Category: Writing

Converting HTML slides to a PDF with Firefox

I have not found an automated way to generate a nice PDF from some slides written in HTML – if you know of one please add a comment!

In the meantime, if you create slides using my HTML Slides template, then you can make a decent-ish-looking PDF like this:

  1. View your slides in Firefox and open the Print dialog (press Ctrl-p).
  2. Select Print to File and choose a filename to save to.
  3. Under Options deselect “Ignore Scaling…” and select “–blank–” for all the headers and footers. Ensure “Print Background Colours” and “Print Background Images” are selected.
  4. Under Page Setup set Scale to 70.0 and Orientation to Landscape.
  5. Select the dropdown next to Paper size and choose Manage Custom Sizes…
  6. Create a new custom size called “Screen 16:9” with Width 157.5 mm and Height 280.0 mm. Set all the Paper Margins to 5.0 mm. You can modify the name of the custom size by clicking on it in the list on the left.
    Click Close.
  7. Back in Page Setup, make sure your new custom size is selected next to Paper Size.
  8. Click Print.

If that does not work well for you, try experimenting with different Scale settings.

How to write a programming language articles

Recent Overload journal issues contain my new articles on How to Write a Programming Language.

Part 1: How to Write a Programming Language: Part 1, The Lexer

Part 2: How to Write a Programming Language: Part 2, The Parser

PDF of the latest issue: Overload 146 containing part 2.

This is all creative-commons licensed and developed in public at github.com/andybalaam/articles-how-to-write-a-programming-language

TECH(K)NOW Day workshop on “Writing a programming language”

My OpenMarket colleagues and I ran a workshop at TECH(K)NOW Day on how to write your own programming language:

A big thank you to my colleagues from OpenMarket who volunteered to help: Rowan, Jenny, Zach, James and Elliot.

An extra thank you to Zach and Elliott for their impromptu help on the information desk for attendees:

Hopefully the attendees enjoyed it and learned a bit:

You can find the workshop slides, the full code, info about another simple language called Cell, and lots more links here: github.com/andybalaam/videos-write-your-own-language, my blog at artificialworlds.net/blog, and follow me on twitter @andybalaam.

Thanks to OpenMarket for supporting us in running this workshop!

Mocks are Bad, Layers are Bad

In which I argue that mocks are a code smell, and layers lead to increased coupling:

Mocks are Bad, Layers are Bad (in ACCU‘s Overload Journal issue 127)

I also suggest some ways to avoid both mocks and layers, including Classical TDD, Selfish Object, Refactor to Functional and, of course, the Unix Philosophy. I work through a code example to demonstrate some of these things.

I also suggest that frameworks and inheritance hierarchies are bad, but the title was getting too long already.

You can also get the PDF of Overload 127.