Since I am going to leave the company and I would like to provide the UI for internal operator who have no idea in coding, making it available on the Angular console would take up long time, so Jupyter came into my mind.

Using Jupyter, I could directly write script for operator. The operator could just click the “run” button the selected section of the script to perform what they would like to perform and modify the parameter easily thanks to the great easy-to-read syntax of Python.

In order to prevent caseless remove of detail operation script, I put those script into a Python module and import it in the notebook, so that the script display on the notebook for the operator is just a call of function.

Jupyter could be a kind of tool to provide a simple interface for those internal operator who don’t know coding, but though a well-designed web console would be great.

In the old day, I was using github.com/facebookgo/inject for auto DI. However, playing with reflection in Golang is really harmful to the performance and boot time. If a long boot time would be acceptable, then I would just go with Spring and its DI.

Recently, I came across with github.com/google/wire. The dependencies injection is done at compile time. It makes use of the go parser for understanding the type to inject in the placeholder function with a different tag of wireinject and generate out the real function with non wireinject tag. It provides a good runtime performance and way for easy to debug and trace in the injection process.

wire is also used in go-cloud, a project by Google for enabling access different cloud in one interface. I think I will use wire for project in current.

Recently, the conference committee has updated and released the result of the call for paper on the website. And we, Team 404 Busters, found the website performance in some remote area and old mobile device is pretty poor, this leads us to deeply reflect on the design of the website.

The goal of the re-design

The main goal of the re-build is to provide a great experience to everyone, no matter how poor is the network and how old is your mobile browser.

The reason behind the problem

In order to archive the goal, we have made a lot of research and benchmarking in different network condition and device, and for a more accurate result, we measure it in a packed underground metro in both Hong Kong and Taipei during the peak hour.

The data collected during the research tell us the reason behind the issues: it is because the parsing engine of the browser is too slow while we current render the website with Vue.js. To overcome this, we have to make the page to be as simple as possible, so that the parsing engine wouldn’t take long to parse all the code.

Solution

In order to overcome the problem, we have tried on making the whole page is in one small HTML with some style tag only. However, it stills takes much time to download for the poor network condition.

During the research, we come up with a new idea after reading an article published by Flutter. Since Hummingbird is not yet published, so we decided using Rust Web Assembly to write our own implements of the Flutter embedding API.

With the power of Flutter, we are able to render the page as rendering engine itself while skipping the parsing process. The result is so great, the benchmark on metro test has dropped down to less than 0.1s for loading the whole page. After finish loading the page, you can drop offline and continue to browse the page.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading tills here and have a Happy April Fool. We are having some re-design of the page so that it would be able to reflect our brand image and core value.

Please give us a star to our repository if you walk by. And don’t be shy to submit any new idea and improvement to us.

https://gitlab.com/404busters/hkoscon/hkoscon-2019

HKOSCon 2019 Website is now online, check it out at https://hkoscon.org/2019/

In here, on behalf of Team 404 Busters, I would like to give some insight of content and technical update on the website

Content Update

Form for Call for Paper

The call for paper has been started. A new CFP page has been added to the website. Check it out and submit your paper on https://hkoscon.org/2019/cfp/

Technical Update

Upgrade of Node.js

As the LTS of node.js 10 is active since 30 Oct 2018, we have upgrade node.js to version 10. With the new version of V8 and new ES standard implements, we are able to roll faster in development progress.

Migrate to nuxt.js

We have migrated from the custom-built site generator to nuxt.js, so that we are able to enjoy the great ecosystem of Vue and great SEO from the pre-rendering jobs done by nuxt.js. Also, nuxt.js brings the Webpack 4 and babel 7 into the building and providing a smaller bundle and better performance.

Migrate to Bulma

Previously, we are using materialize for the website and since Bulma is pure css framework, we are able to get more control on the component and reduce the rendering time of the browser.

Change sass implements

Since the old node-sass packages require a cpp binding, which brings inconveniently to developers and force them to install make, python, and g++. Moreover, node-sass is single-thread and blocking when rendering, this results in slow performance. As a result, we switch to sass which is an implementation written in Dart and compile to js and provided better performance than before.

Call for contributor

Last but not least, we greatly welcome anyone come and contributes to the website. You can find the release repository at https://gitlab.com/hkoscon/2019 and the development repository, which is owned by Team 404 Busters, at https://gitlab.com/404busters/hkoscon/hkoscon-2019

Result of Call for Communities

The list of applied communities has been listed on the website. You may check it out at https://hkoscon.org/2018/cfc.html

Form for Call for Paper

The call for paper has been started. A new CFP page has been added to the website. Check it out and submit your paper on https://hkoscon.org/2018/cfp.html#apply

Offline Website

Last year, Team 404 Busters has tried to add the progressive web app into the website in order to provide the schedule offline. However, it is not successfully done. In this year, it is my honour to announce that we have successfully made it! You can browse it offline after finishing your first loading. It make use of sw-precache to generate the Service Worker to provide the offline. Of course, support of Service Worker is required for this wonderful feature. Chrome 45 or above and Firefox 32 or above, as well as the Android Chrome can support it well.

Note: for iOS device, iOS Safari 11.3 which is not yet the main stream, may be able to support this feature.

Call for contributor

Last but not least, we greatly welcome anyone come and contribute for the website. You can find the release repository at https://github.com/hkoscon/2018 and the development repository, which is owned by Team 404 Busters, at https://github.com/404busters/hkoscon-2018

Upgrade of Node.js

As the LTS of node.js 8 is going to active on 31 Oct 2017, we have upgrade node.js to version 8. With the new node.js 8 supporting async/await, we replace the promise chain with async and await in the build script. This help in easier to maintain and debug. nvmrc file is added for the nvm users.

Change in building

Webpack Module and Babel Preset

Starting from Webpack 2, webpack come with support of ES6 module import and export, Babel module converting can be removed if only ES6 module is used. After the upgrade, babel-preset-env is used to replace the old preset which would apply the plugins on the environment requested.

Remove of Gulp

Gulp did bring a hard time for us to maintain and having customisation in 2017. In 2018, we build all the assets with a single build script, which contain the call of webpack API and nunjucks only. The build time is 1 minutes faster by average on Travis CI.

Using Hash Assets Filename

The output filename has added a content hash which help in skipping the step of waiting cache invalid in Cloudflare. To make add the assets easier, a new parameter assets is passed into the pages.

Change in Development

Change in command

At before, starting up the development server require for 2 parallel process. After the upgrade, it just required for 1 single process to handle all of these. In the new version, a setup command yarn setup is required for setting up environment for development. It would be required to run for every time the entry in webpack config has been changed. After the setting up, the only command required is yarn dev, the dev server would be ready for you at 8080 port.

Rebuild of development server

The development server was painful with different problem in hot reload and restart, specially pair with gulp. We have removed the old webpack-dev-server and replaced with an express server with different middlewares. webpack-dev-middleware and webpack-hot-middleware is used to replace the old webpack dev server building. Page is render as template in order to save the time in rebuilding pages.

Bundling stylesheet

As gulp is removed, all scss files would be import by webpack with sass-loader. With webpack hot middleware, the style can be hot-reload and display on browser immediately.

Conclusion

We have worked hard to improve on the website. Please open an issue or pull request on the Github repository if you find something can still be improved. Also the call for communities is lived now, you may visit and apply for it at here.

The SITCON x HK 2016 has come to an end on 22 / 10 / 2016. It had a bad weather on Friday, so we failed to prepare for the printed agenda. It was quite inconvenient for the attenders.

Preparing

Holding an event is always not an easy job, it involve lots of works to do.

Call for Venue

First, we need a venue for holding the event. Thanks to the hard work of Clara and Maria from Techie Brain, CSS, CityU, we could hold the event in LT 16 and 17 in the City University of Hong Kong.

Call for sponsorship

Second, an event requires to finance to pay for expenditure of the event. We faced the problem of no company is interested in sponsoring an event which will have unknown participant and don’t much history succeed result. Thanks for the generous of Ben Cheung of Oursky Limited. And with the help of Tsundere Chen, we got the gift and material sponsor from Github Education.

Call for Paper

Next, to provide a good quality talk to the students, we have to spend time to invite speakers and assign for the agenda. I am here to thanks all the speakers of giving great speech and teaching the students so much new and useful knowledge.

Call for helpers

Moreover, helpers is also a key element of holding an event. Thanks to the join of City U, HKBU and HKU, getting us enough helpers to operate the whole event.

Preparing Material

Hence, before the conference, many material had to be prepared. Thanks for Nicholas Yau and Wing Ng to prepare the awesome poster, roll-up stand, banner and other marketing and display material. Also, Clara and Maria helped lots in preparing those material.

Marketing Promotion

In addition, to invite more people to join, marketing promotion is required to boost the event. Thanks for Denny Huang, MouseMs and Philip Chou giving so much useful advice in marketing. Actually, I was studying in Marketing at that moment.

Planning for the whole day

Furthermore, we had to plan for the whole run down for the event, from setting up to cleaning up. Every single detail we miss, the event would be less awesome. As a result, we had to think through the whole event rundown not only once, but for at least three times. We carefully assigned everyone to a right place and ready for any accident. We hoped to give the attendees the best event we can offer.

Review

The attendees is not as much as predict and make me a bit heart broken. The whole event ran smoothly and I am happy about this. The speakers were giving speech to the students which can help much in their career path in the IT industry, even I learnt so much from their talks. I knew there were much things to be improved and I hope you can tell me your opinion by leaving a comment below.

Thanks for those in SITCON x HK 2016

After that, to successfully held this event, we need different helpers to help in the preparation and on-day operations.

Co-Organizers

First, I have to thanks for the three other Co-Organizers apart from SITCON x HK Community:

• Techie Brain, 31 st Executive Committee of Computer Science Society, City University of Hong Kong Students’ Union
• Computer Science Association, Engineering Society, HKUSU, and
• The Computer Science Society, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Supporting Organization

Moreover, apart from the Co-Organizers, I also need to thanks for the supporting organization:

• Hong Kong Creative Open Technology Association
• Open Source Hong Kong
• Hong Kong Linux User Group
• SITCON — TW Community
• Electrical and Electronic Engineering Association, Engineering Society, HKUSU

Sponsorship

Last but not least, thanks for the sponsorship. Without the sponsorship, no awesome event can held. They are:

• Platinum Sponsor — Oursky Ltd.
• Gift Sponsor — Github Education

Personal Special Thanks

First, I am here to special thank you for the hard work of Clara and Maria, without these two pretty girls, there would not be SITCON x HK 2016. Next, thank you for the great helping hand of Koala Yeung, he helped so much in the whole organizing process. Last but not least, greatly thank you for Wing Hui keeping me alive till the end of SITCON x HK 2016 even she was in a great busy.

Conclusion

Finally, I have to say thank you to many who I did not mentioned in above. Thanks again for those who support SITCON x HK 2016. I hope to you may invite friends to join, help or even sponsor in SITCON x HK 2017 with you. I hope you can tell me your opinion by leaving a comment below.If you want to see more photos of SITCON x HK 2016, you can go to the Flickr Album to see more photos took on the event.