This is the first real book review on my blog. However, I do hope more will come in the future, as I do enjoy reading. I will not focus so much on plots and storylines but rather on the experience the book gives me.

Before I start, I would like (to ensure complete transparency) to note that I was sent the book Nocturnal Blood alongside the two following books for free by the author Villimey Mist. Furthermore, I consider Villimey a friend, even though we have never met in person. But I was not paid for this review, and Villmey did not ask for it. So I am doing this review on my own initiative.

We meet Leia (yes, like the princess), a young girl in College suffering from OCD and anxiety; apparently, three little claps can solve a lot. She is, apparently, friendless with her only real friend (Sophie) disappearing to Canada and the completely. One night Leia makes the mistake of walking down the wrong alleyway, but she is saved by Sophie, who now is turned vampire. Short after, the couple is thrown into real problems due to Sophie breaking a law of the vampires, which sees them on the run from all vampires and their familiars. This is the base setup for the story and all we need to discuss the book.

Even before the girls are on the run, we see Leia having to deal with her only friend being a vampire. Additionally, her only friend has killed in front of her. The gore shakes her to the core, and she has to make decisions about her friend no one should ever have to make. But after all, Sophie killed for her, to protect her. After Sophie breaks the vampire law, they must go on the run, a desperate dash for Seattle. As they run, we understand that the bond between the two girls changes, but not just that. We also see Leia change, and changes are made to her core.

Leia is in the beginning, in denial. But, I mean, would you not be if you find out vampires are real from one day to the next, and because someone else broke the law, you need to get the hell out of your home? I would. But she is not just in denial. She is mentally weak in the sense that she is a push-around. It is easy for Sophie to get Leia to do what she wants just because Leia wants to please her, and it makes her happy to please others. Additionally, Leia trusts others or rather trusts the goodness of others. This is both her greats weakness but also strength. However, throughout their journey, this gets her and Sophie in trouble on multiple occasions. One would think she would learn, but clearly, she does not grasp the concept of reinforced learning. This first comes into full play when Leia, tired doing daytime, needs a rest and seak out a motel and by pure chance, they run into a vampire familiar who wants to please Sophie by providing her blood from, eh, known sources. Leia’s trust facilitates all this, even though, on multiple occasions, Sophie warns her from seeking out Motels and civilisation at large as vampires have multiple sauges (familiars) all over. Here Villimey hints that no place is safe, which is good advice even in our boring world of reality. This experience leaves Leia’s trust devastated and shattered. In extension, she also disappointed Sophie by seeking out a motel, even though she forbade it.

However, although this ordeal should have taught Leia a lesson, we see the first significant change in her. She is no longer such a push-around. She starts setting demands for Sophie, she argues, and the duo begins to have equal footing, which at this time in the story is quite refreshing as otherwise, I would have asked for Leia to be killed. Throughout the story, Sophie is psychologically abusing Leia, or so one may think, but it becomes clear that it is not her intent. She is using her own brand of tough love to harden Leia, something she desperately needs at the start of the story.

After the motel, they are back on the road, but Leia realises that the car is low on gas. She decides to go for a quick fuel up and some food, and to be honest, like a goldfish, she checks into another motel, seemingly forgetting the last events that transpired at a motel. This is all due to a guy who turns out to be, well, not nice. At this time, however, Leia’s trust has already been shattered enough, and she does not totally lose it but instead seems to expect it, so why did she trust the guy in the first place? That is weird a leaves some questions about her mental features in terms of denial versus reality. But at least she is learning on the job and after this is pretty much not trusting anyone else for the remainder of the story, all though she learns to trust one more vampire than Sophie. To me, at least, it seems like she is moving towards a good equilibrium in terms of blind trust compared to blind distrust.

As the story progress, we experience the respect between the young women blossoming, and by the end, they reach a form of mutual respect. In particular, this is facilitated by Sophie, who slowly needs to apply her tough love less and less, and starts to recognise that Leia has gotten tougher and stronger, less OCD-like, granted who has time for OCD with blood, vampires, and bastard humans at every corner? We see Leia turn from a girl to a young woman in terms of maturity, and we see Sophie soften up and become more human. In Sophie’s defence, before our story starts, she has been through things no being should ever experience. I thoroughly enjoyed following these young women’s development and how they end out as closer friends but the second to last story arc.

I believe that Villmey has created characters you, as a reader, can understand, even when they seem cold and/or broken. I find it refreshing to see a book in this style that does not try to hide the horrific parts of being a vampire from the reader and does not shy away from showing human cruelty when a human desires something.

However, although I enjoyed Nocturnal Blood and its characters, I have a few minor grievances regarding how the book is written, and I think it is important that I address these. First, speed. I find that the jump between scenes, which I feel in the book acts more like sub-story arcs, is too quick. In particular, at the beginning of the book, after the first motel, it settles down and becomes a smooth ride. That being said, the quick jumps in the beginning, made me a little confused. I cannot say if this is because Villmey wanted to jump-start the storyline and dive deeper I am not sure. But the contrast is a little weird to me. One arc of the book, where meet the character Kenji (Nice jab a Twilight Valley), also seems rushed to me like he is being plugged in for supporting reasons, a little like Mouning Murdle in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Although the character is given “prime time” later in the story. Secondly, not diving deep. After some of the encounters with “baddies”, I felt a little let down, and the gory details were too shallowly described. For an author who enjoys horror herself, I am surprised that we are not painted a more gory picture of the aftermaths of incidents. However, the last scene in the book, including both Sophie and Leia, is nicely framed, and the same goes for the ally way at the beginning of the book. Finally, I have a bit of an issue with how Sophie’s back story is presented. It is not bad. It is great. But I feel like too little of her life between being turned and meeting Leia again is being revealed regarding the relationship between Sophie and her ward. I would have liked to have seen even more unveiled as the story progressed. Again here Villmey Although this is partially rectified by Sophie describing memories with Kenji.

But even with these minor grievances, I find Nocturnal Blood entertaining to read from an author who surely will produce magnificent vampire and other fantasy-related novels in the future. Based on the fact that this is Villmeys debut novel, I can only have high expectations for Nocturnal Farm, the next instalment in this series.

I recommend this book to any interested in vampire stories thoroughly and who wants to follow, what I expect to be, one of the next excellent vampire novelists.

./Lars

P.s Do not read this book in an emergency room. People look at you weird for some reason.

On twitter, I introduced QueryC++ to the C++ community there and I said I would like input on the design process. This let me to create an issue on Gitlab for the design of multi-table queries. However, I did not get any response yet. Therefore, I am turning to my blog in the hopes I can get a bit more traction.

Please go to https://gitlab.com/looopTools/querycpp/-/issues/50 and leave your comment.

./Lars

In my last post; Why I don’t think The Digital Markets Act will matter too much… for Apple. I talked about The Digital Markets Act and why I do not believe it will have an enormous effect on Apple overall. In that post, I mentioned the term sideloading [1,2], which is the main thing Apple seems to “fear” with the digital markets act. The reason Apple fears it (they claim) is the threat to the security and privacy of their customers. In particular, the latter is an area Apple has been championing for years to differentiate itself from Google and the likes. But is there any hold to these claims? Well, sort of yes, and in this blog post, I will outline what the threats (that I know of) are and why Apple is sort of right. Before we continue, I do like the intent of the digital markets act, and I do not like the monopoly Apple has on App distribution for iOS and iPadOS.

What is sideloading?

Sideloading is the approach of loading data (Apps, media, etc.) onto a device following none conventional ways or ways not approved by the device manufacturer. For iPhones and iPads, that could be installing an App without going through Apple’s App Store. Again for iPhones, an example of this is Cydia.

Sideloading on Android is quite common, and F-Droid has existed for a long time now, serving as an alternative to the Google Play store (or whatever Google/Alphabet calls it now). The scene is very different on iOS and iPadOS for the simple reason that it requires the user to jailbreak (see: Why I don’t think The Digital Markets Act will matter too much… for Apple which makes it significantly more challenging to sideload apps.

What is the problem with sideloading, and why Apple is sort of right?

Let us, for a second, imagine a world where iOS and iPadOS were more open and allowed for sideloading. What would be the issue with this? Well, nothing on the surface, really, not to the end-user, but Apple would lose money as they do earn a lot from the App Store. But below the surface, many problems can start to materialise, which can later be exposed to the end-user. What am I talking about?

Since day one of the App Store launch, Apple has run checks (in one form or the other) of the Application a developer submits to the store. These checks are performed even across versions. As a result, it is not uncommon to hear a developer complain that the newest version of the developer’s App is being rejected, even with “minor” changes. These checks include, but are not limited to:

• UI checks
• Uphold privacy rules
• Resource usage
• Malicousesness

The first check is meant to look at the Application and identify if it looks and behaves according to Apple’s design guidelines. Unfortunately, I know quite a few Apps that have failed this check in the past. This may seem like nitpicking from Apple, but the purpose is 100% valid; Provide our users with a similar user interface across all Apps, and they will feel more at home. With this check, Apple ensures that they can control this and provide (in some opinions) a better overall experience when using an iOS or iPadOS unit. Personal note: As someone who occasionally has to use Android, I wish this was a thing on Android.

The second is to ensure that a third party does not steal your data against your will. I do not think I need to go into details about why this is important. But this is also one of the reasons I do not really like Apps developed in Flutter and other alternatives, as they can trick this check.

Resource Usage, Apple have some standards for how an App should behave, and they have a test that evaluates the Apps behaviour over time and under different loads. This is meant to ensure that Apps behaviour nicely and (hopefully) do not drain your battery in no time (looking at you WhatsApp) or hug all your phone resources. These tests are less strict for a game as games require more resources.

Finally, maliciousness. Apple has never fully stated what this check includes, and I believe they never will. Additionally, I can only provide half a guess towards what the check may do and test, so I will not do that. But the purpose of the check is to avoid viruses, malware and so on being deployed on iOS and iPad devices, which is a good thing.

Clearly, these steps are all a good thing that Apple do. However, if you sideload an app, Apple has no way of performing this quality assurance, which is their most prominent argument against sideloading. The “problem” for people who want to open up the Apple ecosystem and allow for sideloading is that it is a damn valid point. There are fewer viruses and malware reported for iOS and iPadOS than on Android, and my guess is that is partly due to the App Store and how difficult it is to get a malicious app on the store and for people to download it. So even though I would like to see officially supported sideloading on iOS (I would not use it, though), I fully understand Apple, and they are sort of right.

./Lars

The European Commission has been working on The Digital Markets Act for a while, and it has been deemed (by many) to be a problem for Apple. The general concept of why is explained by TechLinked in this video EU about to ruin Apple’s whole career. It has been deemed an issue because the act will require Apple to allow site loading applications onto iOS and iPadOS devices (e.g., installing them from outside of the Apple App store). One quick thing, this is not limited to Apple; this would also be a requirement for Google on Android. Companies such as Epic Games has sought after for quite a while (Epic Games v. Apple (Wikipedia)), where Apple’s counter-argument has been that it would present an unprecedented security risk on Apple devices and thereby expose users. There is some truth to Apple’s claims here, as Apple does some (I am not sure how much) security validation of applications in the App store and has removed Apps that have had security issues. But still, it is a limitation that does cause some level of restriction of Apple’s mobile devices and locks them to the Apple ecosystem. But is this act really such a big problem for Apple? I would argue no, actually NO! In this post, I will explain why.

Before we continue, I will state that I am a loyal Apple user (loyal and loyal… my work computers are in general Linux by choice) and have used iPhone as my primary phone since 2008; I have only had Android phones as work phones. Just to make it clear that there may be some bias in the following thought.

So why do I not think The Digital Markets Act will be a problem for apple? Well two reasons

• Customer loyalty and satisfaction
• Jailbreaking

Let us start with Customer loyalty and satisfaction, why it is important, and why it is the most important of the two reasons. First, Apple as a brand has such a devout following, partly due to the shit just work factor. When you buy an Apple product, it has a tendency just to work, and that is a massive reason for Apple users to continue to buy them, but it is not just limited to hardware. iWorks, iCloud, iTunes Music, and so on to the App Store just works. It is straightforward, easy, and handles a lot of stuff for you, like secure pay for Applications (I have even had to get refunds for a few Apps, and it was super easy).
This alone increases user will to use the App Store simply from a convenience perspective. A competing App store would need to provide at least the same ease and simplicity even to be considered a competitor to the App store. Another thing, if we do not look at free games, Apps on the App store tends to have pretty high quality or go into obscurity. So, therefore, the Apps that do get downloaded (in general) do have a high quality, and I think this is an important factor of the App store as it gives satisfaction to the user. They do not have to handle sub-quality Apps. They just need to handle Apps. This leads me to think that sideloading of Apps for most users is not relevant. I also believe that companies that only offer sideloaded will be met with some distrust. The question will not be “wonder what Apple did for them to do this”, but rather it will be “are they trying to avoid something Apple is doing to protect us”. This ties back into customer loyalty. In conclusion, it results in customer loyalty and satisfaction, making it a) difficult to make a competitor to the App store and b) making it difficult for a single company to provide a sideloaded app. Finally, something I have really been wondering… how would you promote your sideloaded App to people? YouTube? Odysee? Twitter? Where would such an advertisement be most successful?

So next Jailbreaking has existed for a long time and has for those who desired sideloading Apps been a solution to the “problem”. Where App Stores such as Cydia has been available for a while, and many more can be found on zeejb.com, allowing for sideloading apps onto an iOS device. Naturally, with the requirement to jailbreak your phone. But that is not the important point. The critical point is that the option (although complicated) already exists, and I do not know anyone in real life who jailbreak their phone. Why? There is no reason, really, due to Apple’s App Store. Could a potential competitor be the solution to avoid jailbreaking? I doubt it.

I have a hard time seeing an iOS user opting to install an alternative to Apple’s App store unless there is a damn good reason. I predict that we will see a flourish at the beginning of alternative App stores and some companies offering sideloaded Apps. Then after a while, most of the new stores will die, leaving one, two, or maybe three competitors alive (the once able to provide similar services to Apple). Companies that provide sideloaded apps outside the App store will either join an alternative, rejoin Apples, or join both. For the simple reason, distributing and promoting Apps for the companies will become a tedious and annoying task that may harm revenue more than using Apple’s store.

In the end, it will have a limited impact on Apple as most users (I predict) will stick with the App store and look at the alternatives as a weird “novelty” option. But I may be wrong.

./Lars

Last year I started QueryC++ a SQL Query build for modern C++ which allows constructing SQL queries in C++ without using std::string. Making code cleaner, increases maintainability, and reduces the risk of syntax errors.

I released QueryC++ under the BSD3-Clause License and it is still under this license. I chose this license to make QueryC++ as easy as possible for others to use and integrate as part of their software library tools box. This has been great as (at least) one company now are using QueryC++, a fact I am proud of.

Some said that QueryC++ did not receive enough of my attention, and therefore, they could not recommend using it, and it was (in its current state) too limited in terms of functionality. Although I agree on the attention part, I can’t entirely agree with the feature part. In its current state, QueryC++ can be used in production. It actually already is.

In this post, I will outline the current status of QueryC++ and future plans.

Current Status

QueryC++ is current major version is 3, and the perceptive may have realised we skipped version 2. This is explained later, and QueryC++ has moved from C++17 to C++20. We currently offer CMake, Make, and waf.io as build systems, although I know that there is currently work being done to add xmake (I will talk a little about this later).

The focus has since the beginning been on supporting PostgreSQL queries. That is because I mostly use PostgreSQL and often get QueryC++ tested through my work. There is full support for simple SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE queries in PostgreSQL, although not all data types are fully supported yet. This is the current status; I will cover why we skipped version 2.

Skipping Version 2?

This discussion came up with users of QueryC++ during the move from C++17 to C++20. Currently, QueryC++ only support C++20, but some have expressed a desire for C++17 support. But we were unsure how to do that well in the current scheme of things. Some suggested keeping an alternative version of QueryC++ built for C++17 similar to others that run a parallel version scheme, i.e. lower compatibility equals lower semantic version numbers. We are still thinking about this, as QueryC++ doesn’t rely much on C++20 features yet. This means that it is impossible, and therefore this is still up for discussion.

Future plans

Adding Integration Tests

I have been ignorant, and I apologise for the issues this may have caused some (even though only one team reported the issue). For those who do not know, I am dyslexic, and my brain sometimes plays tricks on me when reading results in foreign in FOREIGN KEY being spelled FOREIGN KEY in QueryC++. This error was only discovered recently (fix in version 3.0.5). However, this clearly shows that the tests of QueryC++ are not advanced enough. I will rectify this as soon as possible (although probably first in April). I will extend these tests at the integration test, where queries are run against a live PostgreSQL database and added support for more databases.

Adding more types

We have been at a stalemate about adding additional supported types to QueryC++. This will change during March and April, where more time will be allotted to the development of QueryC++. The focus will still be on adding more PostgreSQL compatible types, but we will also add as many common types along the way as possible. This includes constraints.

More on MariaDB and MySQL

Some have shown interest in support for MariaDB and MySQL; however, the interested party cannot provide development time for adding support to this. Therefore, I officially ask for help in adding support for MariaDB and MySQL.

Conan Package

The Conan package will come; I am just not exactly sure when yet. But it is a priority. I hope to get it done in April or May.

Adding xmake, why?

So I found a new build system called xmake, and I have seen it get some traction in the C++ community. But since QueryC++ already support Make, CMake, and waf.io, I thought this would be enough. However, what xmake is trying to achieve speaks to me, and I would like to support this approach. Therefore, I will add xmake as an additional support build system.

Funding

The funding from Aarhus University will end by the end of March. Therefore, I may start seeking for funds for the development of QueryC++ although currently it is still not needed.

This is the current status and a small peak of the future plans of QueryC++.

./Lars