25.1 has been released, it is time for my customary “how to install Emacs 25.1 on a recent Ubuntu” post. In my case I’m using XUbuntu 16.04, but the instructions are pretty much the same for just about every recent Ubuntu version. The package versions of the referenced packages differ, but the package names haven’t changed since I first published one of these posts.

Jon Jagger from less code, more software

I've talked about the design and evolution of cyber-dojo at two conferences this year. First at NorDevCon in Norwich and then also at Agile on the Beach in Falmouth. Here's the slides.

Jon Jagger from less code, more software

The new release of cyber-dojo is out :-)

• the setup start-points are now decoupled from the server and can be customized.
• the manifest.json format has changed accordingly.
• the instructions for running your own cyber-dojo server are new.

Jon Jagger from less code, more software

My friend Byran who works at the awesome Bluefruit Software in Redruth has hooked up his cyber-dojo web server to an actual traffic-light! Fantastic. Check out the video below :-)



Byran writes

It started out as a joke between myself and Josh (one of the testers at Bluefruit). I had the traffic lights in my office as I was preparing a stand to promote the outreach events (Summer Huddle, Mission to Mars, etc...) Software Cornwall runs. The conversation went on to alternative uses for the traffic lights, I was planning to see if people would pay attention to the traffic lights if I put them in a corridor at the event; we then came up with the idea that we could use them to indicate TDD test status.

Although it started out as a joke I am going to use it at the Summer Huddle, the lights change every time anyone runs a test so it should give an idea of how the entire group are doing without highlighting an individual pair.

The software setup is very simple, there is a Python web server (using the Flask library) running on a Raspberry Pi that controls the traffic lights using GPIO Zero. When the appendTestTrafficLight() function (in run_tests.js.erb) appends the traffic light image to the webpage I made it send an http 'get' request to the Raspberry Pi web server to set the physical traffic lights at the same time. At the moment the IP address of the Raspberry Pi is hard coded in the 'run_tests.js.erb' file so I have to rebuild the web image if anything changes but it was only meant to be a joke/proof of concept. The code is on a branch called traffic_lights on my fork of the cyber-dojo web repository.

The hardware is also relatively simple, there is a converter board on the Pi; this only converts the IO pin output connector of the Raspberry Pi to the cable that attaches to the traffic lights.

The other end of the cable from the converter board attaches to the board in the top left of the inside the traffic lights; this has some optoisolators that drive the relays in the top right which in turn switch on and off the transformers (the red thing in the bottom left) that drive the lights.

I have to give credit to Steve Amor for building the hardware for the traffic lights. They are usually used during events we run to teach coding to children (and sometimes adults). The converter board has LEDs, switches and buzzers on it to show that there isn't a difference between writing software to toggle LEDs vs driving actual real world systems, it's just what's attached to the pin. Having something where they can run the same code to drive LEDs and drive real traffic lights helps to emphasise this point.

Jon Jagger from less code, more software

Between my recent fishing trips I have been working hard on a new cyber-dojo architecture.

• pluggable default start-points so you can now use your own language/tests and exercises lists on the setup page
• a new setup page for your own pluggable custom start-points
• once I've got the output parse functions inside the start-point volumes I'll be switching the public cyber-dojo server to the new image and updating the running-your-own-server instructions
• I've switched all development to a new github repo which has instructions if you want to try it now.

Jon Jagger from less code, more software

Last week I broke my Daiwa Spectron spliced-tip rod which has served me for 25 years+. After some searching around I replaced it with a Drennan Acolyte Ultra 14ft. I christened it yesterday with my heaviest ever bag on the Tone; 80lb+ of chub and roach with a few skimmer bream, one roach-bream hybrid, and several small perch. All caught on waggler, red/yellow/white maggot, on 1.7lb hooklength, and a size 20 Kamasan B560. Wooohooo.

Jon Jagger from less code, more software

Once a year a spent a glorious week fishing for salmon on the River Verdal in Norway. This year, despite the low water, I caught this cracker. A huge thanks to John Oldren who owns the beat. You will not find a more hospitable host. Also to Gary Scott for being super helpful as always.

Jon Jagger from less code, more software

One of my favourite salmon beats is Tulchan on the river Spey.
On my most recent trip I caught two, including this beauty from Hunter's Pool.

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

In late April we exhibited at the ACCU Conference (#accuconf), which in many ways is our conference home. The first time we went was all the way back in 2007, and believe it or not we've not missed a single year since then.

The conference is a great event filled with amazing people, and it's a privilege to have been able to be a part of it for the past decade.

Mouse Invaders.

We normally attend the sessions as delegates and also run an exhibition stand (which makes for some rather hectic juggling!), but this year was a little different as our founder Anna also presented the closing keynote "Comfort Zone" (which she describes as being about "Puppies, Spiders, User Interface Cheese-Moving and the Neuroscience of Anger"....).

As ever, it was an interesting (and quite exhausting) week...but more than that, it was a week when the people who make ACCU what it is stood up and really showed what a truly amazing group of people they are. I'll talk about that specifically in a follow-up post shortly, but suffice it to say that we came away understanding just how lucky we are to have found this particular organisation...

Of course if you went, you'll know all this already. If you didn't, here's a handful of photos to give you an idea what you missed this time...

#accuconf keynotes were presented in the Bristol suite of the Marriot. Pete Goodliffe presenting "The Codealow - a developer's bedtime story" during the Lightning Talks on Wednesday evening. Don't panic - it's just the conference dinner! Set the controls for the heart of the pudding. OK. Now would be the time for Anna to panic... Anna-Jayne Metcalfe from Riverblade presenting the closing keynote "Comfort Zone". Anna-Jayne Metcalfe of Riverblade presenting the ACCU 2016 closing keynote "Comfort Zone" Anna-Jayne Metcalfe of Riverblade presenting the ACCU 2016 closing keynote "Comfort Zone" Anna-Jayne Metcalfe of Riverblade presenting the ACCU 2016 closing keynote "Comfort Zone" Anna-Jayne Metcalfe of Riverblade presenting the ACCU 2016 closing keynote "Comfort Zone" Anna-Jayne Metcalfe of Riverblade presenting the ACCU 2016 closing keynote "Comfort Zone" Anna-Jayne Metcalfe of Riverblade presenting the ACCU 2016 closing keynote "Comfort Zone"

If you'd like to see the keynote, there's a video of it on YouTube and the slides are here.