TheCodedWorld

I recently bought a book called  Fundamental 2D Game Programming Java  that I am reading/coding through. The fact that the example code is written in Java is nothing that should scare you away from this book. All concepts that are explained are generic for game programming and not specific to Java. Currently I am at chapter 4, time and space, and have learned how to keep movement speed intact independent on frame rate and now I am learning how to transform world space to screen space. It is interesting to learn some new concepts that are different from the coding I have done previously. If you want to look at the code I have a  repo available on GitHub . Currently there is an Eclipse project file available so it can be imported easily to Eclipse. I am however considering using IntelliJ instead.

I have been using some kind of sv_dvorak hybrid for the last year or so. The layout I have been using has all the shift+digit and alt-gr+digit combinations intact. This however means that characters often used when coding, like (), {}, and [] requires some really awkward positioning of the fingers to type. Therefore I have decided to go all in on the  Dvorak Simplified Keyboard . This layout is also included by default in Windows so no need to install any external programs or layouts when using a Windows computer (as I do at work). With this change I will have no use of looking at the keys on the keyboard. Maybe I should go for an all black, completely blank,  Das Keyboard Ultimate .

If you wish to create service based applications (microservices is the hype, right) using .NET I suggest taking a look at Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). Links can be found below. WCF is a .NET framework that makes it easy (relatively speaking) to build service based applications. It works well for sending both simple and very complex data between service endpoints that can be located both locally and remote. Take a look at the introduction to WCF presented here:  What is WCF And take the Getting Started Tutorial here:  Getting started tutorial Note that there are some minor errors in the tutorial text but I am sure you will be able to figure it out.

I have been using Windows on my main computer for some time now in order to be able to try out different C# stuff. However, despite Visual Studio being a real nice IDE I think Linux gives a better overall development experience. To still be able to try out different C# stuff I have switched to Linux and installed .NET core and the Visual Studio Code IDE. Of course .NET core lacks a lot of functionality available in the complete .NET framework and Visual Studio Code is much less powerfull than the full fledged version. Still so far it feels sufficient for the tests I am writing outside of working hours. And it feels good to be back in Linux :).

Did a hello world test with  RabbitMQ on .NET Core running under Linux. Must say it was really easy. Took no more than 15 minutes to set up the server, writing the code for the sender and the receiver and sending the first message between the applications. Now lets see if this is something that can be used for creating event driven microservices...

It seems like Microsoft is putting a lot of effort in getting .NET available for more platforms than Windows. The release of  .NET core  made some basic .NET functionality available on both Mac and Linux and the upcoming release will add quite a lot more functionality to the core packages. Now, in order to develop in .NET you might want a good IDE. Latest news is that Microsoft releases  Visual Studio for Mac . Currently available as downloadable preview. In the future this might be a better alternative than running Visual Studio inside Windows on a Virtual Machine running on Mac that I've seen some developers are currently doing.

In their latest development release of Windows 10 Microsoft has gone to great lengths to replace the well known command prompt with Powershell. Start -> Run -> "cmd" will start Powershell, shift + right-click in Explorer and selecting to open a command window will also start Powershell. If you are a Windows developer, this is a good time to start getting to know the Powershell. Check out this link  Getting started with Windows Powershell .