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One of the primary reasons for setting up this site was for their to be somewhere where I could write articles about any topic. Though I do this infrequently, having somewhere to put these would give me more reason to write.

Image showing a cartoon rust window with smashed glass. Behind the window is Microsoft Windows.

Rusty Windows: Building a PyO3 project on Windows

12 August 2026

I decided to port my Rust/Python library to Windows. I thought that it would be a quick fix, but I ended up encountering some mind-boggling quirks of Windows. Will this endeavour convice me to become a Windows user?

Image showing a warning sign to watch out for rabbit holes. Behind which is an XSD file, XML file and a regular expression

The Remarkable Depths of the XML Rabbit-Hole

31 July 2026

A while ago, I wondered whether there was some Python library to generate fake XML that could be used for testing. After discovering that this wasn't the case, I decided to make my own Python library, which led me down a very deep rabbit hole from which escape may be a problem.

Image showing ReadTheDocs style documentation for example C++ code

Breathing and Exhaling: Building documentation for C++ with Doxygen and Sphinx

22 February 2025

"Fantastic, I've just finished this extensive project. Now all I have to do is document it!" I thought after pushing the latest version of my latest C++ project. Needless to say, it is not that simple (or is it).

Graphic showing C++ going to Swift directly and via C

Creating a Swift interface to a C++ library

20 December 2024

I have recently been trying to create a new iOS app to track Bus locations in real-time. This app uses an AWS API Gateway to retrieve real-time bus locations. I have created a C++ library OpenID to handle authorisation requests in order to access the API. This library uses the AWS-SDK-CPP library to interact with the server.

Flow chart showing how OpenID interacts with the AWS-SDK-CPP to verify identities

Building and linking the AWS-SDK-CPP for iOS and simulator

18 December 2024

I have recently been trying to create a new iOS app to track Bus locations in real-time. The location data is taken from the UK's Bus Open Data Service. Having managed to get the prototype app to load some bus data directly from this service, I decided to use an AWS API Gateway as the access point to the API. At some point I will write a guide to setting this up as it took me a while to figure it out.