Category: Videos

Matrix is a Distributed Real-time Database Video

Curious to know a bit more about Matrix? This video goes into the details of what kinds of requests you need to send to write a Matrix client, and why it’s interesting to write a Matrix server.

Slides: Matrix is a Distributed Real-time Database Slides

Really excited that since I started my job working on Matrix, I have become more enthusiastic about it, rather than less.

Improving my vimrc live on stream

I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with how crufty my neovim config was getting, and especially how I didn’t understand parts of it, so I decided to wipe it clean and rebuild it from scratch.

I did it live on stream, to make it feel like a worthwhile activity:

Headline features of the new vimrc:

  • A new theme, using the base16 theme framework
  • A file browser (NERDTree)
  • A minimalist status line with vim-airline
  • Search with ripgrep
  • Rust language support with Coc

Note: after the stream I managed to resolve the remaining issues with highlight colours not showing by triggering re-applying them after the theme has been applied:

augroup tabs_in_make
    autocmd!
    autocmd ColorScheme * highlight MatchParen cterm=none ctermbg=none ctermfg=green
augroup END

You can find my current neovim config at gitlab.com/andybalaam/configs/-/tree/main/.config/nvim.