Older blog entries for higb (starting at number 6)

I came away from my Java project with some unstructured ideas about what I liked and didn't like about Java .. what I liked and didn't like about software development for that matter. Recently I sprung for a book that is helping me put it in perspective, Component Software - Beyond Object-Oriented Programming. A good discussion (441 rather dense pages) about what might make seperately deliverable software componets work. (As a subtext, I wonder if Microsoft is on to something when they hire these guys.)

doobee says:

Reading people talk about Unix sucks; StarOffice to be free send my emotions quite high. Tey try to make Unix something different.

I think UNIX has a lot of obvious strengths. Beyond the technical strength of many small programs all the same, UNIX is an ecosystem. In an other environment, someone might propose an integrated solution of the packaging/library/language problem ... but it would likely be offred as the solution. If it is wrong, the whole ship sinks. In UNIX people are trying everything, and they all have to fail for the ship to sink.

I guess we should be a bit patient, and take a look around at what people are doing. Some people might have solutions that work within the UNIX environment.

Raphael's diary entry about the Orbiten Free Software Survey prompted me to look. They have my last project but not me. Ah well, it's a big project keeping up with everybody ...

Has anyone answered andreas' question from the "future" article?

If this function is accepting a pascal-syle string:

void func (char *domain)
{
        int     len = domain[0];
...

then there is a problem when the high bit of domain[0] is set (lengths greater than 127), it will be sign-extended to fill len., causing a very big buffer overrun later on.

It's kind of interesting, as I consider old advice, to scan the developer 's log for my last project ...

Good Advice Unheeded

It is interesting what you learn about yourself over the course of an open source project. That's because people are always giving you advice. The best advice comes with code attached, and is a little easier to digest. I sometimes manage to listen. I learned a lot about the new OO by trying to wrap my head around (Java) code that was sent me. Other times I've felt that advice was not really applicable, only to look back years later and see what I missed. As an example, there was a guy that wrote me that my Mac shell would really be useful if hooked to a port as a telnet daemon ... not what I was interested in, not my focus ... (with hindsight) what a great idea! I suppose it's too much to expect, that we take good advice every time it's offered, but I try to listen a little more carefully ...

I almost forgot, my tiniest open source project might be my most-visited. When I first started playing with Java (late '96) I posted a small maze applet. That bit of code ended up being linked to a lot of kid's pages, and earns me charming notes from the little tikes, saying things like "you suck" and "you need color". Perhaps I should have built the maze applet out a bit more, but that wasn't the original point.

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