Monthly Archives: January 2014

Getting started with HaxeFlixel

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This is just another haxelib if we consider the installation process. Quite straightforward in that regard.

haxelib install flixel

Well, that does not end there. With it comes some supporting libraries and they are mandatory to install. These are as below,

flixel-tools
flixel-templates
flixel-demos
flixel-addons

With those installed, one is good to go with haxeFlixel.
The first thing to do is setup the environment. For that simply run the command as

haxelib run flixel-tools setup

Now, if you just run

haxelib run flixel-tools

that will display the options available for this command.
Once setup is done, the command “flixel” can directly be invoked, though the full command is also available as “haxelib run flixel-tools” . While its suggested that one use the shortest command, I personally feel to use the long one.

Now if at all one needs help, just type help before the command as below

haxelib run flixel-tools help template

Well, next is to create some sample projects. Those would be done with the command

haxelib run flixel-tools create

Once run, the command prompt will ask you which demo to create, just put in the number, which ever you want and that will be created.

Finally to create a new project, the command is

haxelib run flixel-tools template -n "HelloProject"

That will create a new HaxeFlixel project.

Happy Coding.

Phonegap is not ready yet.

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This may sound like not true, but actually Phonegap(Cordova) is not ready yet for the prime-time. The point is something or the other will always get in your way if you try to do a little more than basic UI.
It’s a pity to see that Phonegap has reached a version number of 3.3, still feels uncomfortable to work with.
While for a basic static page navigation it may be a solution to go for, for mobile, but think twice if the UI is becoming even a little more than basic.

A simple childbrowser (inAppBrowser) is failing in the current version and I found people are finding workarounds or solutions to fix this. So the point is not that its fixable but its not dependable.
Again, from version 3.0.0 on-wards, one need to have an internet connection to start building! Well, its NPM and NodeJS, I know, but its not comfortable at all rather confusing.

The best Phonegap version as I know is 2.8.0. Its the stable of all.
If at all you are trying to develop on Phonegap, stick to this version(2.8.0) until they release a stable version again.

Happy coding.

Internet will change again

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If you remember those days, when one has to wait for an email to open, then for sure you know that its changed now. Not only fast internet, but the central delivery system, has changed from one server to cloud servers. And that is perfect for the problem in hand. Now all the data is residing in someone’s server(ok, cloud server). In the beginning, it felt perfect as it syncs to all the devices and one seamless experience for the user. With this, comes the security breach and that has already showed its effect in last year.
Fortunately, world is a better place. Individuals and startups have already acted upon this. There are so many cool products and services being tried last year that we may start to see the fruits starting from this year.
The philosophy has changed from “mobile first app” to “offline first app”, from “connected app” to “noBackend app”, its a revolution again.
The very chances are the experience may remain the same for the user, but the underlaying data and functionality of the applications are going to change again as it changed first from single server to cloud servers, now it would be single again, but only for your own data (So, it would be Re-Decentralizing).

redecentralize : taking back the net

Well, exciting beginning for the year. Below is the list of, some of the many initiatives, which will change the internet again.

arkos.io : Your data, your rules.
sovereign : build and maintain your own personal cloud
Ansible : Ansible is the simplest way to automate IT.
mailpile : A modern, fast web-mail client
Lima : Lima unifies the memory of your devices so they can act as one. Just for you.
owncloud : self-controlled free and open source cloud.
cozycloud : your personal cloud
Cozy: A personal Cloud you can host, hack and delete

Redecentralize ยท taking back the net

offlinefirst
nobackend

Backendless
deployd, THE SIMPLEST WAY TO BUILD AN API.
Firebase
Hoodie, VERY FAST WEB APP DEVELOPMENT
Kinvey
Parse
remotestorage, An open protocol for per-user storage
sockethub
unhosted : freedom from web 2.0′s monopoly platforms

This interview with Mailpile founder seems a nice start if you are wondering whats coming in near future.

Happy new year,
Cheers

Hello 2014

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Happy new year 2014.

Wishing all you a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Its one of those times, when one looks back before moving towards future.
Well 2013,the year that was.

It started with shifting gears officially for me. Working partly with Javascript for a long time now, but this time its official and officially I started working on Javascript projects in my current organisation. So a full year of Javascript and everything Javascript. Yeah, a lot ground covered. So the Javascript based, Phonegap (cordova) was for me in the beginning, officially for a project for iOS and finally got approved and available in AppStore. There was a time when Phonegap based plugin for Push Notification did not work on iOS, so updated the Phonegap Push Notification Plugin for iOS and push it to Github. And to my surprise, people actually forked it and made it better ! Awesome experience to give back, learn and grow.
On my personal work, added my phonegap based Mobile projects in GooglePlay store for Android.

Apart from mobile and Phonegap, for browser based application, I used NodeJS, MongoDB and BackboneJS. Learnt how to host in Heroku and Github for NodeJS based applications. Well, on serverside frameworks, I picked up Express for NodeJS and an application is pushed to Heroku.

At one point, I was evaluating Dart-lang, CoffeeScript and TypeScript for projects. So a lot of learning there and made simple projects with Dart-lang. Its a sweet language, I must say.

On BDD, I used Jasmine for my application. For build process, I started using GruntJS. The complete Javascript based environments kept me busy learning and at the same time gave me a lot of happiness and excitement in doing so.

On later part of the year 2013, I was mentoring a fellow developer in iOS for a native ObjectiveC based iOS project. I am so happy to see his progress and that made me confident that I can do more than just doing ObjectiveC projects.

Personally, I was working on HAXE and LIME (OpenFL) all through out the year. That made me push my app to Tizen AppStore appart from iOS AppStore and Google PlayStore. It is such a nice experience to make cross-platform development fun.

I put together all my project links at one page to refer.

2013 was another eventful year for me, I got the sweet gift of my life. Me and wife are blessed with a baby boy “Dibyamshu”.

So this year, 2014 starts with a bang. While all these technologies maturing and me having real experience on these, it feels a lot is possible. On the other side, I really hope that 2014 would be the beginning of the playful years to come, making me busy with Dibyamshu.

Cheers.