What I’ve done did in October 2020
Time to get spoopy
Worked on my app
This month has been a bit of a mixed bag on the app development front as the bulk of the app is in place and the Android automation is complete but there’s external factors that need to be cleared before it can go further.
So I’ve been keeping myself busy, firstly by trying to get iOS automation done and failing as it turns out there are a number of bugs in the way that XCUITest and Appium work with deeply nested UI structures.
I then moved onto exploring the functionality we’re looking to introduce in version 1.1.0 as this functionality was something we felt will make the existing app way more valuable to the user.
Doing more work around understanding what is valuable to build and designing prototypes made me realise how scalable the core data structures we’re building are so it’s made me even more sure that there’s definitely something useful for people in there.
Other improvements I made this month was to add dark mode to the app and a bunch of bug fixes.
Got a new mechanical keyboard
At the start of the month I decided to by myself a new mechanical keyboard, I had been using a B.Duck branded Lofree keyboard on my Mac as it had a kind of typewriter aesthetic but it was a massive pain in the arse to use when programming as the shift key is above the arrow key I’d often delete lines.
So I shelled out for a Durgod Taurus K320 and bought a set of keys from Tai-Hao (which turned up about a week later than expected thanks to Fedex) and had fun pulling all the keys off and replacing them.
It’s a really nice keyboard and when paired with my currently awesomewm set up I feel like my Linux box is really starting to take shape.
Played Pokemon Crown Tundra
I wrote a few thoughts on the latest DLC for Pokemon Sword and Shield last week and I’m still really enjoying the game as I’m now doing Dynamax Adventures with a couple of friends which is making the grind more interesting.
Started looking into Solid
Solid is Tim Berners-Lee’s latest project and something that strikes a chord with my ideals around data and it’s ownership when using internet services.
The core idea is that users register for a pod with a provider they trust to store their data and then apps that wish to use that data request access to use it and write everything back to the pod.
This allows the user to keep all their data in one place while allowing app developers to build services without the need to concern themselves with building data storage.
The intention for this was to break down the data silos that have come about due as every company realises that the data they have on their customers is a resource they can make money with.
I like the idea a lot and I’m currently looking to build a basic app that will define a JSON-LD context and use that to read and write a list of information to a pod.
I’m hoping if that turns out to be relatively easy then I might be able to move that into the backlog for my app as this will help show our commitment to respecting data ownership.
