Andrew Kingdom akingdom

Six Principles for Creating a Programmable System

By Andrew Kingdom

User-Centric Design: The system should be designed with a core intent of assisting users to leverage their existing knowledge and experiences. This means the system should be intuitive and familiar, allowing users to apply what they already know to interact with and navigate the system effectively. Using familiar metaphors is one way to do this.
Multi-Sensory Interactivity: Users should be able to create interactive elements that can be interacted with not only visually (e.g., through touch or gesture on a screen), but also through other senses. For example, users could create elements that respond to voice commands (auditory) or provide haptic feedback (tactile). This multi-sensory interactivity can enhance the user experience and make the system more accessible to a wider range of users.
Inclusive Language and Symbolic Representations: The system should offer multiple modalities for instructions, including spoken

Programming Advice

A general discussion on programming, including re-posts of my comments to students and others.

Tips for beginners
- Tips for intermediate programmers
Languages
Choosing a language
Notable People
Historical Notes
Programs I've Written

Command-line (MacOS)

On MacOS the command line is typically accessed via Terminal.app, equivalent to cmd.exe on Microsoft Windows. The Terminal app passesthe text commands to the operating system for processing, then displays the returned results or errors.

Killing processes on MacOS

In MacOS here are two ways to kill processes in one hit. I'll use Google Drive as an example.

List process IDs (optional, useful to query beforehand or verify afterwards):

ps aux | grep "Google Drive" | awk '{print $2}'

Useful Xcode debugger commands

Command	Description	Example
Value Inspection
`po`	Print the value of an expression	`po myVariable.count`
`po [object description]`	Print a detailed description of the object.	`po [myView debugDescription]`
`ptype`	Print the type of an expression	`ptype myArray`
`quick look`	Display a visual preview of an object in the debug pane
`kvc path: "<key path>"`	Access nested properties using Key-Value Coding from the current context	`kvc path: "user.profile.name"`

Source Control - what is it

Term	Definition
Source	A written recipe (programming code) and ingredients (data resources) from which an app is built.
Version Source Control	A way to keep track of all the changes you make and easily go back to any previous version if you make a mistake.
Git	A version source control system that distributes a full copy to each developer. Originally created to manage the Linux project.
GitHub	One commercial provider of a Git service. Backed by Microsoft.
Repository	Storage for all the different versions of your project's files.

The PLY Polygon File Format

Main Article (Author: Greg Turk)
Clarifications (Author: Andrew Kingdom)

	// Javascript
	// Color from a web-style hex string -- for named colors, see https://gist.github.com/akingdom/0a0edd3ea37a9a331983cff3a69c4bee
	// By Andrew Kingdom
	// MIT license (use free and do not remove this author's name, etc)
	//
	// Supported string formats:
	// - `"fff" // RGB`
	// - `"#fff" // #RGB`
	// - `"ffff" // RGBA`
	// - `"#ffff" // #RGBA`

	// Swift
	//
	// Intent: Read a single line string from a file, with some memory efficiency.
	// This could be improved by use of an (unsafe) memory buffer
	//
	// By Andrew Kingdom
	// MIT license
	//
	class ReadLineTool {

	// Swift
	//
	// Intent: Process a simple memory-resident ASCII-style string in UTF8 format.
	//
	// Reads Data as a string, line by line,
	// similar to how FileHandle works with a file pointer index.
	// There are better ways to do this.
	//
	// By Andrew Kingdom
	// MIT license

	// Implements clickable headings with collapsible content.
	// This doesn't currently recalculate height if content changes as I don't need that.
	//
	// Copyright (C) Andrew Kingdom 2023. all rights reserved.
	//
	// Heading elements must include class 'heading'.
	// Content elements must include class 'collapsibleContent' and be the node sibling immediately after the Headiing.
	//
	//
	// If HTML is in a separate file,