---
title: "Good Stuff #3"
date: "2020-03-11"
series:
  - good stuff
---

Been a while since I posted, and I figured a [Good Stuff](/series/good-stuff) post should fit the bill.

### F&#35;

I've recently fallen in love with F#[^1]!
It has a ton of things I really like in other functional languages like Elixir[^2], ReasonML[^3]/OCaml[^3], and Haskell[^5], but it has an awesome interop story for .NET stuff.
For example, the Godot game engine[^6] has mono support, but it's an imperative/object-oriented API.
Luckily, though, you can write ~95% of your code in F#.
With just a few clicks in your IDE you can get Godot's .NET API code completion while writing F# code and Godot can consume the things you made in F# to run in the engine.
Awesome stuff!

### Star Wars Tabletop RPG

I've recently started playing in a Star Wars TTRPG campaign!
It's a once-a-month ordeal and I've only played once so far, but getting to be a PC this time around has been a blast!
The mechanics of the system are also pretty neat compared to D&D 5e.
The dice system, while a bit cumbersome, allows a lot more storytelling than just rolling a d20.
Character backstory and experience spending is also much better, in my opinion, than 5e.
I highly recommend picking up one of the core rulebooks (Edge of the Empire, Force and Destiny, and Age of Rebellion) and trying it out!

### Guildship

For maybe three or so years now I've been toying around with an idea.
Essentially, it's like Discord, but a more async version that you would use _alongside_ Discord for your gaming community.
You get things like a forum, a calendar, a wiki, a blog, and a bunch of integrations to other services like Discord, Twitch, Mixer, etc.
Think of it like Facebook Groups, but gaming focused.
I recently have taken to just going through and start building it, so I'm pretty excited to see if I can actually launch this thing!
You can follow along with development here: https://github.com/Guildship/guildship

[^1]: https://fsharp.org/
[^2]: https://elixir-lang.org/
[^3]: https://reasonml.github.io/
[^4]: https://ocaml.org/
[^5]: https://www.haskell.org/
[^6]: https://godotengine.org/


Good Stuff #3

---
title: "Good Stuff #2"
date: "2019-07-01"
series:
  - good stuff
---

I'm liking where this [good stuff](/series/good-stuff) series of posts is going,
so I'm going to continue it with some stuff that's happened since last time!

### Chernobyl

#### SPOILERS AHEAD. You have been warned.

Chernobyl has finished its mini-series, and boy oh boy was it good!
I really love how during the climax of the episode it reveals what went on _right_ before the explosion.
In the first episode we only got to see the control room right _after_ the explosion happened,
so we didn't get to see what kind of pressures the operators were working with to actually cause it.

It reminds me of a great developer talk about a similar event at Three Mile Island[^0]

<YouTube videoId="1xQeXOz0Ncs" />

### WWDC

Apple's World-Wide Developer Conference come and gone.
With it, they always introduce some really neat and interesting things, and this year was no different.

#### Sign In with Apple[^2]

Apple is introducing a "Sign In with Apple" authentication framework.
At first glance it doesn't really look that innovative,
but users now have the option to generate random email addresses that forward to their real address.
Obviously, this does wonders for user privacy and I'm _really_ considering making use of my Apple email now 😅.

#### SwiftUI[^3]

This is probably my favorite announcement of the entire thing.
If you're familiar with React or Flutter, then you know about declarative UI frameworks.
SwiftUI is Apple's go at it, with the intention on providing a UI framework with an API
that is cross-platform. A `List` view has the same API across all Apple platforms.

### LiveScript[^4]

Y'all...
I'm having fun writing JavaScript again...
Sort of.

Back in the day, way before ES6/ES2015[^5] was released,
there was a language called CoffeeScript[^6], I used it and it was awesome.
It had so many things that JavaScript didn't have at the time!
Template strings, arrow functions (with implicit returns!), classes,
destructuring, and a lot more!
It also has a syntax that is _so minimal_ and fun to write in!
But, all good things must come to an end, and CoffeeScript's community pretty much
ended using CoffeeScript in production once ES2015 released with a lot of the niceness
that CoffeeScript once provided.

Just the other day I was reading through the ECMAScript Pipeline Operator Proposal[^7].
I was looking at the other languages that had the operator and saw one called LiveScript.
After looking at the documentation...
I was hooked!

```livescript
require! {
  react: {use-state}
  'react-dom': ReactDOM
  '@emotion/styled': styled
  'ls-react': {$, h, button, h1, p}
  'lodash/fp': {get}
}

StyledButton = styled.button ->
  background-color: get 'theme.colors.primary'
  color: \white

App = ({ title }) ->
  [count, set-count] = use-state 0
  increment = -> set-count count + 1

  $ (
    h1 class-name: 'heading', title
    p {} "Count is: #{count}"
    h StyledButton, on-click: increment, '+'
  )

ReactDOM.render(
  h App, title: 'Yo!'
  document.getElementById "root"
)
```

I'm probably not switching over from ReasonML anytime soon,
but this hits that spot where I just want some JS to prototype with,
but I also don't want to write in the C-like syntax that JavaScript has.

I have a lot more to say on the the topic and will probably write a post on it,
but holy man am I excited to use this 😀!

### Dungeon Mastering

I run a once 4-player, now 3-player D&D campaign.
This is my first time ever playing or being a dungeon master.
Recently, a player told me he's going to have to stop playing for what most likely is forever.

It's been really fun coming up with ways to play how it'll all work out.
If it's pretty much for-sure forever, maybe their character dies offscreen?
Maybe he stays in the town because he found his calling there,
but there's a cannibalistic underground cult that is trying to lure him in
to kill him and eat him?
Maybe there's a revolution spinning up in the towns outside of the big city
and he realizes this and tells his former adventuring friends?

So many possibilities!

### More Good Stuff

- Elixir 1.9 Release! Releases support! https://elixir-lang.org/blog/2019/06/24/elixir-v1-9-0-released/
- I've had this coffee maker over a year and it's been the best \$60 I've ever spent.
  I'm no coffee snob—I just brew some drip coffee every morning and I like it hot and brewed quickly.
  If you're like me, maybe you should give it a look yourself. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0037ZG3DS
- This was a fun test! I got a 73% http://vocabulary.ugent.be/

[^1]: Three Mile Island Accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
[^2]: Sign in With Apple https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/
[^3]: SwiftUI https://developer.apple.com/xcode/swiftui/
[^4]: LiveScript https://livescript.net
[^5]: ES6 Features https://github.com/lukehoban/es6features
[^6]: CoffeeScript https://coffeescript.org/
[^7]: The Pipeline Operator https://github.com/tc39/proposal-pipeline-operator


Good Stuff #2

---
title: "Good Stuff #1"
date: "2019-06-02"
series:
  - good stuff
---

### Google Cloud went down today

Google Cloud[^1] [went down today](https://status.cloud.google.com/incident/compute/19003).
Funnily enough, it affected this tiny little site while developing it.
Fortunately it wasn't too long before it was back and running like new.
Maybe Google should invest in some fault-tolerant systems 😜

### Stevie Nicks had a birthday

In honor of Stevie Nicks' birthday (May 26), I present you with an amazing live rendition of an amazing song by Fleetwood Mac:

<YouTube videoId="zuTzAha1t80" />

### There is a Spotify playlist of local Louisvillian musicians

[A fellow Louisville-based Redditor shared a playlist](https://www.reddit.com/r/Louisville/comments/bv84ss/louisville_now_a_spotify_playlist_featuring) of some active Louisville musicians. Give it a listen-over.

<SpotifyPlayer uri="https://open.spotify.com/user/1220341945/playlist/1CmT2rhMarKGgWF4FPmYH4?si=IiKxJ38WR_ymDPby6-iInA" />

### Game of Thrones ended

I've been watching the show as-it-aired since the second season, which was a little over 7 years ago.
I'm not going to get into my opinion of the show (for now), but I will leave you all with a few shows to watch that I believe are on-par or better than GoT in terms of entertainment value:

1. Avatar: The Last Airbender
1. The Expanse
1. True Detective
1. Veep
1. Bob's Burgers

Chernobyl is also a very interesting show, but it's more of a fake documentary kinda deal.

### Joe Armstrong[^2] has passed

Goodbye, Joe 😢

<YouTube videoId="xrIjfIjssLE" />

### More good stuff

- [Twin Limb - Long Shadow](https://open.spotify.com/track/6Zx2CDGEUxo7IDaXA3OFub) - A really good song from one of my favorite local bands.
- [Star Wars Movie Based On Knights Of The Old Republic Reportedly In The Works](https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/05/23/star-wars-movie-based-on-knights-of-the-old-republic-reportedly-in-the-works) - There is rumor of a Knights of the Old Republic movie trilogy. I'm very excited!
- [Floating point math](https://0.30000000000000004.com) - One can never read too much on the fun that is flointing point mathematics.

[^1]: https://cloud.google.com/
[^2]: https://w.wiki/4Yo


Series: good-stuff