Weekly update: 18 April 2016

Kyle Redelinghuys -

I missed last week’s update so this will be a double entry.

Banking Project

I made good progress on some of the technical issues on the banking project. This was mainly in the following:

  • Shared database connection throughout the app
  • Using decimals instead of float64
  • Writing benchmarks
  • Hooking into Travis for continuous integration

You can read more in this post.

Additionally, I rewrote the entire mobile application using React Native. The development experience was awesome, and I managed to have a fully functional application in ~15 hours. I’ve detailed this more in a separate post.

I didn’t get around to detailing any of the specifics this week, particularly the RethinkDB implementation.

Banking project - next steps

I’ve put loads of thought into where next to take the project, and have been speaking to people in the industry as well as some friends keen to get involved. For now it looks like prepaid integration is the next step as it’s the lowest barrier to entry for getting real world implementation.

The problem with prepaid cards is that work will be put into the development of this integration rather than the real development I am looking to do. This side track has its pros and cons, and for now the pros outweigh the cons.

Visa library

I made great progress with the Visa library in golang. I’m waiting to hear back from the developers that side about a few calls in particular. Once that is done, I’ll be working on making it a proper package. Hopefully this will lead to a closer working relationship with Visa.

Misc

  • Had a great set of braais for family and friends for my birthday and going away.
  • I’ll be getting my UK visa this week. Cannot wait.
  • Loving reading the Bleach manga.
  • Started listening to The Road To Serfdom.
  • One day I’ll have a place in the mountains, see featured image.

Conclusion

The past two weeks have been productive and this week is the big one. As soon as the visa is formally issued the wheels will start turning. I’ll also be working on the banking project and doing some reading into Go.