andyvanee

The pattern you already use MVC has long been the defacto standard for building web and desktop applications. There are many variations on the theme, but I think the acronym is missing one component that is already an important part of any MVC application… ...

Finder makes it a bit difficult to get the full path to a file; like when you’re pasting it into config files or Terminal. So here’s a little script that makes it this easy: Browse in Finder, right click a file or folder and choose ‘Copy Path to Clipboard’. ...

This past weekend my co-worker, Jon, and I participated in the Global Day of Code Retreat, an event that focuses on two things: Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Pair Programming. Neither of which are exactly new to me, but in my day-to-day work there are only a handful of projects that use TDD, and we basically never do pair-programming. We collaborate, but never really in front of the same computer for any length of time. ...

Well, today was my last day at Guru Digital Arts College. It’s been an amazing six months! I had a great feeling about the school from the day I walked in for a tour, and they didn’t disappoint. ...

Small, single-purpose utility applications have a long lineage in computing history. They are the cornerstone of the UNIX philosophy, and are rampant on mobile platforms. They are the small building blocks in a larger task. These are apps that scratch an itch. They do things that could be done in another way, but with less time and effort. ...

As a sideline to one of my bigger projects, I decided to build a little webapp that would search Twitter for a hashtag. Fairly basic, but it’s got a few interesting little features: ...

I keep discovering new uses for Automator. I’m not sure when the “Services” option became available, but it’s worth checking out. I had previously wrote a text-to-markdown action, which converted the clipboard contents from markdown to HTML. This was convenient, but it involved copying, running the app and then pasting. The script did this: pbpaste | Markdown.pl | pbcopy ...

I am a Quartz Composer junky. I love tinkering with ideas and hacking together logic gates within this kind of visual programming environment. I think this it’s the best way to teach core CS techniques that are often obscured in text-based code. Things like logic gates, the value of modularity, and application structure start to really make sense when you lay them out visually. It’s like a UML diagram that functions and evaluates in real-time. ...

I’m a command-line guy at heart when it comes to programming. It seems much more organic to know what every project file is doing and how each one contributes to the whole. Which files might break things, which files are optional and which files can be refactored or optimized. ...