Category Archives: tech

06 Jul
2020

Add a Screenshot Button to Streamdeck with Golang

I'm the proud owner of a Streamdeck XL but as an Ubuntu user, the tool support isn't great. There's a Python library that gives a bit of a GUI but I found it hard to use and I'd have needed to put each piece of functionality as a commandline script that this program could call. Instead, I am using go-streamdeck to create a custom application - and I'm having fun! Today's example adds a single button that runs a command to take a screenshot. Continue reading →
25 Jun
2020

Accessing Nested Config with Viper

I'm writing a Go application that glues together a bunch of other things, so it has a whole bunch of basically unrelated config, dumped in a yaml file. I was struggling a little with this non-standard use of Viper but actually, it does everything I needed. And, presumaby, more besides. I thought I would put some examples here to show how to handle this. Continue reading →
15 Jun
2020

Use a Local Version of a Library in Go

I have a couple of projects in Go where I need to work with a branch that isn't the released version of a library that my code depends on. This happens when I'm the developer of the library and an application to use it, or when I'm a contributor to the library so I have my own fork and will want to check out branches to submit or test patches. Go has a pretty need way to allow this: using the replace keyword in the go.mod file. Continue reading →
31 May
2020

OBS Studio, Ubuntu 20.04 and a Wacom Tablet

When I upgraded my computers to Ubuntu 20.04, I noticed a weird problem with OBS when using an old Wacom Bamboo tablet (because, have you ever tried to use OBS without a pointing device?). I couldn't actually click anything! The pointer seemed to be ... pointing to the wrong place. After some research (and then some help with my research), I came across this post on OBS forums suggesting that this fixes it:

QT_XCB_TABLET_LEGACY_COORDINATES=1 obs

It does, and I never want to do the research for this again, so I'm posting it here and hoping I remember to look here when it happens!

21 May
2020

Custom OpenAPI Style Rules with Spectral

I work quite a bit with OpenAPI specs and with lots of specs and lots of collaborators, keeping the specs all functional (never mind tidy, consistent, or other dreamwords) is a challenge! We use spectral to check our specs, both when we work on them and in the build process. Spectral is great but it has Opinions(TM)!

For most users, running Spectral out of the box gives quite a lot of output even on an otherwise valid spec. I do think the default ruleset for Spectral is pretty good, but every situation is different so having your own ruleset to use is a good idea. This post shows how to use a ruleset and some examples. Continue reading →

24 Apr
2020

The `python-is-python2` package on Ubuntu Focal Fossa

I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa on my laptop, and was surprised at what happened when I went to install python:

$ sudo apt install python
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'python-is-python2' instead of 'python'

Um, what?

It turns out that since the python package has historically been Python 2, and there's a separate python3 package (and the commands match the package names, also pip3 etc), that default has remained in an attempt to break things for fewer people. Which is nice, but how do I get current, stable python?

sudo apt install python-is-python3

There's a sister package called python-is-python3 and installing that makes my python command use version 3 as I expected! It's a fairly good solution to the problem but it took me a moment to work out how to install it so I thought I'd write it down for next time! Hope it helps you too :)

15 Apr
2020

A First Netlify Function in Golang

I love all things serverless, and Netlify Functions is a neat and convenient way to access AWS Lambda. I do also love AWS Lambda but it's so powerful and flexible that creating something like a webhook receiver can be hard going by the time you have all the permissions and API Gateway setup sorted out - for a simple webhook receiver, Netlify functions is a nice and easy way to get going. Best of all: it supports Golang but the docs are very JS-heavy so I am writing my notes here in case I need to refer back to them some day. Continue reading →
08 Apr
2020

Wget Direct to S3 with Golang Streams

One thing I find very elegant about working with golang is that it is very open minded about where data is flowing in from or going out to. I recently built an application that downloaded an audio file from one location and pushed it to s3 - and golang makes it very easy to do that without needing to write an intermediate file and then upload that. Here's my code, in case I need to do this again some day :) Continue reading →
30 Mar
2020

HTTPMock for Testing a Golang API Client

I'm working on an API client for some Nexmo APIs and having tests to work through the various responses that the API can return and check that it does what I expect has been very handy so I thought I'd share my thoughts. I've got a bit of a head start here too since the OpenAPI specs have example responses in them that I can grab and feed to the mocking tool I'm using in my tests! Continue reading →
15 Mar
2020

Remove Accidental Content from Git Commit

When I teach git I try to show loads of good practice about how to inspect what's staged before commit, etc etc. Good practice is good of course, but knowing how to undo a mess you created is better - and mistakes will happen. For example, accidentally including a node_modules directory in your otherwise excellent and useful commit. This post will walk you through how to fix the problem without losing any of your work. Continue reading →