The time has come once again for anyone interested in software development and RISC OS to gather around the fire fan and discuss anything relevant to the topic. Saturday, 25th July is the date of the next scheduled ‘friendly firefanside chat’ for RISC OS developers.
If you develop software on or for RISC OS, or you’re working on the operating system itself, or you’re wondering how to get a start in programming on the platform, this meeting is for you. It doesn’t matter if you’ve plenty of experience, or you’re just a beginner – you are welcome to attend.
The purpose of these meetings is to provide a way for developers and those interested in the topic to get together (virtually) and have an informal discussion about all matters pertaining to RISC OS development. Being informal, there is no set topic or agenda, and those present at the meeting can bring up any subject they like. For example, you could use the meeting to seek advice on a confusing SWI call, or track down a bug in a piece of code that seems to be staying resolutely hidden.
Sometimes these meetings are used by people to show off their latest developments – especially if what they’re working on is useful in the context of programming – so you might get a chance to see a demonstration of something you’ll be thinking about using when released, and you might also therefore be able to offer feedback and ideas to the developer before that release happens.
For example, at the last meeting those in attendance heard about Dave Higton’s work on AcornSSL and mbed to bring them up to a newer version, with server capability and support for IPv6. Testing his work so far, Dave was running an IPv6 web server on RISC OS, albeit a very simple one that merely informed visitors of their own IP address. The group also saw some of the latest theme developments from Martin Eastwood, and Graeme Shrimpton mentioned a module he is working on to make it easier for developers to save and read values to or from Choices files from within their own programs. There was also a discussion of vibe coding (the use of AI systems to generate code) and whether it can work for RISC OS programming, which is something of a niche, and the use of AI to identify and help fix bugs.
With a 7:30pm kick off time, the meetings take place using the Zoom video conferencing software, which is available for most platforms. They are open to anyone, regardless of their programming prowess – you could be someone with no programming experience looking for advice on where to begin and what tools to use, an expert with many years of development behind you, or anything between the two extremes; all are welcome.
To join the meeting, you will need a platform on which Zoom can be run, along with the meeting credentials. If you’ve joined a previous fireside chat, those credentials remain unchanged, but if not you can get them via one of these routes:
- You can contact Andrew McCarthy on Twitter or Mastodon – or indeed from your RISC OS computer using ChatCube.
- Or you can send an email to me here in the RISCOSitory bunker. Please note, though, that any emails sent to me on the day of the meeting itself will not receive a reply until very close to the meeting’s start time!
If you can’t wait until the next meeting to discuss RISC OS development issues with others, or want to continue a discussion started at the meeting, there is also now a Discord discussion forum – The RISC OS Coding Community.