Hey! It’s been a while since my old posts.
Maybe I’ll come back and write something new… For now, just a quick update:

Open source & personal projects

Open source Highlight

By far my most used open source project is a set of Add-ons for the App Anki.
Basically I started doing them for my own use, but they became popular and some of them also have other contribuitors now.

Altogether they have more than 300.000 downloads. (not bad)
Even tough, technically, they are very far from my quality standards.
That’s because they are in Python, which I can do but was never my professional tech.

The most popular ones:

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/864545277 https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1933645497

Recently

Recently I worked in a tech also a bit distinct from what I’m used to.
I have a spare (old) cell phone and I had the idea of using that together with my guitar stuff.

More precisely, I play electric guitar (for fun), and have a somehow complex system.
The pedals (on the pedalboard) communicate to each other using Midi, but most of them don’t show any visual feedback.

Then, I created an Android App, which listens to the Midi messages and reacts according to my needs.
The Midi part was a bit challenging but interesting.

Have a look:

https://youtube.com/shorts/7hzds0S1Bz4?si=CTGhtrdZy1cM9NWp

What’s working on now

From time to time I create some small desktop app, to help me with something. (for instance, support my German learning)

But considering the complexity and/or learning curve and performance/memory footprint, I’m not so happy with the options.
Technology-wise, the most comfortable way for me would be to use the JVM.
And indeed, one of them is based on Kotlin/JVM + JPA + JavaFX. But that’s too heavy for what it does (and slow to start).

Another option for me is Python with PyWebview.
That’s (I have it in other app), but I like Kotlin’s syntax way more than Python. Besides, I’m not so happy with the test and the persistence layer.
Anyway, what to do?!

Now I’ve playing with Kotlin Native. It’s still quite raw tough.
That’s why I started creating my own C-bindings and other components (like KSP plugins).

I plan to make it available soon, when I make it at least minimally decent :D. https://github.com/KNative-Tools

Ideas to try next (if I have time)

For some time I think about some ideas of plugins for Intellij.
Of course, that will require time, since I need time to learn it first…

Another idea refers to one of the few missing features in Kotlin:
Having package-private modifier.

This is long discussed (and asked for) in the this issue:

https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-29227/Provide-package-private-visibility-modifier-or-another-scope-reducing-mechanism

So far Jetbrains doesn’t seem interested on it.
In some responses they say that it’s not needed, because you can/should you modules.
IMO it’s unrealistic to think that developers will start creating new modules to replace packages.
I also think that good software should reduce the visibility as much as possible in distinct layers (not only between distinct modules).

Here my idea will certainly take a lot of time, since I’m think about implementing even a compiler plugin, which is quite complex.

Anyway, let’s see…

!EOF