my name is Leon.

secretGeek.net | TimeSnapper.com | NimbleText.com

Topic:
coding on the bus.

I write code on the bus every day.

the chubby guy getting on the bus is *not* me though people have been kind enough to put out that he looks like me. cheers.

I get 10 - 20 mins each way,
most days of the week.

Don't try to be a hero

This guy is trying to be optimus prime. But he's over reaching.

here's the computer I use

it's a HP-mini with lots of stickers on it. i got the HP as an attendee at Tech Ed australia 2009.

With support crew

If your workplace
was like a bus:
everyone would quit.

here's what I've produced,
on the bus,
in the last year:

SQLike | jsLinq | jSinq | jLinq | jimmyLinq

+ also (in recent days)

this slide deck presenter (higgins)

a csv to json app

'OnTask'

various TiddlyWiki hacks

a bit of other stuff off the bus: zo, fuv, some timesnapper updates (though not enough), sysi, fracback, a few upgrades to nextaction and many unpublished works including Nextaction-berzerker.

Toxic Environment => Max Productivity

Why?

To me, this is kind of amazing.

a terrible development environment has become something very productive.

Any lessons?

Further optimizations?

So I want to go through what I've done here, to see if there's some kind of general lessons we can take away.

And I'm keen to hear any further optimizations you can give me.

Developing on the bus has a lot of limitations...

No internet
Work in 20 min bursts
No time to "restart"

Netbook has:

Tiny monitor
Dodgy "trackpad"
Cramped keyboard
No Visual Studio
No MS Office

Bus is:

Noisy
Public
Bumpy

Limits increase creativity.

Every problem has either been overcome or turned into an advantage.

Biggest Problem === Biggest Advantage

No Internet.

A good thing or a bad thing?

Lesson#1

No internet is a good thing.

Distractions kill productivity.

Q: What is the internet good for anyway?

A: Answering questions.

Q: What is the internet good for anyway?

A: Answering questions.

1. Aim to have less questions.

Q: What is the internet good for anyway?

A: Answering questions.

1. Aim to have less questions.

...(more on this later)

Q: What is the internet good for anyway?

A: Answering questions.

1. Aim to have less questions.

2. Get offline resources.

example

JQuery Api for offline browsing

The point here is that a good reference can save you time -- but even still it takes time and clicks and waiting to get to the bit you want. You could waste a whole bus stop on a thing like this.

Lesson#2

Ruthless devotion to simplicity.

Taking on a few dependencies is a slippery slope.

less moving parts. less abstractions. less dependencies.

All Abstractions leak.

Use less of them.

ASP.Net web forms:

Abstraction built far up above Html/Http.

ASP.Net MVC

Still leaks! But closer to the real thing.

(so less 'jarring' when it does)

SQL

Abstraction over ISAM (?)

Rarely leaks.

SQL

Even it leaks into lower abstractions...

You can't remain ignorant of indexes.

You can't remain ignorant of locks.

Example of ruthless simplicity:

Database:

License management for TimeSnapper

Database:

License management for TimeSnapper: 5 tables

                                        Customer 
                                          has
Licensetype has Licensedproduct has Customerpurchase has Purchasedlicense

ASCII ERD FTW!

Database example:

License management for NimbleText: 3 tables

                                          
                    Products has Purchases has ActivationAttempts

even here -- i could cut it down to 2 tables. Why bother having a 'products' table when the whole system is set up for selling just one product? That's classic over-engineering.

If a 5 table system can be simplified down to 2 or 3 tables:

Have far could we simplifiy the 500+ table systems we deal with in our jobs?

Love jquery, but when possible I just use:

The poor man's jquery.

The poor man's jquery:


function $(ID) {
  return document.getElementById(ID);
}

javascript: only use 'the good parts'

javascript: there are more bad parts than good parts

javascript: only use 'the good parts'

+ eval.

javascript: only use 'the good parts'

+ eval.

"eval is evil?"

javascript: only use 'the good parts'

+ eval.

"eval is ~~evil?~~"
Awesome!

Crowd interjection by Andrew Harcourt at this point steered me towards:
new Function("alert('Hello, world!');")();

demo: unit testing 'framework' built into nimbleText

.debug { display: none; }

		
		show it... then change it to block.
		now there is a little cheaty area at the foot of the page.
		there's a button for 'run unit tests'
		i click it -- it runs, and hopefully it turns green.
		each test is output.
		the tests themselves are 'data-driven' -- as that's the kind of app I'm using.
		
		if i think of, or hear of a situation that doesn't work -- i put the input in, run it and change the output to be what i want
		then i extract a new test.
		then show how i extract a new test.

Problem:

No Visual Studio

Work arounds...

Learn to build an assembly from scratch.

static class App
{
  static void Main() 
  {
    System.Console.WriteLine("Hello world.");
  }
}

...\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe sample.cs

Use msbuild (from notepad++) to compile projects

http://secretgeek.net/NoVS.asp

Use msbuild (from notepad++) to compile projects

http://secretgeek.net/NoVS.asp

view batch file here

Vaporators? Sir, my first job was
programming binary loadlifters-very
similar to your vaporators in most
respects.

ideal project size for bus development:

1 file.

ideal project size for bus development:

1 file.

All javascript. html. css.

Lesson#3

Love your tools, libraries and snippets.

Stock the pantry:

Stock the pantry:

Keep all your favorite pieces of code handy.

Stock the pantry:

Keep all your favorite pieces of code handy.

Have all your favorite little tools handy.

Stock the pantry:

Keep all your favorite pieces of code handy.

Have all your favorite little tools handy.

Keep your documentation handy.

favorite pieces of code...

function $(ID) {
  return document.getElementById(ID);
}

using Mono.Options; // Beautiful Console argument parsing!
                    // As used in NimbleText
...
var p = new OptionSet() {
    { "d|rawdata=",         "the raw input data", v => settings.InputData = v},
    { "p|pattern=",         "the pattern", v => settings.InputPattern = v},
    { "i|inputdatafile=",   "a filename for loading the input data", v => settings.InputDataFile = v},
    { "s|pipeline",         "Stream input data via the pipeline", v => settings.Pipeline = v != null},
    { "f|patternfile=",     "a filename for loading a pattern", v => settings.InputPatternFile = v},
    { "r|rowdelim=",        "the row delimiter", v => settings.RowDelimiter = v},
    { "c|coldelim=",        "the column delimiter", v => settings.ColumnDelimiter = v},
    { "o|outputfile=",      "a filename to store the results", v => settings.ResultsFile = v},
    { "g|gui",              "show the Graphical User Interface", v => show_gui = v != null}, 
    { "?|h|help",           "show this message and exit", v => show_help = v != null },
};

try
{
    unprocessedArgs = p.Parse(args);
}...

favorite tools:

Pick your favorites.

Know them well.

Connect to wireless at home.

Synch over ~~LiveMesh~~ DropBox.

favorite tools:

... favorite version control system -- Wait!

Sidebar: is a VCS necessary for single person projects?

VCS as backup system: