DEV Community: Donn

Sentimental Code

Donn — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 03:22:52 +0000

Around 2013 my father gifted me an iPad Mini; he himself was gifted the tablet from his job as a “thank you for the years of service” reward. He thought it would aid me with the freelancing graphic design I was doing at the time. It was a tremendous help as I would essentially use it as a second screen since I only had one monitor; I’d use it to watch videos or answer emails while doing my work on my desktop.

The seasons changed as did my life and goals, and time bore hardware and software that left the little iPad in the obsolete category. I recently came across the iPad again while rummaging through my belongings, and was flooded with memories of my Dad; he wasn’t tech savvy and always text in full caps; but he always had my best interest at heart. It’s strange to say I’m sentimental over an electronic, but it’s undeniable, and probably the main reason it’s still in pristine condition.

There’s not much I can use the iPad for nowadays, so I decided to dust it off and use it as an eReader. Though it’s a mini, the screen is a nice size for reading and I can easily zoom in when needed. But there was something nagging me in the back of my mind; sure an eReader is nice, but could I do just a little bit more with the tablet? With the experience I have now, could I create a simple app using ancient (by today’s standards) technology?

The short answer is ”yeah, but…”, and the long answer is a rollercoaster of luck, workarounds and dead-ends, and I mean a LOT of dead-ends. I was set on this challenge, and decided the easiest task would be to create a to-do list. Now I know, “not another to-do list”, but I needed to just create something simple, just as proof that this objective was even possible, and this app would at least be personal and my own creation. My dad once told me “...you’ll figure it out, you always do” and like hell was I going to prove him wrong.

The first task was to figure out which version of Xcode I needed; the iPad Mini maxed out at iOS 9.3.5, and after a quick search Xcode 8.2.1 was the winner. Great…well not so great because none of the modern OS supports 8.2.1. I could have attempted to use a virtual machine and hassled with that, but as luck would have it I have a mid 2009 MacBook Pro that maxed out at El Capitan 10.11.6, and it just meets the criteria for Xcode 8.2.1. Amazing fortune to have such a deprecated laptop that’s going to get quite a work out with helping me achieve my goal.

I have the hardware I need, armed with Xcode and Swift 3.0.2, which brings me to my next obstacle, using UIKit instead of SwiftUI. I’ve been learning Swift for a while now, and diving into SwiftUI off and on; that gave me some confidence to attempt this task, though I’ve probably spent all of five minutes looking into UIKit. “SwiftUI is here and now, why bother with UIKit?” was my thought process, and here I am, staring UIKit right in the face. At least I’m not working with Objective-C.

Thanks to Sean Allen, I was able to learn just enough Programmatic UIKit so that I would be somewhat familiarized with the code and know what I would need to search for on my own. Fast forward to me working out my code; learning how to add a splash screen and presenting different views, I felt like I was making progress (though UITableView made my head HURT). Rough, unfinished versions of the app were running on the simulator just fine, but I needed actual proof on the iPad itself. I connected the iPad to the Mac, and attempted to run the app.

“No matching provisioning profile found”, I would see this message over the course of two days, not really understanding what’s happening, even after countless searches. I needed to actually focus and understand what was going on, and came to the realization that I actually haven’t committed to being a developer. In the sense that I needed to have a paid developer account, because the workaround of saving out a profile from my modern Mac/Xcode wasn’t doing the trick. I didn’t want this issue to stop me in my tracks and I have machinations of app creation for mobile development; I made the commitment, and this is just the first step in growing pains as a developer.

I cleared another hurdle after obtaining full control of Identifiers and Profiles creation, but stumbled again when I hit another legacy landmine with the “dyld: Library not loaded:... Reason: image not found” error. This was another multiday adventure; I checked folders, hidden folders, verified things through the command line, and made sure they were embedded. As it turned out, I had a certificate issue in the Keychain, meaning the Mac didn’t trust the certificate it currently had and wasn’t embedding things as it should have; I needed to actually download a current and valid “Apple WWDR Intermediate Certificate”. Once I updated the cert, the build was successful and the app loaded onto the iPad. It was a thing of beauty.

I could focus on the actual code after that point, and honestly the code was the easiest part of this process. After finalizing how I wanted the app to look and behave, the last step was to actually download it to iPad, not just simulate. Of course it wouldn't be easy, as I couldn’t find an early version of “Apple Configurator” and even Brew wouldn’t properly download to the MacBook because of the obsolete OS.

I was out of options at this point, frantically looking for any workaround whatsoever. It’s said that it’s better to be lucky than good, and I have to agree because I stumbled upon MacPorts, an open source community, and the last piece of the puzzle. MacPorts had exactly what I was looking for, I was able to properly load the final version of the app onto the iPad.

A thing of beauty, seeing your app icon
Splash screen
The list will continue to grow

So much trouble for a simple to-do list, using deprecated code for an obsolete hardware. Possible? At least I know I can breathe new life into the iPad Mini, for as long as it’ll last. Worth it? It was quite the learning experience that’s for sure, and something that’ll always remind me of my dad. Definitely worth it.

Love you dad

Learning Swift Basics

Donn — Sat, 02 Apr 2022 23:54:58 +0000

I've started a new journey in becoming a mobile software engineer, specifically I'm learning Apple's Swift, a language used in their mobile app development, (and also their other platforms). I briefly started in Kotlin (used for Android app development), but I see a lot of overlap between the two languages.

Swift has some interesting ways to store and access data, including arrays, sets and dictionaries, to just name a few. We'll walk through the aforementioned datatypes, and explore their differences.

Array: Arrays should be a familiar topic, since every language seems to have this datatype. Arrays in Swift stores data in order, and allows for duplicates. Arrays only allow one type data, whether it's String, Int, Bool, etc.

Creating empty Arrays:

var array1: [String] = [String]()
var array2: [String] = []
var array3 = Array<String>()

Set: Sets are very similar to arrays; both store only one type of data at a time, but some key differences are that sets have no set order in how they store data, and duplicates are not allowed in sets.

Creating empty Sets:

Var set = Set<String>()

Dictionary: Dictionaries allows for customization in how data is stored in what is called "key: value" pairs. These pairings can be stored in a number of ways, such as [String: String], [Int: String], [Int: Bool]. Since Swift doesn't know how far any given dictionary extends, one extra step needs to be taken in case the key being accessed doesn't exist. When attempting to access the value of a key, a default value needs to be set:

dic["color", default: "Unknown"]

Creating empty Dictionaries

var dic1 = [String: String]()
var dic2 = Dictionary<String, Int>()

HTML & CSS: A Brave New World

Donn — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 06:47:12 +0000

I've attempted to steer my career in the area of web development, all the back in 2006, but something as always stood in my way. Other interests, job, JavaScript (that's a story for another day), to just name a few of those obstacles.

Here in 2022 I'm making the earnest attempt to become a full stack developer and a developer in general. After taking refresher courses in both HTML and CSS, it's incredible how far both languages have come in the years. Compared to when I first started, creating a website is as easy as it's ever been (front end strictly speaking).

CSS3 and HTML5 have introduced some amazing new features; CSS was long overdue for new features that made centering elements easier (yes you read that correctly). Though with HTML5, inclusion has been one of the stand out features. In order to have websites more accessible for people dealing with numerous disabilities.

Called "a11y" (stands for "accessibility" and the 11 represents the 11 letters in between "a" and "y"), the belief is that the world wide web should be fundamentally designed to work for everyone, regardless if someone is using a screen reader, have dyslexia, or even colorblindness.

HTML5 introduced some new tags in order to aid with making website more accessible. Some we've been using for years - h1, h2, h3 etc... in order to denote what's the main focus of the webpage, and the "alt" attribute when placing images in websites. Here's a rundown of a few new tags that helps with inclusion.

Header - Introduces with the webpage is about, usually includes the h1 tag, possible logo and navigation.

Footer - What I would consider the sister (or brother, cousin, whatever you like) of the header element. The Footer usually contains copyright information.

Main - Used to wrap, of course, the main content. This information is related to the content of the page, and every page should contain only one Main element.

Article - The Article tag is used to denote specific or self contained content. Think of blog/forum posts, news articles, etc.

Section - There seems to be some discourse between when to use Articles and when to use Sections. Section tags are used to group similarly themed content, and can be used in tandem with the Article tags.

Label - Seen in forms, the Label tag is wrapped around a name or short sentence for a choice or input by the user (checkboxes, email, etc). Labels need the for attribute in order to associate that label with the option its representing. Because of this, the for attribute in labels must match the id of the input tag so that everything makes sense, especially for screen readers.

These new tags are only scratching the surface; for more in-depth details please head over to The a11y Project for more on inclusion and accessibly (they even include a checklist) and MDN Web Docs for a deeper dive into the tags.

Python Developer?

Donn — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 03:47:31 +0000

I'm proud to say that I've created my first Python desktop application! I wrote the app for my department. I'm an artist at a plastics company, and we do plenty of business with different customers. We send out numerous PDF proofs to these customers on a daily basis, and these PDFs are hosted on our servers.

Usually we would have to open each folder to access the PDF, this normally isn't an issue, but we're talking about 20 plus proofs we're sending out nearly every other day, so having to open each individual folder becomes time consuming.

My solution to this issue was to create an app where the user would only need to type in the PDF name and select the PDF type; this would allow them to create copies of multiple PDFs proofs at the same time, without have to open each folder. The way to app works is the user would first name a desktop folder, this folder would house the copied PDFs, next the user inputs the PDF name (up to ten), for my department the PDFs are named by numbers, so it's and easy copy and paste. Next they would select the PDF type via radio buttons (low resolution, high resolution, raster), then all the user would have to do is click "COPY" and all of the PDFs would be copied to the newly created desktop folder.

If the user needs to add more than ten proofs, there's a "CLEAR" button that clears out the number entries, allowing the user to paste new numbers to copy new proofs to the same desktop folder. There's also a "Zip Folder" button, allowing the user to create an zip file for the proofs folder if they so choose.

Prototype

As for under the hood, I'm using a few different modules, including pyPDF2, os, and tkinter for the GUI. Everything is driven off the PDF name; once the user clicks copy, the app take the PDF name to build the directories. There's no searching through different folders, everything is an absolute path. The app will first check if main PDF folder exist, if the folder returns true, the app will next look for the specified PDF in its specific folder and only that folder. I wanted the app to be as quick as it's able to be, so I felt that absolute paths were the way to go.

I hope this to be the first app of many, not just for my current position, but as I attempt to retool my own freelance business to incorporate software development. This experience leaves me wanting more, I just need to head in the right direction.

A few Python Definitions

Donn — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 04:22:26 +0000

As you begin on your Python journey, some of the jargon can be overwhelming, especially if Python is your first foray into the programming world. Here you'll find a few terms and definitions you'll encounter as your Python career progresses.

Data type: You'll hear this term commonly; Used to refer to different different types of data (hard not to use the word to describe itself), some examples include str, int, list, tuple, set, dict, bool.

Variable: Used to store different data types. Variables are case sensitive, uses "snake_case" or "camelCase" when naming the variable (though this is debated, feel free to use what you're comfortable with and use it consistently). There are restrictions when naming a variable, such as variables cannot start with a number, use one of the reserved keywords, or contain spaces to name a few.

Object: A collection of data and methods.

Function: A block of code that can perform an action as many times as necessary. Able to interact with different variables and user input. Needs to be called.

Method: A Function that "belongs" to an object and is used to interact with said object in some way.

str: String, a piece of text. Written with quotations, single dash (' ') or double dash (" "). Rule of thumb with quotations - pick a style and be consistent with it.

int: Integer, a number data type. int will return whole numbers.

float: Floating point number, will return numbers as decimal.

list: Ordered sequence of objects. Written with brackets [ ]. Able to store different data types. List are mutable, meaning the objects can be modified/replaced, and their order to changed. Closest to an array as you can get with Python.

bool: Boolean, simplify meaning True or False. Important to remember that False == 0 and True == 1 (note the 0 and 1 are NOT strings).

These are only a fraction of terms you'll come across in your Python career. You'll notice there are some terms that I listed earlier but didn't give a definition, even in the list screenshot there are some terms used I didn't even mention (class, type(), print).

Take this time to practice your Google-Fu and hunt down the meaning of those terms and even expand on the terms above. Searching for issues/problems while coding comes with the territory, because nine times out of ten someone else had the same problem you're having.

Happy coding!