#apptober

Hey, so uhh I kinda fell off of Apptober. This whole pandemic is a huge blow to motivation for a lot of people, myself included. I’ve been on work-from-home orders since March 2020 and have orders to do so until at least June 2021. I’m happy to stay home for the safety of others, but I am also a very extroverted person and not having that social component has been very difficult. As a result, I’ve been struggling with a lot of things and motivation to do a coding project was part of that.

With that out of the way, I wanted to share something cool I wrote. Halloween is coming up and I wanted to do something that would allow the kids that are still gonna go trick-or-treating to get the candy they want but be safe with regards to the pandemic. My plan was to package a few pieces of candy in a little baggy and have the baggies spread out so the kids could just come up and grab one. No need to worry about digging through a bucket of candy every other kid has put their hands in.

So I went out and bought two of the big bags of variety candy. I guess I kind of expected those bags to be pretty uniformly distributed, but I was wrong. One bag had 100 Snickers and only 18 Starburst. I had 50 bags and about 350 pieces of candy. The challenge was spreading the candy out evenly in a way that no bag gets too little candy, too much candy, or too many/few of one type of candy.

Greetings to my fellow Software engineers, programmers, script kiddies and code monkeys! It's that time of year again when we write code for fun, and post about it every day for fake internet points! I have been AFK for most of this year due to *vaguely gestures at everything*, and Apptober is the perfect time to get back into personal projects.

When I first started programming, I wanted to put together a collection of tools, scripts, and libraries that were useful for programmers. Kind of like Batman's utility belt, for for solving common computer tasks. Unfortunately, when I was just starting out I had no idea what kinds of things would be useful, and most of the things I thought of could actually be solved using existing tools that I just needed to learn (grep, find, nc, etc).

Now that I have been writing software professionally for several years, I have come up with a handful of tasks that I hate having to do, and would like to automate. So my Apptober goal is to finally start my Programmer Utility Belt, and add a couple of useful tools to it. I'll be posting all of the code on Github as I go, with summaries of my designs, thoughts, and process here on Tumblr.

Working on a coding project and posting about about it every day for a month is a huge challenge in a normal year, but considering how exhausting 2020 has been, I’m feeling in the mood for a softer, chiller version of Apptober this year.

So for those of you who are feeling that creative autumn maker’s vibe, but are too burnt out to commit to a month-long coding project, I invite you to participate in:

Cozy Apptober

Instead of trying to finish a whole coding project and posting about it everyday as in Apptobers past, try one of these bite-sized options (and tag @apptober please, we wanna hear about it!):

Take a moment to appreciate your past coding projects; implement one of those small TODOs or features that you never got around to the first time, or post a screenshot or two, or write about your fav part

Write a post or two about the kind of coding projects that fill you with joy. Do you love javascript development? Want to make games with Unity? Is there something you’re looking forward to building some day?

Choose a project that interests you and do some research on it, then liveblog post about what you find.

post a pic of your rubber duck debugging buddy

As always, happy coding!

WHELP I don’t know why I expected October to go differently than the rest of this year but I’m still somehow shocked at how much I did NOT get to. My poor Apptober project may not have gotten the love it deserved this year, but sometimes that’s just how the raspberryPi crumbles.

RTL-SDR: Tinkering With Radio Waves

On the upside I did enjoy my brief dive into the research-hole of learning about Software Defined Radio. AdaFruit especially has some excellent resources that are very accessible to beginners:

Getting Started with RTL-SDR and SDR-Sharp and CubicSDR

Build a radio scanner from a RaspberryPi

I don’t know why tuning into radio stations using software is so much fun considering you can get a handheld radio scanner pretty much anywhere... but somehow it is.

And Now: Sleep

So that’s it, a happy little research project for this year’s Littlest Apptober.

Like Inktober and NaNoWriMo, Apptober is a 30-day* coding challenge where you pick a project and try to work on it every day for the month of October (and post about it in the #Apptober tag!). Basically it’s a month-long hackathon where you work alongside other Apptoblrs in spirit as we all spend the month trying to make as much progress on our apps as we can. It’s great practice for writing about our projects and getting them out there, and it’s really fun seeing all the things people create!

What counts as a Project?

Literally anything coding (or just tech) related. Pick something you’re interested in learning and commit to making something with it!

Some Project Idea Examples:

Want to get better with the command line? Try learning a new CLI tool every day and post about it.

Love smartphones? Try creating an iOS or Android app.

Into Games? Create one using Unity, Unreal Engine, or in your browser.

Love JavaScript and web apps? Go tell the World Hello using React, VueJS, NodeJS, or make your own framework altogether.

Are you an Overwhelmed CompSci student or studyblr? Post about your assignments and course progress for the next month and enjoy the cathartic release of knowing everyone else is overwhelmed and getting SEGFAULTs too.

What if I Can’t Manage a Whole Month?

That’s ok, any and all participation is awesome! We prioritize self-care and progress-over-perfection here, so just do your best (who knows you might surprise yourself, I definitely did).

The ONE Hard-Coded Rule: Be Kind

It’s hard enough to create something and put it out there, so let’s all do our best to make the #Apptober tag a pleasant, supportive place. Big no-nos include: NO ridiculing people for being beginners or for not knowing something, NO gate-keeping (telling people they aren’t worthy or shouldn’t try a subject/space), NO tearing people down for their choices of programming language/project/IDE/editor/tech stack/etc, NO being condescending or needlessly pedantic

In Summary:

DO offer your supportive likes, comments, and kindly-delivered constructive criticism (when asked for!) to your fellow programming enthusiasts to help keep them going!

DON’T do/say things that would disappoint Mr Rogers.

Want A Reminder?

If you’re interested to try Apptober and want a reminder before it begins let me know in a comment/reblog/message along with the blog url you want to post under and I’ll @ you on a Night Before Apptober preparation post :)

#03-04 of APPTOBER

Though I've managed to finish the lecture yesterday, I was so anxious about a test that I couldn't manage to type up anything comprehensible. Today hasn't been much better, but I still ended up wanting to take a look at the problem set.

As seen in the picture attached, the very first task was to write code that just says 'hello, world' in c. I've typed those lines so many times before, so it's kind of nostalgic to see them again, really. ( Though it's also kind of awkward, considering that I usually stopped coding again rather quickly afterwards, ha... )

So I rushed through the first assignment, kind of relieved that it wasn't hard, and clicked on the next one. Well.. ^^

I may or may not be stuck there. Perhaps it's just due to stress, but I literally cannot comprehend where to start. ( and there goes my confidence :p ) My mind has pretty much gone blank at the sight of it, but I'll think it over and try again later today. Maube I'm just reading it wrong?