Has anyone coded a smartapp that checks if their other smartapp(s) functioned correctly?

Just throwing this out there… I was thinking maybe this should be built in into the existing apps already but it would probably add more overhead to all the running processes and schedules already.

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Ya, what happens when that app doesn’t function correctly? etc. Not a good path…

I know someone has approached us, sharing his idea on creating something to test other smartapps… I don’t think there’s even a version 1 yet. However, I love that idea, and it would certainly help.

automatization + peer review = awesome.

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I just remembered this yesterday when one of my scheduled lights didn’t turn on so I had to turn it on manually (not on sunrise/sunset). It’s done this a few times but on random days.

It would be nice if there was another check on scheduled events, how to implement it, I have no idea, I can’t code so I can only dream :wink:

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Let me know if you’d like to learn… Often the best way is just by hammering out an idea as an example.

The first draft may be inefficient or bug-ridden code, but experiencing the magic is motivation to improve it and all your ideas become inspiration to learn a bit more about coding…

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Thanks @tgauchat! Definitely would like to learn groovy, I’m not completely code-challenged, no formal training but can follow basics like the courses at codecademy.

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Yup… I think learning a computer language is much more similar to learning a human language than most folks admit. Certain languages are very similar (French ~= Spanish ~= Italian) and once you grasp one, the others are easier. Others are much different (Asian language vs Western). And there’s concepts that overlap (many French and German words used commonly in English…!?).

Most of the coding for my Computer Science degree was in C … just barely touched upon Object Oriented C++. Much of my career used SQL and procedural SQL. But I found Java pretty easy to learn and the combination was a gateway to PHP and “Object Oriented” PHP.

Groovy (and Ruby, and well, lots of newer languages) allow more shortcuts than I prefer, because this means you have to “think in Groovy” as you read the code … just like you can’t speak French unless you “think in French”. And “thinking in a language” only comes with practice.

Luckily, SmartThings is pretty fun practice, though a live debugging environment will make it much easier and more fun.

In the meantime, start here: (And feel welcome to PM me anytime if you’d like to work through an idea or something):

http://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/groovy/

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Thanks for this @tgauchat. I downloaded a portable linux image yesterday and will see if I can get my notebook to boot into it, next will be getting the gvmtool.

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