Even when working at the airport in London, I could just point my browser to my hosted site, and code using my own laptop instead of my work one.

The JavaScript editor is fine – on a par at least with the Eclipse editor from WTP that I’d been using for the past couple of years. It has built in error checking ( currently based on JS Lint ), and good tabbing, along with neat little touches like CTRL-/ to comment blocks of code out.

Since I was new to the team, I asked how I could change the settings within my editor – to switch from the standard serif font, and to make it smaller. So I learned to be careful what I ask … because it wasn’t possible to set that from a user interface. And so my first project was born. To provide a UI for setting editor preferences.

However, where would that UI belong? On a settings page – so I needed to develop that too. And since I was working on that, I was asked to relocate the plugins page to the settings area, and to revamp the page while I was doing so.

My first job snowballed. The CSS that I started working on was almost immediately picked up for use in the GIT management pages too – even though I didn’t have commit rights, it was so easy to share it with my colleague in another country. He just had to point his browser to my Orion site’s URL, and there it all was – has code sharing ever been so easy!? Or so dangerous !?

Along the way I experimented with some aspects of web development that I hadn’t played with before. The editor settings are stored in HTML5 Local storage for now. Each editor tab open changes styles immediately when the settings are applied by using local storage events. This is the basic idea …

window.addEventListener("storage", function(e) {
    console.log("Local storage was modified");
}, false);

… and provides a great way of communicating parameters across tabs.

Changing the syntax color choices in the editor ultimately change the css rules for the entire document as opposed to changing the rules for a dom element. This results in powerfully and instantly changing the color settings for all open JavaScript editors.

And I used css3 transitions for the first time to give an animated effect when the services area opens and closes. I used to have to use dojo animation for that, now a few lines of css do the trick. Brilliant.

So, in conclusion – Orion is now my preferred way of developing web applications, I have hopes to use it for more and more projects as time progresses – and hopefully one day for my App Engine projects ( for which I think it would be the ideal tool ).

It works well – no need for cumbersome tools ( even vi seems cumbersome in comparison when you have a site hosted and linked to git ). Just four browser tabs.

So – roughly it took about 30 years from the first store I visited to driving past the closed BlockBuster. We transitioned from tape, to dvd, blueray ( not me ), and finally to digital on demand movies.

I’ve reached a stage where I want to reduce my footprint. I think I’ve always been that way. As long as I have a macbook, smartphone/iPad and my guitar, I think I’d be ok. I won’t buy another dvd, and likely won’t buy a CD again.

I’m writing this because I was debating with someone that books will be the next to go. It took 30 years for movies, books have been around for thousands of years. I think it’ll take much less than 30 years for us to say goodbye to books as we use them now. I’ve been reading books on my iPad, and I’m starting to adjust. With all of the kindles that Amazon have been developing, it seems that we’ll see more and more transition to digital publishing in short order. At least in the Western world.

So, will there be bookstores like Chapters in 30 years time? I wouldn’t bet on it, to tell you the truth. I think that stores like Starbucks will become bigger, and maybe help us socialize new and good choices of books, music and movies.

I just think the clock is ticking now.

Our new project page is here. It’ll take a few days for the work items to settle and a little longer for us to get into a rhythm. Our team is small, and distributed. We have three developers right now, working in our spare time. We’re backed by some great volunteers at IBM and at ShelterBox – experienced managers, marketers, lawyers, usability experts … so I hope that we can make this work. In some ways this is an experiment, we’re new to this kind of collaboration. But we’re not new to developing software … so we’ll see how we progress …

Truth is that I’ve been looking for an opportunity to use my software skills to help communities and with this initiative I have an amazing opportunity. The charity is called ShelterBox. They respond to natural disasters by shipping pre formulated boxes each of which contains amongst other things a tent, cooking equipment, blankets.

If all goes to plan, I’m going to lead a small team to develop an iPhone app for ShelterBox. We’re going to wire the app to social media with the aim of offering another platform for ShelterBox’s supporters to understand and share how they’re helping people in need.

It is a learning experience on so many fronts. I’ve had to work with lawyers and executives internally to make sure that I do this by IBM’s rules and standards. At times it can be frustrating, but it is also a life lesson – learning how to cover ourselves, learning how to keep pushing.

The ShelterBox team are wonderful. Let’s hope we can push this along.