Hello

I’m Colin. I live in a town called Didcot, which is near Oxford in the UK. I work with technology professionally but I also like building and learning things for fun too.

I mainly write about software-related things on this site. I like scalable and resilient systems that can run fast, so I find the languages and the software that enable that behaviour fascinating. I occasionally write about other aspects of my life on this site too. Hopefully you’ll find it all entertaining!

I work freelance. If you’d like to hire me, check out Kickstand Consulting. You can also find me on Instagram, Twitter, Github, Gitlab, and LinkedIn.

Writing

• Thoughts on Ansible

  My current thoughts on using Ansible; what it does well, what it fails at, and how best to use it.

  – 2019, September 07

• Hakyll Live Reload

  Use LiveReloadX and Docker to automatically reload Hakyll whilst making changes.

  – 2018, May 16

• Python, Docker, and FFmpeg to convert H.264 to MP4

  A small code example of converting H264 video to MP4 using FFMPEG, inside of a Docker container.

  – 2018, April 09

• Higher Kinded Play Framework

  Using higher kinded syntax in Play Framework has a whole host of benefits, and is less scary than you think.

  – 2018, March 04

• TL;DR Neural Network Dynamics for Model-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning with Model-Free Fine-Tuning

  A short overview of a paper, describing a model that can learn to walk and follow a trajectory with significantly less data.

  – 2017, December 05

• Functional Programming with the Play Framework

  Three ways to do functional programming when working with the Play Framework

  – 2017, December 01

• Moving to Hakyll

  Hakyll is a static-site generator, written in Haskell. It is easy to understand and extend. This is why I moved my blog to use it.

  – 2017, July 17

• DynamoDB with Scala Macros

  Writing a small library to make the Java DynamoDB API more usable from Scala. Includes a detailed description of how macros made this all possible.

  – 2017, January 02

• Getting Started with Haskell’s Warp

  Warp is small and fast web server written in Haskell that doesn’t come bundled with much. It also has no “magic” in it, which I think is a very good thing.

  – 2016, December 16

• Learning Akka Streams

  Akka Streams confused me. This is a story of errors and misunderstandings as I tried to learn it.

  – 2016, June 28

• The Virtues of Side Projects

  Side projects outside of work are great at teaching you new skill, and techniques. This posts lists some of the benefits of starting one.

  – 2016, June 15

• Using Elm in Octopress

  How to embed Elm code inside of Octopress

  – 2016, January 01

• Using Play-Framework’s PathBindable

  Allowing Play Framework’s routes file to have custom classes, and types, using PathBindable.

  – 2015, June 23

• Cassandra TTL Is Per Column

  A quick demonstration of how columns can expire at different times in Apache Cassandra, using TTL.

  – 2015, March 02

• ScalaTest and Twitter Futures

  ScalaTest has built-in support for the standard library Future. Support for Twitter Futures is simple too, and requires only a small amount of code.

  – 2015, February 02

• Mock Responses and Iterate

  Quickly iterating on API designs is valuable.

  – 2015, January 20

• #Code2014

  The programming languages I have used in 2014.

  – 2014, December 31

• Monoids

  A brief overview of the terminology and building blocks of a Monoid; Associative, Semigroup, and Identity.

  – 2014, October 02

• Aggregation Services in Node.js

  As a counterpoint to building Aggregation Services in Play, this shows a small example of a similar thing written using Node

  – 2014, July 16

• Aggregation Services using Play JSON

  Using Play JSON Zipper to work directly on JSON structures, instead of marshalling to case classes.

  – 2014, March 26

• Fibonacci Numbers in Scala

  Recap of various ways to calculate Fibonacci numbers and sequences in Scala.

  – 2013, October 30

• Akka Camel and ActiveMQ

  I explained briefly how to get Akka Camel and ActiveMQ to work together in the form of a quick example.

  – 2013, August 24

• Testing in Scala with DSLs

  Using a DSL to write a test can prove to be useful, especially when there are lots of prerequisites, or the problem is complex. Having a test that is incredibly readable reduces complexity overhead and aids reader comprehension.

  – 2013, July 20

• Better Assertions with ScalaTest

  One of the areas I have been concentrating on is how to write good assertions. Specifically, ones that yield easily diagnosable error messages when they fail.

  – 2013, May 27

• Using MongoDB TTL Collections to Manage User Registrations

  TTL Collections were introduced in MongoDB 2.2. You are now able to create an index which triggers the deletion of a document after the Time-To-Live (TTL) time passes.

  – 2012, December 17

• How to JUnit Test a Private Method

  Testing a private method in Java is possible using reflection.

  – 2010, October 31