TechOpinionation - Comments

Joshua Kugler: Basie sounds good...but only SVN?

nospam@example.com (Joshua Kugler) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:47:34 +0000

It's not so much that I was whining about a missing feature, as I was highlighting

1) My confusion as to why someone would create a software forge in today's VCS climate that only supported Subversion, and

2) Why they chose to create their own system, instead of improving an existing project.

Simonw on reddit had a valid point:

My understanding is that an important aspect of Basie is that it's primarily an educational project - an open source project designed for teams of students to work on. As such, there's probably a lot to be said for having a from-scratch implementation rather than working to improve an existing project. Basie's predecessor, DrProject, was a fork of Trac so I imagine their experience with developing against an existing open source project lead them to switch paths and build their own thing from scratch.

That may very well be the entire point.

A Typical Reddit User: Basie sounds good...but only SVN?

nospam@example.com (A Typical Reddit User) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:52:10 +0000

"they they they"

Methinks someone missed the point of free software, where whining about some missing feature is not allowed.

Joshua Kugler: Don't use strptime, use a regex

nospam@example.com (Joshua Kugler) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:43:48 +0000

Yeah, it might have been just as easy. I suppose the regex provides some sanity checking. The reason I went with the regex was because I was already using a regex to check if it is a date column (long story, bad "csv" formate file, etc). So, it was a natural mental jump: something I was already using sparked my next step. If I hadn't been using a regex, split probably would have come to mind. I'll have to benchmark both approaches and see what I can find out.

Thanks for the suggestion!

rayo: Don't use strptime, use a regex

nospam@example.com (rayo) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:45:10 +0000

Wouldn't it be easier and probably faster to just use split?

Something like that:

d = '9/23/2009'
parts = [int(x) for x in d.split('/')]
return '%d-%02d-%02d %s' % (parts[2],parts[0],parts[1], time_field)

Joshua Kugler: Real dependencies, not convenient dependencies

nospam@example.com (Joshua Kugler) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:46:12 +0000

Hmm...I understand that may be the language, but when you report a bug, you report against a certain version (whether that be the version of the package or the version of the Ubuntu release). I guess then, it should be policy to open a backport request upon closing the bug if the bug was originally opened against a version that is still in its supported phase.

Greg: Real dependencies, not convenient dependencies

nospam@example.com (Greg) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:34:07 +0000

This idea sounds so logical it screams to me: "why isn't this the current policy?!" I then think of the work that will be required of the Debian maintainers and Ubuntu MOTU to fix these issues. Hopefully it would be as easy as going through the changelog of the package src and rebuilding against the older set of minimal dependencies and seeing if it still works.

On your related gripe: In the language of Launchpad, the current work flow is indeed the correct work flow. However, if you do see a bug fix which should be backported to an LTS, then there is always the option of opening a task against the LTS. That new task will then be reviewed to see if it should be backported or not. It is a little wonky sounding at first, but it is pretty much the only way to keep the bug tracker sane.

Joshua Kugler: Be Careful Who You Prank

nospam@example.com (Joshua Kugler) — Sat, 23 May 2009 11:55:34 +0000

Very interesting! Thanks for pointing that out.

Dan McGee: Be Careful Who You Prank

nospam@example.com (Dan McGee) — Sat, 23 May 2009 08:24:53 +0000

You were talking with a Coho bot which is really just a middleman to another random person- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheGreatHatsby. Kind of interesting the way it works, and it seems to troll the reddit/digg/etc. RSS feeds looking for user names and then connects two of you randomly.

CodeJustin: Skills vs. Theory: Which Should Be Taught?

nospam@example.com (CodeJustin) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:15:14 +0000

This is pretty much what I'm thinking right now. I think that maybe taking a general CS degree will give me the understanding I need to "pick up" any language I might have to know for a job. The only thing I'm worried about is the Math side of any CS degree. Recently I took my ACT to get a good math score to get into an engineering program. Well I studied only Math and tried really hard on the Math section BUT ironic music plays I scored above college level for EVERYTHING but math! For some reason my math is terrible! Also I just had to retake my PSSA (a high school test needed to graduate). I did well on everything but the math section. This bugs me because I know that at one point I learned the math being used on theses tests but I just cant seem to remember it I guess. I was thinking of possibly game programming but having such a low level of math I'm not sure if I will be too good at it. I'm going to be posting a very lengthy post soon (maybe tomorrow) about myself and my options for college. I really hope you can weigh in your thoughts on the subject!

Jack Repenning: Can you effectively enforce reciprocity?

nospam@example.com (Jack Repenning) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:28:30 +0000

Every company I've ever worked for, in 25 years in Silicon Valley, has been in the "fourth category" of people who won't pay unless required to, but will pay if those are the rules. Maybe my sample's skewed, but at the least it serves to establish that there is a "fourth category." These companies don't view license compliance as a moral responsibility (to respect or ignore, depending on personal choice), but more in the lines of "the rules of the game." In American football, you can touch the ball with your hands; in world futbol, you can't. Neither side is cheating to comply with the rules, they're just following the rules of that particular game. It would be silly for an American quarterback to refuse to touch the ball simply because some other game forbids it. It would, in fact, be crazy!

Cilk's bet, then, is not that everyone is category-4, but only that there are enough category-4 people to make a significant financial difference for them. They'll see if they're right as time goes on. I'm not sure which outcome I expect, but it's certainly an interesting bit of research!

xzxzzx: A near (computer) death experience

nospam@example.com (xzxzzx) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:24:34 +0000

There's an interesting discussion going on on reddit right now.

But your comment system prevented me from linking it.

Joshua Kugler: Can you effectively enforce reciprocity?

nospam@example.com (Joshua Kugler) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:37:35 +0000

Clarification: 'this' in the last sentence of that last comment refers to using internally and creating derivatives without giving back.

Joshua Kugler: Can you effectively enforce reciprocity?

nospam@example.com (Joshua Kugler) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:58:44 +0000

Very true. But this is the type of consumer Cilk seeks to exclude: their license says if you use your derivative product internally, you still have to give back. The GPL allows this, the CAPL does not.

Fabien: Can you effectively enforce reciprocity?

nospam@example.com (Fabien) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:50:22 +0000

Don't forget the fourth type of open source consumers: Those who have no intention to give back, and don't, but do so legally, because they don't distribute anything to the general public.

Jonathan Allen: Relative Difficulty

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Allen) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:01:41 +0000

Wow, you are ignorant. Fortunately that is curable.

First of all we have this thing called the Internet which lets us grab whatever tools we what. We are not limited to the base OS for all functionality.

Secondly, robocopy is part of the Windows Resource Kit. Every admin and developer I know installs this before touching a box.

Ramon Leon: Relative Difficulty

nospam@example.com (Ramon Leon) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:09:50 +0000

I'd do it just like this...

tar -cv /etc|bzip2 -9 -c | ssh -i /path/to/id_rsa user@backuphost.com \
"(cat > /path/to/backup.tar.bz2)"

You mistakenly assume you can't simply replace the windows shell with a real one, but you can, easily, and it's free. http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe

Gives you a full Linux shell on Windows with all the goodies. I manage all my Windows and Linux servers via ssh and cron.

Mark: Relative Difficulty

nospam@example.com (Mark) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:46:49 +0000

Yes, but you've used a special-purpose package for that, which might not exist or you might not know about for a similarly complex task. Unix systems let you build up configurable tools from simple, general parts.

Jonathan Allen: Relative Difficulty

nospam@example.com (Jonathan Allen) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:58:17 +0000

Normally I would just write:

robocopy SourceDir \\RemoteServer\Share\TargetDir /mir

(The mirror flag ensures only files that have changed get copied and any deleted files are removed.)

Now if compression or greater security is in order then would take two lines, one to call pkzip and one to sent it by whatever variety of secure FTP your client computer exposes.

If you think about it, your Linux solution is more complex. You have to tar and zip the file as separate actions, and the person on the other end has do likewise to unpack them.

Kate: Making stew

nospam@example.com (Kate) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:30:32 +0000

Groan. Ok I spent a couple minutes trying to see if anybody else could possibly be this corny. And my professional conclusion is no, they can't. Congratulations!

Kate: Relative Difficulty

nospam@example.com (Kate) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:23:39 +0000

LOL isn't that the truth!