Using a debugger has been a core part of my workflow ever since I started life as a professional software developer three-and-a-half years ago. However, until very recently, I never really understood the internal mechanics of debugging, and this meant that when debugging the debugging process itself, I was often unable to reason about the […]
Category: Software Development
The Great Migration
The other day I launched my very first AWS EC2 instance and migrated this website, and a couple of web apps, onto it. It was a long time coming – the annual cost of web hosting with Bluehost has increased from a discounted £51.72 in 2021 to £118.30 in 2023, while my Soccer Simulation app […]
LexiDeck: Enhancing the Anki Experience with Automated Flashcard Creation
My memory is notoriously terrible, and I’ve devoted a lot of energy over the years to compensating for that fact. Way back in the day this meant getting to grips with a clunky application called SuperMemo, built around a fascinating spaced repetition algorithm that promised long-term knowledge retention. I later discovered the flashcard software Anki, […]
How ChatGPT’s New “GPTs” Feature Can Help You Develop Software
OpenAI’s Dev Day took place on November 6th and it’s fair to say there was a lot of hype leading up to the event. Nowhere was this more palpable than the hive of optimism that is the subreddit r/Singularity, which I am slightly ashamed to admit that I follow avidly. Confident predictions of an AGI […]
Learn Español with the GPT-3.5 API
I’ve been using ChatGPT on a daily basis ever since last December, but it was only the other day that I actually got round to having a play around with the OpenAI API for the first time. It was an interesting experience that culminated in the production of a useful little language-learning app, that I […]
My First ChatGPT-Assisted App and the Future of Software Development
ChatGPT is an absolutely incredible tool and if you’re not already using it, you should be. You really should. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you do for a living – it’s so versatile that it can turn its hand to pretty much anything you want it to do. Among many other things, […]
Anagramageddon – Fight for Territory and Find Anagrams as You Battle Against the Clock!
I’ve created a new word game called Anagramageddon, played on a single computer by between two and four players. In a nutshell it involves users taking it in turns to (A) select a letter and (B) enter a word that can be formed from all of their letters. It’s a competitive game, and the time […]
Using React to build a Wordle tracker
Even if nobody else in the world played Wordle but me, I’m sure I’d still enjoy it well enough. However, there’s little doubting that one of the major appeals of the game is how easy it is to compare your own performance against others. It’s why the most common WhatsApp message sent between myself and […]
6 Talking Points from Pawnfork
The other day I published my latest app – a little desktop-based number whose aim it is to make memorising chess openings as easy as falling off a log (this is apparently a real idiom). It’s called Pawnfork, and you can download it here. Of course, it’s not every day that I fire out a […]
Optimise Your Chess Opening Play With the Help of My New App
I have created a simple new desktop app for memorising chess openings, and called it Pawnfork. There’s not too much to say about the app from the perspective of a user that I don’t say in my introductory video, which you can find above, but of course there is plenty to say about the development […]