February 2023 – Page 3 – Kev's Development Toolbox

February 5, 2023February 5, 2023

Using VS Code extensions to help with AWS CloudFormation templates

Writing CloudFormation templates by hand is time consuming and error prone. Usually I know what is is that I’m trying to create and and know roughly what the options are, but remembering the exact syntax in json or YAML is near impossible.

VS Code has a number of extensions that can make this a lot easier. Tab code complete with plugins like “CloudFormation Snippets’ makes writing new templates incredibly quick and easy:

By default with this extension, type cfn then Tab to auto complete the skeleton of a CloudFormation template. If you have autocomplete on tab turned off you can turn it on in your VS Code settings, or manually use Ctrl-Space to trigger:

After pressing Tab you get an empty template:

As I’m writing a template for a new DynamoDB table, I enter dynamodb-table under Resources and Tab and it adds the skeleton ready to complete:

This saves time in having to look at what the required and optional attributes are, but unless I’m missing a feature it doesn’t have any auto completion to help select values for some attributes where valid values are from a list of options. For example, for DynamoDB BillingMode, the available options are PROVISIONED or PAY_PER_REQUEST. I can go look that up in the docs here, but it would be nice if it would offer tab complete for those too.

February 4, 2023February 4, 2023

Wind Turbine manufacturing location at Calshot, near Southampton, UK – Microsoft Flight Simulator

If you fly over Calshot near Southampton, you’ll see this manufacturing site for wind turbines:

Flight Simulator’s scenery generator clearly doesn’t know what to make of these large objects, and so probably thinking they are streets, it places auto gen houses along them:

Taking a quick look in Google Maps, you can clearly see this location in more detail:

February 4, 2023February 4, 2023

Microsoft Flight Simulator: Why are (most of) the bridges still solid?

You’d think a couple of years after release with regular world updates and patches that most bridges would now be modelled as bridges, and not photogrammetry draped over elevation data. At least significant landmark bridges such as the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge are now (very beautifully too) modelled accurately and yes you can fly under them without hitting a brick wall:

You don’t have to fly too far however before you start to see these again, here’s the Carquinez Bridge in Crockett, about 6 miles to the NE:

Don’t try flying under this one, it doesn’t end well.