Programming in the sun

Saturday, June 28th, 2014

In many instances, cognitive abilities are more effective when a person is exposed to natural sunlight (Parrott and Garnham, 1998). Information systems development can be considered a highly cognitive industry. Along with the longstanding development in ‘mobile’ technology such as smartphones, tablet and notebook have made developing tools more mobile, (Vandewalle et al., 2011). Making use of development tools can be simple in application, there can be many aspects of making a toolbox of technology which can be used on mobile devices. photo (Cdnstatic-2.mydestination.com, 2014)

Human components are very important to the development process and while the psychological benefits have been already stated there can be some physical dangers attributed. Primarily sunburn which is the skin becomes damaged due to ultraviolet light lights. Referable to the level of complete concentration sunburn is a real possibility as well as eye strain due to glare for glass, screens such as those which are used with smart devices,

By picking out a shaded location and making regular use of sun cream (factor 40 or higher) to prevent sunburn and Sunglasses sun glare would be advised. This will restrict the amount of damage that can be done. Yet, this dose has not solved the technological issues of developing outside. Developing outside comes with its own challenges the first is the question of persisting with the values of core good practice when coding, by which I mean making use of version control with github, this can be done assessing. Currently as part of my development environment I use raspberry pi as a ‘sandbox development box’ this means that I can design and write the code on any device (laptop, tablet or phone), and then testing project on a safe device.

When working outdoors there are a few options available to overcome the technical issue of having a development suite on a mobile device. For the sake of argument the test case is a 7 inch android tablet. The first and the easiest to implement is make use of the SSH protocol, which will enable a developer to access their development environment which is on the computer or VM (virtual machine) (Cloud.skytap.com, 2014). This can be done by uses SSH client which can be installed (Play.google.com, 2014).

By making use of an Android application called JuiceSSH one can connect (Sonelli.com, 2014), which intern by making use of the Android (a Linux Command line control system), powershell (the MS alternative to bash) , Cisco CLI Used in the configuration of Cisco devices, (Cisco, 2014),(Technet.microsoa.com, 2014), (Tl,.org, 2014, this does not re-frame of the possibility of using an Graphical User Interface though use an X-server (Beta.slaThist.org, 2014) (Android X server, 2014), (Play.google.com, 2014)However, the simplest method to both set-up and work with as it is both well documented and well used by the development Community as a whole.there can be some difficulty in typing commands with a tablet as some of the ‘on-screen’ keyboards are not configured to code for this i have found a solution in using a third party keyboard ‘Hacker’s Keyboard’,(Weidner, 2014) which is a keyboard that is available to download from play store, (Weidner, 2014). This keyboard has the advantage of being a QWERTY keyboard while still having the capability (though having a multiple layers) all the functions of a physical keyboard.

The other possibility, of developing is far more difficult is to have development tools installed on the device, one can have applications installed on the device. However there can be some issues with this method as the development environment which can be problematic as the development tools can feel a little clunky and disjointed as the interaction is not always as smooth as it could, how ever there is the capability of having consoles and editing code, Python and ruby have both complete editing and Console and editing packages which work very well though making use of an application called Qpython (Play.google.com, 2014),an Application known as Ruboto IRB is a ruby Application that provides a Console, a editing pad and some premade scripts that work, (The Ruboto Team, 2014). You could also use the online service ‘codeanywhere.com’ which which is recently which can edit code from a variety sources

In compassion the ideas of creating a development environment the method the first method (using a vm or a raspberry pi) is far easier to start and work with and development, especially if that and will grant access back end resources such as MySQL and out heres a system that can work very well without taking up much room on your mobile device. On the other hand, you can install a the environment on the mobile device losing space. which may clunky and difficult to use.

So in conclusion the first method of designing a development environment (using a raspberry pi, or VM) is the easiest and the most consistent method of creating a development environment consistent with the needs of the project an example of this could be a project needing to make use of a central database the database software could be easily installed onto the VM, while in comparison the use of a development environment which is installed onto the mobile device the installation the database framework can be more problematic. Therefore it can be suggested that using a development box will be easiest to implement. I should also illustrates my previous remarks upon some protection the use of sunscreen and sunglasses to reduce the damage that can be done by using glass screens in a bright environment and preventing sunburn from intense sunlight.


 

References

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Weidner, K. (2014). Hacker’s Keyboard. [online] Play.google.com. Available at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketworkstation.pckeyboard&hl=en_GB [Accessed 27 Jun. 2014].

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