Australian Shares

Australian share prices at the tip of your tongue, and now with eye-candy!

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Inspiration

My wife read about the challenge and told me. Alas, there was only days to go! However, I have several existing skills, and one that was perfect for an upgrade. I hadn't used the SDK 2.0 or APL, so this hackathon was a great reason to get stuck in and try it.

What it does

It tells you the share price and share price movement for any ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) share. With the APL, I am able to display more that just the current share price, so I also show a little company information, volume traded, and previous share open/close prices.

How I built it

Written all in js (node) and running on Lambda. It uses 'got' (similar to Request/http) to make an API call to the ASX service and retrieve company data - 20min delayed.

Challenges I ran into

Firstly, I had to upgrade my old skill to SDK 2.0. After a short bit of WT..., I discovered this new SDK is actually much easier to get a grip on than the old SDK, so challenge one turned out to be quite satisfying. My code is more readable now thanks to 2.0. Then I had to learn about APL. Fortunately the online documentation at Amazon is very good, and I was able to find out everything I needed to know via the doco and the sample code in GitHub. Lastly, time was running out, and I've been absolutely flat out at work! Look like I made it in a nick of time though!

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I found that getting the skill up and running with SDK 2.0 and APL was much easier than when I was first building Alexa skills. Am I getting better at this, or are the tools better? A bit of both I think. It was surprisingly eay to get a good look and feel to go with the voice.

What I learned

Heaps. The changes in the Alexa SDK and now with APL have made this a very attractive platform to write code for. I have plans now for something far more substantial.

What's next for Australian Shares

There a bunch of little improvements that could be made, but I'll see if people like it first. However, I'm quite excited about the possibilities on Alexa now, and have plans for something far more substantial. A new skill called "ask Bailley", a personal sommelier app for wine connoisseurs!

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