If you have any interest in programming on or for RISC OS, and would like to chat to other developers, then the next ‘friendly fireside chat’ – held online, with actual fires entirely optional – will take place on Saturday, 28th March.
These meetings, which take place roughly every four to six weeks, provide an ideal opportunity for developers of every level to get together and discuss anything related to the topic of RISC OS programming. That could include problems they have encountered and with which they need help, or it could be to find out how to do something they’ve never done before, to seek advice on the tools to use, and so on. And from the other side, the more seasoned developers who frequent these meetings (and who sometimes might need a little assistance themselves) can earn themselves brownie points for bringing their knowledge to the table, and sharing it.
As examples of the sorts of things that can be discussed, the following are a few of the subjects that came up at the last meeting:
- Problems with LOCAL in BBC BASIC (which brought about some discussion of NemoBASIC).
- The nature of the ARM assembly in the Impression sources, and the difficulty of updating it to 32-bit.
- Filename translation, and the different way it’s handled by (for example) LanMan98 and Sunfish.
Somewhat less technical, there was also some lighthearted banter on the subject of how programmers today might be ashamed of their own code from twenty or more years ago, having seen their techniques and style improve as they’ve become more experienced. The discussion also veered onto the subject of displaying multiple layers on a web page – which may be moving away from RISC OS specifically, but HTML and CSS are still relevant to RISC OS developers who also maintain websites.
The general discussion can also lead to anyone present showing off things they’re working on, and last time participants were shown an early proof of concept; software written to automatically adapting code on the fly to use FPE or VFP (two different floating point solutions), depending which is available.
The meetings take place using the Zoom video conferencing software, which is available for most platforms. They are wholly informal and don’t follow a set agenda – those present steer the conversation as the evening progresses. 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.