Design, Development & Productivity Notes

Hello, I'm Patrick!
These are my public notes. Please, let me know if you have any questions. (pictured: Lucas the greyhound.)

Getting RKLogConfigureByName working in RubyMotion

Just a quick note, I was getting an undefined constant error for RKLogConfigureByName, the standard way of setting up logging in RestKit. It seems that the #define statements in the /vendor/Pods/RestKit/Code/Support/RKLog.h file are not getting picked up. I am using the pod and loading with RubyMotion pod support, so I am not sure what the issue is. I will need to investigate further but this quick workaround works, just call the lower-level method mapped via the #define. [Read More]

nvALT and Emacs

In a previous post wiki-searchable-notes I mentioned that I was using nvALT for note taking. nvALT is a very simple way to create and search notes and store them in flat files that can be used by other tools. One use is publishing to a github wiki, today I will discuss another. I am an Emacs user and often found myself dropping out of Emacs to find a note I needed in nvALT. [Read More]
Emacs 

Emacs Experimental Hyper-Key Mappings

In a previous post Remapping My Caps Lock Key I mentioned that I remapped my caps-lock key to escape, but also created a "hyper-key" (ctrl-shift-cmd-opt) when the caps-lock key is held down. This opens up a keyboard worth of new shortcuts for emacs. Here are a few I have been playing with for the past few days. An alternative key mapping would be to map the hyper key to holding down the tab key, if you already have the caps lock key mapped to control, and thus muscle memory might preclude this mapping from working for you. [Read More]
emacs  macOS 

Trying out Pixate - CSS for iOS app Development

Recently I have been using RubyMotion for iOS development; I really appreciate developing in Ruby, and prefer Emacs to Xcode. Compared to using interface builder, styling apps can be a challenge. It is possible to use RubyMotion with XIB files created in Xcode's Interface Builder, but I have been trying to avoid this. I am striving for a more web-app like design and development workflow. I have been using teacup, which takes a declarative approach to styling and uses a CSS-like DSL. [Read More]

The Three C's

I really enjoyed this interview with Tony Fadell on the unique nature of Apple's design process. The discussion about project abandonment percentages is incredibly important, and often overlooked in large companies. In many cases abandonment is a financial decision related to either real or opportunity costs associated with launching a product. People who have never worked for a large consumer products company likely have no idea how many products are cancelled just before launch because of the incredible cost in launching a product into the market. [Read More]
design 

Parsing a simple markdown style list in Ragel

In an earlier post Simple state machine example, I provided an example of using the Ruby state_machine gem to create a state machine for handling a simple list of tasks. In this post I will provide a similar but not exactly compatible description of building a parser to read lists from a text file. In this example I use the markdown syntax for lists, where items can be placed hierarchically, thus removing the need for a separate " [Read More]

Pattern problems vs logic problems

Suppose three men can paint three fences in three hours. How long would it take one man to paint one fence? I ran across this interesting problem in The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity, a very accessible and interesting tour of mathematics. It turns out most people quickly answer “one hour.” As Strogatz opines, The words themselves nudge you that way. [Read More]
books 

Creativity Booster: Get a dog.

It probably sounds specious, but I have found having a dog around has made me both more productive and more creative. The evidence for this claim is the number of daily messages I post to our team message board that start with the phrase "While I was out walking the dog I had this idea...."

This is my muse, Archer, the retired racing greyhound.

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Rubymotion iOS Applications

I wanted to make a quick note that I have been using RubyMotion the past few months. I don't mind building natively in Objective-C but since I have been coding both the app and the server side I found switching between Objective-C and Ruby a bit frustrating. I really find Objective-C to be too verbose a syntax for my taste. I also prefer to code in emacs vs. the Xcode UI. [Read More]