Windows Python 3.6, VS2017 and the case of the missing basetsd.h

So you decided to join the Python 3 bandwagon on Windows with your new shiny Visual Studio. And then you start work on a fresh virtual environment and then you do a pip install or something. Sometimes, you'll end up with a compile error just like this:

WTF is this missing 'basetsd.h' file

You'll google this and end up with one of many stackoverflow topics stating you must install Visual Studio 2015 or some SDK.

Fuck that and save your time. You can do better because a programmer named Dimitri Janczak found a solution that works and I can confirm it works. 

The solution is as follows:

1. Install or update setuptools (> 34.0). Do note that setuptools is sort of tied with your version of Pip. So you might have to do: python -m pip install -U pip setuptools

2. The next step is to pick the correct command-line environment. What?! I know right, Visual Studio comes with multiple command prompts. 

Select the appropriate Native Tools Command prompt. Navigate to the project folder. Activate the virtual environment and do what you did last before you encountered the compile error.

If you goes to plan then you should get a successful result. 

Visual Studio 2017 Xamarin stuck if you didn't install the SDK and NDK

I ran into this bug when I was upgrading from Visual Studio 2015 to 2017. I included the Xamarin option But I didn't include the Android SDK and NDK. I removed them from the install list. I did this because I already have both installed.

The "hang" occurs then you try opening the Xamarin in the Options window. Visual Studio will stop working here so you can't set the paths for Xamarin.

So I went digging through the Xamarin logs in the AppData folder. I know where the log folder is from a previous issue with Xamarin. Xamarin is a good idea but it's buggy as fuck. So navigate to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Xamarin\Logs\15.0\ folder and see which is the latest log and open it with your favorite text editor.

Once we confirm, if it's really the missing SDK and NDK paths, we then have to add them to Window's Registry.

1. Open regedit
2. Navigate to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Xamarin\VisualStudio\15.0\Android
3. Right-click and add new String Values
• AndroidNdkDirectory - set it to the full path to where you install the NDK 
• AndroidSdkDirectory - set it to the full path to where you install the SDK
4. Close and restart the computer

And we should have fixed the issue.

Node is up: hello world

This "Hello world" thing has a long history in programming but very few student programmers really understood it purpose or assumed wrongly what it's purpose.

The "hello world" program is the first thing done on learning new programming languages and it's also the first program done when trying out a newly setup environment to make sure everything is working. This is what we are doing now.

1. Start by creating our "Basic Node.js Express 4 Application" in Visual Studio.
   
   


2. Run it, point your browser to http://localhost:1337/ and see our web app running. If it runs we are golden and continue to the next set of steps. If not, then you better get to fixing.


3. Now that we have a known working node.js app. We should commit this to a source repo like github or bitbucket. At the start of this tutorial I did mention I'll be using SourceTree to manage this but you can go old school and use a terminal if you feel that SourceTree is creepy.
   
   
   
   So create a new repository and don't commit any files yet.


4. We have to create a .gitignore file so we don't commit temporary or intermediate files. We will be using this .gitignore file. So just go to the root of the new repo and copy that .gitignore file there. SourceTree should be able to pick it the new file and use it, "ignoring" files listed in the gitignore..
   
   Don't forget to commit the files and push it into your repo. Read this if you need more details about pushing into a remote repo.

Now for the lazy, you can instead clone the repo here. Or if you're just lost then follow this tutorial on how to use git.

Don't be afraid to play around with the code. If you screw up, just delete the offending project folder and clone the project again. After cloning, you'll be good again.