Older blog entries for parkerc (starting at number 22)

RMS got it right. Freedom is a compromise, which links all of us together.

While driving home from the hardware store, one guy was driving a bit like an asshole, while the rest of us on the road were driving the speed limit and taking our time. The asshole (driving a Miata) probably thought that we were all being suckers for following the speed limit, but what he/she did not understand is that the general pleasant condition - the condition that allowed he/she to drive like a complete asshole - was created by the compromise that the rest of the drivers on the road had silently agreed to. We had all decided that we would agree to create a climate which allowed for all of us to drive home safely.

Just a thought. Thanks RMS.

I have been a bit sidetracked on my Lisp programming by a really cool Lisp project. I was looking for a cross-platform Lisp library, and I came accross ltk, which is a really great little gui library built on tk. The only problem is that tk is a bit ancient-looking on *nix, so I have spent the last few hours replacing the xlib calls with cairo calls.

Nothing really to see yet, but cairo is really a great library, and after using it for a few hours I am really excited about the future of the Linux desktop.

I will post some screenshots on Monday when I have more done. Patches are coming after.

Still like Lisp, even after 6 days. Wrote my first useable program with it today. I am still discovering it, but I wrote a cool little function:

(defun explode-to-list (expr str &optional &key (s nil))
  (let ((size (search expr str)))
    (if size 
	(explode-to-list expr (subseq str (+ 1 size)) 
		 :s (append s (list (subseq str 0 size))))	
      (append s (list (subseq str 0))))))

It takes a string like (explode "," "foo,bar.bin") and returns the list ("foo" "bar" "bin")

This might not be right, and there is probably a better way to do this, but I am really having fun.

So, I have heard for years how great Lisp is, and how if I learned it I would increase my rate of development ten-fold. I always looked at Lisp as a ((crazy) (looking) (AI) (Language)) but I have seen the light. I came across this book and I changed the way I look at Lisp.

I am still only a Lisp baby, but I have had more fun with Lisp than I have ever had with any other language.

I go down to grab a couple of necessary items to prepare for Rita and on the outside is a big hand-written sign letting me know that anything I purchase for the hurricane is not returnable. On top of that, I grab a lighter with a $1 coupon attached and the girl at the counter lets me know that they are not honoring any type of coupon during the hurricane.

Corner market

I then go in to the corner market to buy a few small items and I see that all of the goods have new price tags on them. Cans of tuna for $3.50?

Glad I stocked up, and I will be shopping a Loews from now on. Screw you Ace and Corner Market. Loews rocked today - they were prepared and seemed to have ordered extra supplies for those of us staying in Houston.

indent -kr -i8

ecvsbuild the e17 cvs build tool will have yet another release tonight with lots of yummy goodness. Adding 8 packages to the moduleset.

I put together a modified version on jhbuild that builds e17 from cvs. It *should* allow you to build e17 from cvs without interfering with a current jhbuild install (It uses its own configuration file and renames its version of "jhbuild" to "ecvsbuild").

There is also an installer for the application - "ecvsbuild-installer", which walks you through configuring ecvsbuild.

Get it here

jhbuild is a really cool framework - it allows you to easily handle dependencies and pull from multiple repositories.

Well, I guess that e17 cvs build scripts are already all over the place.

So, I put together a jhbuild moduleset for e17 that is available on ecvsbuild.berlios.de.

jhbuild has dependency tracking.

Right now I am building e17 with the moduleset. If it works, I will put a release up on berlios.de and maintain it.

Just released a little bash script that builds e17 from CVS and installs it in your home directory.

Get it here.

It assumes that you have a pretty recent version of bash and a C compiler.

I have tested it on my ubuntu breezy system, and most things build right out of CVS.

Please send feedback or patches through the berlios.de project homepage.

Anyone confused or having trouble - I will put docs up on the project site in a day.

Bah. My wife just for a purse that she ordered from eBay and it was a fake. The seller had a great rating, and from her research it seemed like it would be an honest sale. Boy, were we wrong. Well, I think that I will stop using eBay.

I have been hearing about problems with items purchased, but I assumed that if we checked the backgrounds of the sellers we would be in good shape. I wonder now how many items on eBay are really what they say they are. How can some one get a good rating and still provide fake items? And this purse was really fake - a really, really bad fake. How can someone have sold hundreds or even thousands of items with no strikes against them and then send out something that they know is a bad replica? Plus - the return address on the shipped item does not even exist.

Directory Administrator / GTK2
I have been getting emails on my initial port. I lost the original code, but I started over again with the code today and I got pretty far porting it over. When I did the first port, I stopped because the code had too many gtk1-isms (I posted that I did not intend to finish the port because of this), but it seems like a lot of people really want a gtk2 port. So, I will finish porting Directory Administratorr to GTK2 this time - I swear. So far, I have it up and running but it crashes at random intervals. Give me a week (July 1, 2005) and I will post the first alpha.

Is it just for me, but is the Directory Administrator site is down?