This is Barry Frost’s personal website.

Source control in the 1980s using a pink dinosaur, part of Paul Fellows’ tales of Acornsoft, Arthur and RISC OS:

We had 7 or 8 guys trying to write an operating system to go into a ROM, so you’ve got to get it right, and they’re all doing different bits of it and some of these share system files. No CVS, no source control, no Sourcesafe, none of that. The solution was the main system header file with all the constants, SWI numbers and addresses of everything lived in. You could edit that if you had the pink dinosaur on your desk. If you did not have the pink dinosaur on your desk you could not edit it. If you edited it without the pink dinosaur, my Australian friend, Brian Cockburn, would come round and see you.

Some code I’ve contributed to open-source projects is now being stored in vaults in the Arctic, thanks to GitHub’s Archive Programme. Very cool (excuse the pun).

Ready to listen along to one of my favourite ever albums, Olympian by Gene #timstwitterlisteningparty

This weekend’s IndieWebCamp in London has sensibly been switched to online-only because of the current health concerns.

A big well done to the organisers, Cheuk, Calum and Ana, for their initial attempts to keep it going and then swiftly reconfiguring for an online event. Communication with attendees during the week has been exemplary.

I’m very much looking forward to joining tomorrow’s sessions from the comfort and safety of my home office.

I went to @GrowableMeetups’ Serverless talks at @CazooUK this week. I find real-world examples much more compelling than theory, and @bobthemighty’s and Scott’s stories of rapid scalability and what can be built with small teams were very impressive.

https://twitter.com/GrowableMeetups/status/1227709855655436288

Tried Apple Pay’s Express Mode on the Tube this morning and it worked beautifully. Lightning fast and no risk to barrier etiquette. FYI set up your “Express Travel Card” in your Wallet first.

https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-pay/transport/

1. First language: BBC BASIC
2. Had difficulties: Assembly
3. Most used: CFML (ColdFusion) and JavaScript
4. Totally hate: ASP/VBScript
5. Loved: HTML forever!
6. For beginners: Ruby

via https://twitter.com/boffbowsh/status/1180268413710749696

Highly recommended: Stewart Lee’s Sharknado / Alan Bennett routine. Even better when the stage props fail.

New wallpaper: the global #ShowYourStripes climate crisis graphic to remind me every time I pick up my phone.

Pre-ordered an iPhone 11 Pro earlier this afternoon, silver, 256GB. And so begins the passing down of devices through the family.

I seriously considered the 11 but have been spoiled by the OLED screen on my X and didn’t want to downgrade to LCD.

Hottest day of the year (up around 34C) at the local village fete. Tombola win, burger, nice pint of real ale, ice cream and now home to cool down in front of the cricket.

Flying off to The Hague for a week for work this afternoon, so my Father’s Day treats have been cut short. I’ll miss my little monkeys.

Back at HWC London for the first time in a long long while, and thinking about making some changes around this place. While a Big Rewrite is clearly a Bad Thing, I’ve been looking for a reason to brush up on Node and wean myself off Ruby. Building a new home for myself is quite appealing. And with the Brighton 2019 IndieWebCamp coming up in October perhaps that’s a reasonable target to aim for in terms of a (rough) new site.

At the Barbican today for the Lead Dev London conference. Strong start. I especially enjoyed seeing @lara_hogan for the first time. #leaddevlondon