Older blog entries for bytesplit (starting at number 73)

For all those out there watching the "sniper chase in America" closely, I present this question:

What if the sniper(s) really aren't driving a white van, but are driving a pink YUGO?

I think this whole case shows how messed up law enforcement is, and how the media has the police waving their guns in the dark.

Terrorism at its best, unfortunately, and I don't even think it's really started. Stay tuned.

chipx86, okay I am going to suprise A LOT of people here by doing one thing. Ssshhhhhh.....hint...hint...it has nothing to do with tossing the proverbial grenade back, so to speak.

How do I get involved in a project? I've been to freshmeat.net and sourceforget.net (are the two related or hold the same projects?), and besides the enjoyment I have received from downloading and installing some of the projects (and shaking my head in disgust at some of other borked projects), I have not really gotten a grasp on how to get started reading the source code and possibly submitting patches as time and coding skills improve and permit.

This IS something that I want to do. I've been using Linux far, far more than I do Windows anymore. I really have no use for Windows anymore, except for having to use it at the college or to do something for my wife on that computer. If not for the frustrations in trying to get printing working (my SAMBA skills are shot) on Linux and getting the printing to look presentable at that, there would be no reason for my wife and I to be using Windows.

Some have told me to take a look at CVS (I think), but after going cross-eyed looking at the documentation on that, I still got no where. Having said the above, I wonder this: how in the world does patching really work, anyway? Perhaps an article could go up on advogato about this? For us newbies? If you submit a patch, and it wasn't really to fix a bug but to add what you feel is a cool feature, how does someone else deal with not liking this new feature? The concept of patching confuses me. Or, what happens if you and someone else at the same time download a version of a project and you wind up submitting the same patch as the other person? Won't there be a conflict in submission of the patches?

Lately, I've decided to do away with the arm-tugging of peeps who decide that their programming language of choice is the better one for a newbie to focus on, and have decided that C and C++ are my route. I really feel naive for saying that, because besides scripting languages, there really aren't that many more compiled (or are there?) languages that I could choose from. Anyway, I am enjoying learning C, and am just now ready to tackle pointers and structs. Actually, I am holding off C++ until I feel I have a firm grasp on C++. Baby steps! I don't feel I am going to hired in this area of shortage of programming jobs for a long time anyway, so I have a lot of time!

Later, and be cool :) And, now before anyone goes off writing that "bytesplit is probably playing mind games again", I'm not :)

thomasvs, I found your read amusing :) There is one problem, though. Through your eloquent use of sarcasm lies a fault in logic. Where? That, not talking specifically about technology makes me a "person that hates advogato" :) Look around at the other entries. How many of them do you really think hold a lot of substance in terms of wielding and manipulating technology? Not many! A lot of the entries are just filler, filler and more filler. You know, the fancy, schmanzy buzzwords you see on resumes. Hmm, so where are we? Thomasvs , and I am predicting a handful of others, think that because bytesplit expresses sympathies toward MichaelCrawford or dyork and because bytesplit defends himself against the verbal taunting of folks, who in the real world probably couldn't spell out a complete sentence, that bytesplit must hate coming to advogato. Think about it once more, I implore you :)

apparently raph can't make decisions for himself, and must do what a select few of his band-wagoneers tell him to do: that is, to prevent my entries from showing up in the recent entries. prove me wrong, raph, but at this very instant I am relieved that I don't have social delinquents like yourself working with me. The leeches surrounding you, they know who they are, are all that is wrong with the computing world. You make Bill Gates look like the Mother Theresa of Digital Nirvana.

jimwelch, I hear that the Broken Arrow High School Marching Band is one of the best out of Oklahoma! My former high school marching band, the Harrison County High School out of Cynthiana, Kentucky, won the Class AA KMEA State Marching Band Championship just last Saturday...over perennial AA state titleist Adair County! A kid that I graduated three years before, now band director of George Rogers Clarke (GRC) won the Class AAA title. My former band director, Bob Gregg, just took over the Class A 2nd place finisher Williamstown High School. And, my former assistant band director Chuck Smith led his Class AAAA Lafayette High School (you probably have heard of them and GRC) to their unprecedented 13th straight Class AAAA State Title! So, if you wanna' talk marching band, I'm game :)

fejj, thank you for enlightening me on the whole "free software -vs - paid software" concept. Perhaps I missed it, but are you saying that because you are not being paid by the user of your free software, that you have the right to verbally dispose of that individual anytime that he or she has a complaint about the software that you are or were working on? Sure, I think that if he or she gives you the third degree, that it's only fair to give back "some of the medicine", but...

jameson, i find your writing to be of much interest. Admittedly, though, I wonder whether you would be happier leaving the United States. It bothers me when foreigners come into my country (in my case the USA) and compare it to their own country, in a somewhat belittling manner. I'm sure any native of any country would feel the way I do about this.

What you said about programming languages has been said for years, and is all over the Internet. Perhaps that is a project you could take upon yourself, writing a new language that has all the things you do like about C, C++, Perl and Java, and adds in the things you feel should have already be incorporated into programming languages at this stage in the game?

fejj, I am curious about your rantings. If you don't want to make Linux and Unix users happy, then why are you developing for the Gnome project in the first place? It's difficult for me to imagine that people just email you or chat with these god-awful messages that you say they do. I personally don't know any computer users who would act the way you are portraying these folks do. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me to see a developer spout off with elitest-drivel, without ever caring whether it was warranted or not ... just because one felt he had the right to do so. I don't really think that computer users are all THAT bad, are they?

movement , in total agreement here. I admit that I don't know enough about politics to even come close to debating it, but I really don't think I even want to know. Personally, I enjoy coming here to read the tech talk.

have decided to focus on C++, tomorrow might decide to focus on Java. bleh :(