Random Thoughts About Tech.

Having spent a great deal of time integrating backend services into my recent game, Fruit Spritzer, in this case only very rudimentary ones, authentication and social leaderboard, I learned a number of things, but this one thing stood out above all else. The landscape for mBaaS providers is incredibly fickle. Let me explain my thinking.

A bit of background first, my game is built in PhaserJS for web, and (now anyway, another story) Godot for...

As techies, we all desire the latest and greatest hardware, the most recent and powerful MacBook Pro, the best of the best gaming laptop/desktop, but as developers, we should be mindful of the target audience and aware that not everyone is going to have, or want, such cutting edge equipment.

Clearly it’s more fun to develop on a high powered MacBook or Windows equivalent, things go faster, compile times are shorter, turnaround is instantaneous, etc....

As I spend more time exploring the potential of permanent, professional freelancing, I have been realising there is a pattern to the sort of projects that I’m drawn to depending on my mood. It didn’t take a great deal of time to work out why, it’s because I really enjoy writing simple, casual game code, in any platform, framework or language.

There’s just something about making a game, no matter how simple the game, or...

There was a time, not so long ago, when the web was just that, the “World Wide Web”. Times have changed, at an incredible pace, driven by improvements in the availability of high speed networks, and consequently, in the capabilities of web browsers and the breadth and depth of standardised web API’s.

This change was initially driven by the demand for higher quality web browsing experience, but developers soon realised they could do more with...

In my role as a technology leader, I’m occassionally asked by people looking to develop their career and move into software engineering:

What is the best language for me to learn?

My response is always the same, and has been for many years:

Don't learn a language, learn to program.

This probably requires some explanation to anyone who is not familiar with software engineering practices. Dedicating time to learning a specific...