Advogato blog for codic

5 Jun 2000

Mon, 5 Jun 2000 00:14:44 GMT

Been a while...

What can I say? I just haven't been keeping up with my diary entries. It probably would have been longer, too, if my freind aether hadn't told me he set up an account.

Work

I *love* working for a small company. I used to work for a medium sized company (Software Kinetics) which was bought by a big company (xwave solutions). I thought it was OK, but only because I hadn't seen the other side. Now I work for a very small company (technically 4 of us, realistically 6) and it rocks. What else can I say? They even bought me a $400 chair!

Code

Need to write more of it. My UML modeller is coming along very slowly, but it is coming along. I'm going to try to work on it everyday this month. We'll see how long that lasts.

22 Apr 2000

Sat, 22 Apr 2000 07:34:06 GMT

Colour!

Came online to get my diary fix today and noticed that I'm now officially and Apprentice. Woo-hoo! I like being in colour.

20 Apr 2000

Thu, 20 Apr 2000 16:19:31 GMT

Mmmm... Summer....

Oh, it feels so good to be done. I think I'm going to spend today cleaning up the trail of books, notes, print-outs of other people's source code, and dirty dishes I've left lying around the past couple weeks. Jane'll be happy. And maybe if the weather gets better, I can spend time reading and drinking beer on my virtual lawn (I've astroturfed my balcony).

Radio Announcers

Just heard a speako (the vocal equivalent of a typo) on the Guelph radio station. They just announced that we'd be getting 75 centimetres of rain today! Ha! I think she meant 75 millimetres... well... I hope she did ;) This is good, though. Southern Ontario has been in drought conditions for about the past 2 years so any precipitation is welcome.

Ottawa Linux Symposium

My friends Alex, Aaron, and I have decided that we're definitely going to OLS (is that an accepted abbreviation?). This'll be my first Linux conference, so I'm really excited. I've been to a bunch of concerts at the Congress Centre before (Tea Party, Dave Matthews, New Year's Eve bash ... maybe more), but nothing like this. I'll probably stay at my mom's place in Almonte. She won't be there (she going to England to visit my grandparents), but my brother will be, and I don't see him enough, so it'll be nice to hang out with him a bit.

19 Apr 2000

Wed, 19 Apr 2000 06:33:03 GMT

"Recommended Approach to Software Development"

Here's an interesting read. I'll post a review in my diary when I'm done.

Exams

Yeesssss!!!!! Wrote my last exam of the semester tonight. Didn't go too well, but my project mark ought to carry me.

All that's left is a paper that I'm finishing up now and marking CIS*1000 exams, which ought to be good for a laugh (from the midterm: "Who developed the first GUI?", 9/10 answers - "Microsoft". Uh... hello? Didn't you see Pirates of Silicon Valley?)

17 Apr 2000

Mon, 17 Apr 2000 09:52:01 GMT

jrennie:

Heh heh... for the record, I'm not challenging your knowledge of C++ :) "C/C++" is just one of my pet peeves. I mean, C and C++ are different languages! Yes, their names are similar and their syntax is similar, but, IMO, C doesn't have enough of C++ in it validate "C/C++". I'll shut up now. Nobody wants to hear about this (and if you do... why? I wouldn't ;).

Hello World

A friend of mine asked me about the origin of "Hello, World!" programs. I don't have a clue where there started, but I'm curious now. Anyone know? Update: Peeking in the jargon file is leading me to believe it all started with K&R. Is there any truth to this?

Yay, plugins!

I've updated the example code that uses my dl::lib class that I mentioned a few days ago. It even has a sample plugin, now. Next thing to add is going to be support for C++ name mangling so I can reference *real* member functions. Anyone know of a reference for the C++ name mangling scheme? Or should I just read the c++filt source?

Finals

2 hours and 45 minutes 'til my "Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition" final. Damn.

16 Apr 2000

Sun, 16 Apr 2000 21:46:38 GMT

jrennie

Certified jrennie as an Apprentice for his insight into the Outcast situation. I might upgrade that if he changes the "C/C++ and perl" in his notes section to "C, C++, and perl". I often think that people who say "C/C++" just don't know C++ well enough to realize how different the languages are. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, it's just a trend I've noticed. (I'm probably asking for an Outcast certification with that comment. ;)

My Thoughts

Anyway, I agree that it's pointless to have a class of users that can do nothing. It sounds like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (not as of yet, anyway).

I also feel that a rating system that allowed negative ratings would be most effective if everyone could rate users, but the weighting of a user's rating (I can't help but notice that that rhymes) should be proportional to their status (i.e., a rating coming from a Master should mean much more than a rating coming from an Outcast). I seem to recall someone else mentioning this, too, but I can't remember who.

16 Apr 2000

Sun, 16 Apr 2000 08:52:34 GMT

Brainstorming

ICQing with my friend Aaron today about what kind of programming we'd like to do this summer in our Free Time. It was funny because we accidently started brainstorming about a project to help with (get this!) brainstorming!

Anyway, the idea is to have a tiny little program (tiny enough that when you hit a special key mapped by your window manager to launch it that it would appear almost immediately) that will pop up a dialog box for you to type the idea that just popped into your head. The idea would then be stored in an ideas database (personal or shared) to be revisited at another point in time to categorize, rate, sort, delete (if the idea really sucked), expand on, etc. using a seperate (less tiny) program when you had the time.

In the case where a shared database is in use, you can rate or expand on other people's ideas creating a graph of idea nodes (most likely a tree, but I haven't thought about that enough yet).

The goal here is convenience. The amount of time required to pop up the window, enter the idea, close the window, and resume your previous activity must be approximately equal to the time required to enter the data.

Comments?

15 Apr 2000

Sat, 15 Apr 2000 17:32:16 GMT

Certified kenelson and Guillaume as Journeyers today for their awesome work on Gtk--. Guillaume doesn't show up on the Gtk-- project page, but he is one of the core contributors.

15 Apr 2000

Sat, 15 Apr 2000 10:10:24 GMT

Wrote some reasonably cool code today. It's a C++ class that wraps the dlfcn.h functions. It's simple, but effective. You can get it on my Development page.

Oh, and I downgraded myself to an Apprentice today. I thought it was more realistic given that I have yet to contribute to the free software community in any truly meaningful way.

13 Apr 2000

Thu, 13 Apr 2000 08:27:46 GMT

Hrm... I've learned today that I'm too stupid to have an account on this site. I wanted to reply to an article today, but couldn't figure out how. Doesn't matter. I should be studying anyway.

Update: I'm not too stupid, just not active enough. So things'll change this summer.