Older blog entries for whytheluckystiff (starting at number 33)

rasmus, amars, vab, others:

my extension to the thought is: a person who releases free software for the ethics
alone cannot appreciate the movement as much a person who, having satisfied their own
obstacles with software, resolves to freely pass their creation on to the world.  and
there is resolution in doing this.  everything i have learned, i have learned from
someone else.  a book, a class, a discussion-- perhaps i have made a few original
discoveries.  once my software is given to the world, i expect no reward, as i have
received so much already.

the creature who codes for the ethics alone is dependant on the ethics as a reward.
if the movement appears to falter, then they loose their inspiration.  so i find it
encouraging to think about those software authors who released free software before
the Movement.  why did they do it?  maybe they were just nice people.

and i'm sure some people question my certification of bytesplit as Journeyer.
i suppose i don't have much of a defense, except that i tend to certify high.  if someone
is keeping up their involvement on this site, then i feel like encouraging them.  and if
i certify them as Journeyer, then there's a chance they might respect that. and actually
start acting like a Journeyer.  

Journeyers, Ho!

the brainwashing of our world is not enough.  i want to fork
the brain and keep the child.  if only to reread huck finn for
the first time again.  perhaps a new brain would help me find a
reason for my navel.  maybe even: to store salt in, so i can dip
celery into when i'm in bed and i get hungry.

thanks to someone around here for linking yaml one
day.  i listened on the list for a bit and started the yaml4r
project (a YAML emitter/parser for Ruby).  It's nice to be pitching in on someone
else's project.  Clark, Oren and Brian all have been welcoming and VERY appreciative
of my effort.  in many ways, it's often more rewarding to help out on a project than to
push my own. 

i've been enjoying reading recentlog lately.  I've thought it would be kind of cool
for an advogator out there to make a weekly summary page.  One-liners for some of the
highlight entries.  Perhaps even rank the topics and encourage more succulent content.

sickness cancelled my trip.  bah, i really wanted to see bjork.
oh, thomasvs, i certified you because i couldn't
resist certifying a breeders fan.  and i was overjoyed to hear they were
touring again, so i threw on I Just Wanna Get Along and started certifying
all breeders fans in sight (you) and i almost certified you a master because i was
practically rabid.  i figured i'd better try out GStreamer first.  ;)

yeah, so i was trapped in los angeles while i was sick and had no computer, so i
wrote out the article on mixins for the front page on a tiny legal pad.  which was
difficult, as i couldn't try out my examples until i was feeling good enough to stand
erect.  had to revise it a bit, but i guess even when i'm sick i can't bear not
getting something done.  thanks to positive feeback on the article.

i guess i've been in "marketing" mode too a bit much.  looking back on my previous
diary entries, i think i've talked too much of my own projects.  which i suppose is
okay, since it's my own diary and it's good to feel fascination (rather than disdain)
for stuff i spend time on.  but i think i'm going to scan freshmeat and lend a hand on
any interesting projects i find.  or i can watch more sealab.

Krelin: i can completely relate to being torn during a concert.
i used to bring recording equipment to concerts, but it prevented me from doing a
whole lot of dancing because minidiscs skip too easily.  but harry connick was probably
a sitting concert, so.. ideal bootleg situation.  anyway, the comment struck me.

abiword devs:  (and i noticed there are a bunch of you commenting on guadec, but i've
no idea who's who)  you have created an excellent app.  lightweight, saves in XML,
cross-platform, and so on.  i write at least ten pages a week to keep my fiction
alive and abiword is my tool.  i've even come away from using strictly longhand.
so thanks.

oh crap.  the other day i was starting to get nostalgic about adovgato.  i started to
really miss ReadMe.

aw gee.. about that php is toy coding comment.. no harm intended.
sloccount shows that the libraries the javuh team just completed
totals 14,628 lines of code.  needless to say, it was very fun
to code (hence "toy coding") and quite guiltless.  and truth be
told, i'd rather be categorized with the kids than the adults.
at ApacheCon and anywhere else.

i think our project goes along with the whole "rapid prototyping"
idea as well.. a possibility which would be much more cumbersome
in other prominent web languages.  we are able to build a basic
object schema and generate the HTML forms, databases, and PHP
classes from that.  saves a lot of time.  i think this goes with
other comments just voiced.

i just went back and watched the pilot to alias, which
i missed because i got into the series late.  i am addicted to
that show.  and the pilot has so much more meaning now.  it's
amazing that it's only been a single season. 

released javuh 1.0 yesterday,
which was a rush.  for the first time, i'm not really concerned about users getting
into it.  i've spent the last seven months working rather regularly on this code and
seeing it bring great strides to my PHP development.  now, i'm able to
release a rather stable chunk of code to the world and anyone can pick it up and use
it.  oddly, a lot of my previous projects were just done to get involved in
open source.  this ono has geniunely useful code to me and i'm satisfied if even a
single person benefits, because i'm not looking for a return.  it's kind
of cool.

lest i present myself as too good natured, i think a lot of
the reason i feel so casual about this code is because it's all PHP.  for some
reason, PHP just seems like toy coding (even though it's responsible for my
salary).  and i guess another would be that much of the code was built for
projects i got paid for.

i've been getting back into the rubik's cube lately.  i've
hit a plateau of about four minutes.  it's an awesome game for programmers.  my
method of solving the cube often involves shuffling the cubes in order around the
edges.  for some reason it feels like a relative of the turing machine.  there's a
fabulous video of the 1982 world championships up at speedcubing's
multimedia section.

glad of the cmiller script for XML-RPC.  i always foresee
a day when all the software on my machine will be interpreted code.  
i could do it now, but suffer the loss of a decent web browser, video
player, wait i couldn't do it right now.  but i can post this entry!

i'm terribly amazed with ruby.  i use php for practical reasons on 
my sites, and have enjoyed it as an escape from asp, jsp.  this week,
i built a debugging tool for php.  the tool is written in ruby and
speaks xml over udp.  it's a gui tool using fox toolkit widgets. 
here's a current screenshot.  the code
for php looks like this:

<?
  site_debug( "Session", "Reading session data." );
  site_debug( "SQL,MySQL", "SELECT ... " );
?>

You can also set watches and use trigger_error() to send debug info.  
The latest version of FXRuby came out just in time too.  The table 
was looking pretty weak under the old version, but a new version came 
out and now it's rather stylish.  I'd really like to get some icons 
in there for severity. 

i'm also quite in love with mail reader sylpheed, which
is the only mail client i've found that does imap how i desire.  unless
you know of a way that mutt can show my imap mailbox list with the number of
new and unread messages.  thanks in advance.

kind of put out that my first few projects with Zope 
weren't as enjoyable as I'd hoped.  I think one of the main 
obstacles to that project is the lack of documentation.  I 
mean the Zope Book is good if you're doing simple stuff and 
if you're using DTML.  But I don't want to use DTML.  It 
feels like Cold Fusion.  So when using Zope Page Templates, 
I referred to ZopeLabs a lot to glean bits from their 
cookbook.  I appreciated help from #zope idlers, but I
don't think I'm going to take that route any longer.
can't wait for the freebsd native jdk to come out.  i'm 
still running a patched 1.1.8 on my server because i
couldn't ever get any of the others to patch correctly and
i didn't want to install all the linux base ports.
desktopian.org is down for a bit.  looks like the legacy
of pimpin.net is finally and completely gone.  we're going
to be back up on a new and better server soon, so it's for
the best.  we've been up and down for two months now.

truly appreciated this week's discussion (often titled open
source is dead, but covering the more general what is happening
to all of our projects and why?  this discussion is spreading
or something.  A related topic on scripting.com refers to
the discussion by the moniker "open-source-as-flop".  dave has
some valid comments that i normally choose to ignore, but this time
i choose to accept the verdict concerning customer support among the
developers in our cause.  i'm thinking RTFM is fine for interoffice
remarks but a too abrasive for real users.  if you read dave's
article that i linked up there, read the doc searls viewpoint too.
his point kind of goes along with all of our points mashed together.
personally, i'm glad of the hype and the wave swells that 
introduced me to the bazaar.  it's been very good times so
far and will assuredly continue to be.

i am so glad to be done with the most difficult year of my life. with
all of the world chaos this year, i'll bet you can relate.  i've weathered
my parent's divorce well, fought financial disturbance to victory,
and endured the toughest inner depression and insanity i have
ever faced.

i hate crying.  crying makes me feel stupid.  i wish i didn't
hate it though, so i could cry tonight and feel the full emotional
experience of letting this year go by.  ah well.  someday i think
i'll be able to have an oceanic moment that will cover the complete
catalog of experience i've had.  hopefully in such a way that i
can understand.  perhaps that will be death.

i know new year's doesn't really mean a whole lot.  it's a moment
like any other moment during a day.  but i can't help but give it
meaning, as i'd like to just allow myself the gladness of a deep
breath as the clock changes and sweeps away that long year that hurt
so bad.

not a big man on campus here, but i feel like it since rasmus
jumped in on the talk! ;D
Waldo: sure.  ska does exist.  but ska is not about listening to 
an album. it's about being there at the show with the 
clothes, the brass, the scene, having your own private 
skank.  i'm trying to emphasis what i feel is happening in 
our world here.  times change and we've got to adapt, right?
i mean i see your point, but i'm not as much a fan of the relics
of an empire.  i'd rather be in the empire itself.

i guess that's why i joined the ruby-talk list.
its activity is inspiring.  that project is definitely thriving.  it's
nice to even have new CVS commits almost daily.  it's a candy
language and very tasty at that!  and although i can do no more
than reminisce on some of the old (now smoldering) projects I once
loved, a certain vein flows into a newer project with life.
rasmus: your individual thoughts concerning community
expectations and project size are wonderful.  it's the tortoise and
the hare, right? :D  slow and steady wins the race.  so when is
the race over?  when is the child fully grown into a man and
later buried?  an actor is lucky because he knows when the play 
is over so he can bow and let the curtain close.  we go until
the curtain closes while we are performing!  applause is stifled
when the act has not closed yet.  but it will, it will.

i think of litestep.  and how its later revisions
slowed as new dev teams came in.  the dev teams have slowed to the
point where they don't even have time to appoint new devs! and they've
got thousands of active users clamouring.  they've been stuck on a
24.6 release for two years.  at one point we got close, but the devs
withdrew.  capable people will not always pull through even on a small project.
there's something about having the father of a project around.

i don't think free software will die, but i don't have qualms
entertaining the idea.  it is a possibility that supporters would
shrink to the head of a pin.  i have heard some recent speak that
goes something like this: come on!  where is everyone?!  get
coding!  i would say that demand (and criticism more so!)
will not encourage developers.  seems like that would worry
other people too?