Older blog entries for nzkoz (starting at number 5)

Work

I wish some people would check before submitting things... can't really say anymore

Open Source

Well, the computer's out of the lounge and into our study/laundry (long story) so I've been on a bit of a Open Source binge. I helped out mrproper with his QA work for the gnome documentation project. I also finished FormCharacter for the gnome frontend. I'm just trying to figure out the LyX button controller system. Everything's disabled in my dialogs! :)

I dislike ximian gnome and I can't wait for the Gnome Packaging Project to start releasing binaries. Ximian left a number of omf files out of important packages (gnome-utils and gnome-core) meaning the help sidebar is useless. On top of that the mozilla packaging seems messed up so I've reverted to blizzard's.

Work

Neeeeeeed sleeeeeep nooooooow!!!!

Open Source

After fighting with akamai and ftp.ximian.com I am now running ximian gnome 1.4. All I can say is WOW!.... And this, Never before have I felt so at home in a desktop environment. Gnome 1.4 with Nautilus is brilliant.

Work never ends. But I suppose that's a good thing. I'm currently plugging away on my tools for Compudigm and having a lot of fun doing it.

Studies

Group Theory is actually quite difficult. Not so much in the material that it covers but in the precision it requires. I'm always catching myself going a*b*c = b*a*c = b*(a*c) = b*n only to remember 2 hours later that the group isn't Abelian! Though a lot of people would write off group theory as useless theoretical rubbish I'm finding it very useful. The rigour it forces me to use with my logic really cleans up my programming

Open-Source

Nautilus just gets better and better. Not a day goes by that I don't use it. If only I was more of a programmer and could add a CVS view and a smb:// module for gnome-vfs. Then it would be truly useful. No work on LyX unfortunately, too much paid work to do.

Work

Well one of my project managers is sick of me being dragged elsewhere and postponing my work for her. So to stop that from happening I've been moved from my desk to one behind a few other employees. The theory being that the evil ones will stop harrassing me with non-perl related work.

Open Source

I've re-read Scott Meyers' Effective C++ and loved it the second time as well. I've been programming in perl so long that I find it hard to think in C++ terms when it comes to manipulating strings. I have most of my mind around it and that should really make it easier for me to really progress through the LyX dialogs

Of course a downside of being in a fast growing company is that your job description changes fairly rapidly.

Boss: "This is high priority"

Me: "Gotcha I won't sleep until that's done!"

Boss: "Change of plans. This company is Huge and they want us. Do that!"

Them's the breaks I guess.

On another note I'm in love with nautilus. I'm running the hourly builds and I've found most of the speed problems have gone and the program is nicely responsive. I'm just longing for some of the features we've seen in preview screen shots.

On the LyX Front I'm having a bit of trouble following some of the more complicated Controllers and that's slowed my GUI development down a bit. I'm just looking forward to getting some serious coding done on Easter weekend. Specifically FormCharacter and FormInclude.

I've finally had my first code commited to the LyX repositry, see! . I've started working on some of the slightly more difficult dialogs

On a work front, Compudigm is going well and I'm having a ball. My current workload seems to leave me in NZ for the forseeable future but I look forward to some trips away in the future. I just hope I get sent somewhere fascinating. Things couldn't really be going any better! :).

Well, that's not entirely true, I spend most of my time fighting with various windows based database systems but that irritation is only minor compared to the benefits of working here. I definitely advise all of you to work for fast growing successful companies!