Today I had cause to take my latest CodeWithChris lesson remote. Although the videos can be watched on mobile devices, the need to run Apple’s Xcode in order to participate in the lessons pretty much ties me to my desk.
Yes, a Mac mini is quite small and very portable but it kind of doesn’t work too well without a screen, a keyboard, a mouse, etc. Suddenly, it’s not so portable.
The only real option was to investigate VNC – that’s Virtual Network Computing to the uninitiated. It means using software on my Windows laptop to connect remotely to the Mac mini. The Mac mini does all the work, but the screen, keyboard, mouse, etc belongs to the laptop.
There is some lag between the laptop and the Mac, as is probably to be expected as it runs over the network, but I’m fortunate that my Windows laptop isn’t a slouch and doesn’t add to that lag. The Mac mini, being some 7+ years old now, is probably the biggest slow down. It runs Xcode, but it certainly doesn’t run it as swiftly as seen in the CWC videos.
Whilst not ideal, it was possible to take my lesson away from my desk. I shan’t be doing this often, unless some kindly individual wants to donate a brand new high-spec Apple Macbook Air M1 for my further education. No? The trouble with reskilling/relearning/teaching-old-dog-new-tricks when you have no income is having to make do with what’s available. I’m very grateful that I have the old Apple Mac mini, and I just hope Apple continue to support it for some time to come, but even though it’s of pretty high spec itself, it is showing its age.
Today I learned … MVVM, or Model – View – ViewModel. It’s a very complex definition for something that should be relatively straightforward in that data is kept in one place, what you do with the data is in another, and how you display the data is somewhere else. In short, keeping your code tidy, neat, more suitable for reuse (DRY), and more easily navigable.
In the past, my coding had pretty much moved in this direction anyway but now, when doing it “for real”, there are sensible / standard rules to follow. Pretty cool ideas, but something that needs time to sink into the old brainbox.
Oh, and the pizzas? That was part of the the lesson, not the snacks.
