OPEN Open Source

What? Individuals making significant and valuable contributions are given commit-access to the project to contribute as they see fit. This project is more like an open wiki than a standard guarded open source project. Rules There are a few basic ground-rules for contributors: No –force pushes or modifying the Git history in any way. Non-master branches ought to be used for ongoing work. External API changes and significant modifications ought to be subject to an internal pull-request to solicit feedback from other contributors.

   open open source, open source

Hardware Track nodeconf.eu

The hardware track featured talks on hardware that were not just about hardware, but also served as a metaphor. The most poignant of these was Colin Vernon’s on the cloudbit. Colin Vernon – Cloudbit As an engineer we really like building stuff and figuring out difficult problems. And for us working with the tools we make is easy. But we should see our tools as a material. A material with which we can build stuff, which we can use like lego-blocks.

   hardware, internet of things, javascript, node, nodeconf, nodeconfeu

Front end track at nodeconf.eu

The frontend track featured some very different talks , ranging from performance to a/b testing. In that sense it was a bit different from the microservices track, because it was less of a ‘one story’ thing. Scaling A/B testing at Netflix – Alex Liu Netflix takes a/b testing to the next level, where they break up the UI in little pieces and run a/b tests on all of them at once.

   frontend, javascript, node, nodeconf, nodeconfeu

Microservices Track summary #nodeconfeu

The microservices track came down to most speakers saying things more or less in similar vain, each talk having its own emphasis. Richard Rodger opened up and basically laid the groundwork for the microservices bit together with the Fred George talk. After hearing the talks I’d define microservices as small blocks that can run independently and do one thing, along the Unix philosophy. Making building blocks in stead of one big application that does everything.

   javascript, microservices, node, nodeconf, nodeconfeu

Procedural Death Jam, 7 Day Rogue Like, Cyberpunk Game jamathon.

Ok. It’s official as of 16.04 (CET) I have entered in all of the above mentioned GameJams. This is where I will track my development. The project can be found at: https://github.com/fritzvd/abime It. Is. On! Update: Note to self: Neko target in Haxe does not handle placement of BitmapData well. Been spending an hour to get it to work. Other target was instant. This was a very bad week to be working on something like this.

   7drl, cyberpunk, failure, haxe, pdj, pdl, procedural death, roguelike

Particle Emitter in HaxePunk

For some this will be a trivial example. For me this took a bit longer than I suspected. This small example will produce this: If you’re planning on making an awesome game you probably want a particle emitter. because.. well look at it. What I did is I started a haxepunk project: `For some this will be a trivial example. For me this took a bit longer than I suspected. This small example will produce this: If you’re planning on making an awesome game you probably want a particle emitter.

   emitter, game development, haxepunk, particle

Nyko Playpad Pro or * as Xbox 360 controller on linux

This is basically a fancy note to self. Last year in my pre vacation spending spree, I boughy myself (and my brother) a NYKO Playpad Pro. A pretty cool gamepad for Android. I had lots of fun playing GTA Vice CIty on my trip to Italy. Playing SNES games etc. However I tried to hook it up to my Linux pc and thought I would be able to use it with my new go to MetroidVania platformer: Guacamelee.

   linux, mapping nyko playpad, mapping xbox controller, nyko playpad pro

Communities and Licenses: Permissive licenses vs copyleft (BSD/MIT/Apache 2.0 vs GPL)

Over the weekend I was at FOSDEM, an open source developer conference in Brussels. We had a blast. I sat in on a talk at the Legal & Policy Issues room about community building by Eileen Evans. The talk was the one she gave at OSCON 2013 (attached below). The short version of the talk was that the license an open source project uses plays a role in the community it will create, perhaps such a strong role as governance or the technology itself, but a role nonetheless.

   apache, bsd, gpl, legal, license, mit, open source

Starting Game Development with HaxePunk instead of MonoGame/XNA

So I started venturing off in a direction in which I have no experience what so ever. Only on the consumer-side of things ;-). Game development. Of course I had no idea what I was doing. Still don’t. To start with I had no idea where to start. Lately I have been looking into Unity 3D and Unreal engine, but then I realized I suck at drawing and have no idea how to start with 3d.

   c#, haxe, haxepunk, openfl, xna

Unbricking my LG Optimus 2x with adb

So just before new year’s eve started, I started a (cyanogenmod) update for my phone (lg optimus 2x). Wiped data/cache/dalvik and did not get to flashing the new zip. But then the guests started to arrive and I left it, without having it hooked up to a power supply. Big mistake. There are a number of recovery images out there, (amongst the most well-known: Clockwork Mod and TeamWin Recovery Project). I was on TWRP but it just hung and could not get out of recovery mode.

   adb, android, cyanogenmod, lg optimus 2x, oops, recovery