Katacast: Shopping Checkout in Erlang
I've recently discovered the joys of CodeKatas. If you're a geek looking for a way to sharpen your saw then I highly recommend taking a look at these and trying a few out. They're great fun and they're a good way of getting your feet wet with new languages (especially if you're tired of Project Euler).
I can thank Gabrielle Lana for this discovery, as it was his attempt at one of the katas that got me into it. He's also the reason I looked into Katacasts, which are simply screencasted recordings of people attempting to solve Code Katas.
This post is about my first Katacast, capturing my attempt at Code Kata #9 using Erlang and VIM with Rake as my build system. I've put the video up on Vimeo for the world to see/share. It's also embedded below for your convenience.
Before watching, I'd like to point out a few things about the video, and things that I have learned from the experience:
- I captured the video on my Linux Mint install. For some reason, capturing quality video in Linux is proving to be a bit of a pain for me. As a result, the video quality isn't that great. This partly due to the compression of the video, and partly due to the software failing to pick up some screen updates.
- I tried really hard to add a backing sound-track but all of my efforts failed in one way or another. If I did manage to get one to work it was either WAY too big (ie. > 1GB in size) or the quality was absolutely terrible.
- There were points during the process where I had to alt-tab out to a browser to do a bit of research on something that I didn't know (such as an Erlang syntax quirk). This resulted in a few points where I don't appear to be doing anything. In future, I'll remember to hit pause on the recording when this happens.
- I captured it in a non-standard resolution. I'm not sure if that's going to make it look bad or not. Feedback here is appreciated. I think in future I'll capture at a 800x600 resolution.
- This video is best viewed in full-screen mode.
So please excuse the lack of quality in this first Katacast. I'll be sure to improve when I next create one. That being said, on with the show!
As always, feedback/criticism/etc is greatly appreciated. I'd love to hear what you guys do and use to capture and edit your screencasts, particularly in Linux.
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OJ
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mat kelcey
