Codepope's Development Hell

I’m consolidating the code* sites and that means that there will, all going well, be no new posts here. Instead, I’m breaking in a new site at Codepope.dev1. There’s already a post up (with code) about the PyPortal. So, maybe see you there. It’s going to be a work in progress (no comments yet), but see you there - you can get in touch through Twitter (@codepope) if you want.

Cyntech do a word clock - an 8x8 array of neopixels, a set of acrylics to make a box and stencils for the words and space to fit in a pi zero or pi 2/3 inside. It’s been built here for a while and suffering from random light shows on the display and dropping the WiFi. Well the light shows were down The the fact that the neopixels work at 5v but the Pi data line is a beefy 3.

So in the background, I’ve been playing around with digital fireworks on various LED displays, mostly on the Raspberry Pi Zero with PS3 controllers and well that was going on with various levels of success and then I took a break from that approach. I noticed that I had an ESP32 Feather and a 3.5" Featherwing touch screen. What the heck, I said and a few hours later… So touch and out come the particles….

If you follow me on Twitter, then you’ll know that I’m in the process of leaving IBM who acquired Compose (who were MongoHQ) some years back. It was a super-fun ride, but things change and after a while you need to move on. And the best moving on is the moving on where you get to do something even more interesting… So, my next stop is, in a delightful circular fashion, MongoDB Inc where I’ll be hitting the buttons on keyboards in interesting ways to get them to exude the rich taste and delightful aroma of steeped and chilled content (mmm… brewed overnight, every night).

As is my way, I’ve been writing elsewhere for a living among other things and here’s the latest NewsBits I gathered up…. Java 11 arrives with long term support and warnings. Refactoring .then() added to Microsoft’s TypeScript. Ready for PostgreSQL11, PostGIS 2.5.0 released. Your own database Arnie: pg_terminator kills PostgreSQLconnections. Make SQLprettier with sqlfmt. Read about CrimsonDB’s adaptive key/values. Kubernetes gets a TLS bootstraping update. And Finally … How to scan a Rocket.

I’ve been doing my usual Friday news gathering for the day job and that means here is todays NewsBits…. Here’s what’s in it: Redis 5.0 gets a new release candidate and controversy. Updates for older MongoDB versions. A guide to analyzing slow MongoDB queries. Making MySQL’s shell shine. Google open up Dataset Search. Firefox 62 lands, as does the new ESR release. HTTP2 support no longer experimental in Node 10.10. VS Code gets a new Settings UI.

In the most recent NewsBits (NewsBits at Compose.com’s Articles) there’s some minor DB and driver updating, a DB that branches like git, a fresh Vault, what happens to SSDs when they meet database write loads, the new Go 1.11 (and 2 drafts) and… oh yeah who wants to see round corners? (Apologies for the lateness… I’ve been playing with MicroPython, CircuitPython, ESP32s, ESP8266s and a selection of tiny light emitting things….

As is my Friday wont, I wrote up NewsBits for Compose but then things move fast… since that was published Go 1.11 has landed… Really looking forward to using that in anger (good anger, not “damn computer” anger). (Today’s a HackWimbledon day and I’ll be there possibly assembling a RasPad and Featherwings….) Elasticsearch 6.4 now has an alias (type) and much more. There was a bit of controversy around Redis and licensing.

Here’s my regular Friday database and developer news from Compose: • PostgreSQL stable updates all round. • And there’s a new PostgreSQL 11 beta. • How well does PostgreSQL work with a GPU? • Redis 4.0.11 is all about timing. • While Redis 5.0 RC4 hardens its streams. • JanusGraph 0.3.0 edges the graph database forward. • A first update for MongoDB 4.0. • CouchDB 2.2 makes storage pluggable. • Google’s Dart 2 is stable and released.

There’s a super little Instructable on how to make a Literary clock using a Kindle. Well, I happened to have an old school original Kindle 3 about and dived it. Some observations…. The jailbreaking materials for the Kindle are functional but there’s so many images out there its easy to see why people can get confused. The USB/Wifi Networking hack is pretty good to work with when you’re doing USB only, but I wasn’t sold on Wifi configuration, so I stuck with USB and the joy of self-assigning IPs.