/bootstrappingthings

Setup-instructions for various frameworks and tools

Content

Scala and Eclipse-Scala-IDE installation for Linux

Painless install routine for Scala 2.11.8, sbt 13.11, and the Eclipse Scala-IDE. Bonus: suggested .gitignore file

Tested on Ubuntu 18.04 LTE.

Prerequisites

First make sure you've installed an appropriate Java 8 SDK (e.g. OpenJDK) by opening a terminal and running

java -version

should you have multiple JDKs on your system, you can set the prefered one via

update-java-alternatives --set

Install Scala 2.11.8

wget www.scala-lang.org/files/archive/scala-2.11.8.deb
sudo dpkg -i scala-2.11.8.deb

Install sbt 13.11:

echo "deb https://dl.bintray.com/sbt/debian /" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sbt.list
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 642AC823
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sbt

Install Eclipse Scala-IDE and setup a project

Get a fresh Eclipse-IDE, one that suits your Scala version (here 2.11.8)

After Extracting Eclipse, we can go ahead and create a Scala project.

Tip: create a dedicated Eclipse workspace for your Scala projects.

To create a new Scala project, navigate to your workspace and run

sbt new scala/hello-world.g8

Enter a new for the project upon request.

To make the project Eclipse-usable, enter the directory and run:

echo 'addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbteclipse" % "sbteclipse-plugin" % "5.2.4")' > project/plugins.sbt
sbt eclipse

This might take a little time.

You can then start Eclipse and import the project. Check whether everything is running by running the included Main.scala as "Scala Application".

Troubleshooting

  • Should problems arise due to scala-incompatible jars on the build path, remove them using "configure build path" (for this project).

  • When faced with a project that you want to make eclipse-usable using the above routine, go to the projects directory and open the buil-d.sbt in the root dir of the project.

gedit build.sbt

Within the file, modify the value for scalaVersion like so:

scalaVersion := "2.11.8"

Afterwards, (re-)run sbt eclipse in the root of the project.

Misc

For a suggested .gitignore, see the attached file.

Bootstrapping a NodeJS, Bootstrap and jQuery Project from Scratch

We need only a few steps to bring your web development environment up and running. For super quick prototyping, we will use lite-server, a super lightweight cli-based http server that features livereload.

Getting NodeJS and npm

If your on a Windows machine, then you should head over to https://www.debian.org/ or http://ubuntu.com/ and install a proper operating system. Just kidding. This tutorial assumes you are using either a Linux machine or a Mac, so we have access to a built in package-manager.

Depending on your package manager, installing NodeJS and npm is achieved simply by updating your local packages and fetching both bundles using only one line each. On Ubuntu 18.04 it's:

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install nodejs
sudo apt-get install npm

You can check your NodeJS versions using:

nodejs -v

And there you go. NodeJS and npm are ready.

Creating a bare bone project and deploying it on lite-server

Fire up a shell, and create a directory at your point of convenience, for example:

mkdir ~/nodejs-demo

cd into the directory and (for simplicity) create an "emtpy" html-file by creating an index.html (f.e. by typing gedit index.html) and pasting the following minimal html code into the file.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
 <head>
   <meta charset="utf-8">
   <title>Hello world</title>
 </head>
 <body>
  <h2>This is awesome</h2>
 </body>
</html>

Now, while still within the nodejs-demo directory, we can initialize NodeJS using npm:

npm init

This will might take a little. During the process you will be asked several things, most of which you can just leave as default by hitting enter. At one point it will ask for the main entry point, there you will type in index.html (instead of the default index.js that is purposed).

After the initialization is finished, you will see a file with the name package.json in the directory. This file defines metadata of the project and the packages/dependencies that npm will download for your project.

Go ahead and open package.json in your preferred editor. Add the following two lines to the "scripts"-section:

Before:

"scripts": {
  "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
}

After:

"scripts": {
  "start":"npm run lite",
  "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
  "lite":"lite-server"
}

We do this because We want our project to be deployed (on startup) on a local lite-server instance so we see instant results to code changes we make.

With the above modified package.json in place, we can fire up the installation process while simultaneously installing lite-server:

npm install lite-server --save-dev

After that process is done, we can start the project:

npm start

You can then open your browser and head over to http://localhost:3000/. Here you can see the index.html we created. But not only that; you edit the html file as you wish and save it - the server will instantly redeploy the changes and they will be visible in the browser.

Adding Bootstrap and jQuery for ze eye candy

Because we do want to add Bootstrap and jQuery as basic web frameworks, again within our package.json, below the "devDependencies" section, we add a "dependencies"-section like so:

"devDependencies": {
  "lite-server": "^2.3.0"
},
"dependencies": {
  "bootstrap": "^4.0.0",
  "jquery": "^3.3.1",
  "popper.js": "^1.12.9"
}

After saving the file have to install these dependencies via npm:

npm install bootstrap@4.0.0 --save
npm install jquery@3.3.1 popper.js@1.12.9 --save

All those dependencies will be installed into the node_modules-directory. If you use Git, make sure to add this directory to your .gitignore. Other people can then fetch the dependencies to their machines themselves (by virtue of the declarations in package.json) - and they will not clutter the Git-repo.

Now off course we want to use these dependencies, so we add them our index.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
 <head>
   <title>Hello world</title>
   <!-- Required meta tags always come first -->
   <meta charset="utf-8">
   <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no">
   <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
   <!-- Bootstrap CSS -->
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css">
 </head>
 <body>
  <h2>This is awesome -> now powered by Bootstrap and jQuery</h2>

  <!-- jQuery first, then Popper.js, then Bootstrap JS. -->
  <script src="node_modules/jquery/dist/jquery.slim.min.js"></script>
  <script src="node_modules/popper.js/dist/umd/popper.min.js"></script>
  <script src="node_modules/bootstrap/dist/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
 </body>
</html>

And there you go! You kann kill the lite-server process if you haven't already done so, and rerun the application:

npm start

Thats it. You can now start developing your web application using Bootstrap and jQuery by adding code to your index.html. Saved changes will be instantly visible at http://localhost:3000/.

Minimal Selenium/WebDriver setup in Python (Firefox)

Make sure Firefox is installed.

  • Download geckodriver for Firefox which is necessary to control your browser programmatically/remotely
  • Copy said geckodriver to /usr/local/bin

Get started with this minimal code snippet:

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Firefox()

# go somewhere
browser.get('https://www.duckduckgo.com/')

Docs:

Install VSCode extensions in VSCodium

Sometimes you'll find VSCode extensions not (yet) listed in the VSCodium extensions store. In this case:

  • Head over to the VSCode marketplace.
  • Download the extensions .vsix file. For this, search the marketplace for your extension and look for "Download Extension" or look at the extensions github page linked there.
  • cd to the downloaded .vsix and install it:
codium --install-extension the-extension.vsix

For more info see the relevant section of the VSCodium docs.