Raymond is an experienced developer evangelist and advocate. He focuses on APIs, AI, the web platform, and enterprise cat demos.
Just a quick note to let my subscribers know that my next Code Break session will be tomorrow, May 19th, at 12PM CST. I plan on continuing my look at Tauri, a platform for using the web platform to build desktop apps. Depending on how much time I've got, I may also start playing with a Python platform as well. You can RSVP, or just watch, here: https://cfe.dev/talkshows/codebreak-05192025/.
Yesterday I had some fun with a web app that made use of APIs to report on rides with the shortest wait times at amusement parks. This was done via the excellent, and free, Queue Times service. The application I built let you select a park, and then rides were displayed sorted by the shortest wait time. While working with the API, I also had another idea for a useful service - notifications for short wait times.
Every now and then I'll wonder if something or another has an API, google for it, and be pleasantly surprised to find that there is indeed an API available. This week that random thought was about ride waiting times for amusement parks. To be fair, it wasn't completely random. I saw an ad on Facebook for a little display you can get for your home that shows live wait times. Obviously that's targetted for amusement park freaksfans but it's a cute idea and something I'd consider. I've only recently become a Disney fan (you don't want to know how much I freak out at Galaxy's Edge) so I get the attraction.
Ok, so I promise this will be my last post on using Markdown with BoxLang. At least the last one this month. ;) I first covered the topic last month, "Parsing Markdown in BoxLang" where I demonstrated using the Flexmark Java library in BoxLang code. I then followed up with a revised edition that used BoxLang's Java integration a bit nicer. So, those posts are still very valid, still useful for showing you how to make use of the JVM from BoxLang, and with the vast library of open-source Java stuff out there, that's a good thing. But... you don't need to do any of that for Markdown, because now it's even easier! If you prefer to consume this post while listening to my silky smooth voice, check out the video at the end.
I continue to be really against the term 'vibe coding', but also continue to be fascinated by the idea of working with GenAI to help craft/enhance applications in an iterative, conversation-based manner. Ashley Willis recently released an incredibly well done post on the topic, "What Even Is Vibe Coding?", where she goes into detail on her take on the term and what it means for the industry. I think it is an excellent post and I want to highlight one part that really resonated with me:
Last week I attended and spoke at Into the Box, a conference hosted by the Ortus folks, the company behind BoxLang. While there, I attended a talk from Brad Wood on how BoxLang's module system works. I've been using modules with BoxLang since I first started playing with it. It's how database support is added, mail, PDF, and more. You can see a list of currently released modules here. I had been curious as to how this works so I was excited for Brad's presentation. While hearing him go over the details, I got even more excited, and literally built a 'hello world' module in a minute or so while he talked.
I've done a few posts where I've asked GenAI services to analyze and summarize data. Most recently, I blogged about Chrome's built-in AI APIs and summarizing raw data into simple English. In each case where I've done work like this, I've had access to the raw data of what I want the API to analyze. But what if you don't? What if all you have is a simple chart image? I did some testing with this and here's what I found.
Want more posts? You can peruse a complete list of my content, or pop over to my search page to find what you're looking for.
