Monthly Archive for January, 2012

Deploying Updates from Windows Dev Box to Linux Server

Published on 18 January 2012 in Tech Labours. 0 Comments

I develop on my local Windows 7 (or XP netbook when out of town) and to test/deploy projects I need to send them to my Gentoo Linux server. While manual copying of files quickly becomes a pain in the arse a fully fledged continuous integration environment is needlessly complex for a single programmer project so I created the following batch script that once run checks my windows folders for new & updated files since the last time the script was run then sends them across the ether using scp1.

The script has been tested on XP & 7 successfully.

For the linux side of things I run a python paster instance with the —reload flag that means paster will pickup changes and restart automatically, making deployment from my windows box a single click action.

Initially I started out a little rusty in my command line knowledge Continue reading ‘Deploying Updates from Windows Dev Box to Linux Server’

First Impressions on Dropping ICT/Gaining Programming

Published on 11 January 2012 in Big Society and computer science. 0 Comments

Dropping the old ICT curriculum with it’s much maligned emphasis on M$ Office is a brave move by education minister Michael Gove. It could be argued that from purely a learning point of view this one action is more important than any of the recent decisions on increasing education cost. Sending children back to where it all began – the formulation of grammars and statements thereof into machine-readable instructions that produce new computing tasks rather than just learn old ones by rote – is in many ways fundamental to getting a British engineering discipline back on track.

But it’s easy to get carried away here. Continue reading ‘First Impressions on Dropping ICT/Gaining Programming’