thoughts

On instant messaging

Pretty often I get complains from certain people that it is impossible to chat with me online in real-time. The thing is, I do use only two protocols for instant messaging: ICQ and IRC.

IRC is by far my favourite one. I like joining a channel or two for a topical discussion. Lately though I’ve been pretty busy and that changed. All I do now is get on the channel with some specific subject, like #perl or #fedora, ask my question, get a set of answers, and leave. Quick help so to speak. IRC is best for real-time discussions, but it needs an agreement on time and place beforehand. If you want to talk, I’ll be all ears.

ICQ is different. ICQ is good for passing a couple of messages back and forward. Also it is pretty indicative about the status of the person – if he or she is open for talk, or busy right now, or totally disconnected from the web. Keeping a serious and time consuing discussion with several people via ICQ is a headache. Also my personal problem with ICQ is that I always forget to switch it on or to switch it off. Popup messages are annoying and distructing, so I switch them off. Taksbar notifications are useless, since my taskbar is a hiding thing. This all makes it pretty difficult to notice when new messages are coming.

Anyway, since I was begged to get online so many times, I ‘ve slightly reconfigured my desktop and I am trying to get used to ICQ. I am using it now for three days in a row. If you don’t want me to quit it once again, now is a good time to message me. My Unique Identification Number (UIN) is 14956994.

Forgotten experience

For the last few hours I have been regaining forgotten experience of washing the floor. Mopping the floor, swabbing the floor – call it anything you want. It’s been some time since I did it last time.

Get a cleaning lady or something, if you have a choice. By no means think that it is a pleasant waste of time. Once you will start there will be no way to stop and you will hate yourself afterwards. Cleaning lady will do it better and faster. It will also come out cheaper. And you can also do something else or totally nothing while your floors are get done.

I think that mopping the floor can demonstrate a really good example to kids why one should study well and work hard, so that one can afford a cleaning lady. I think that really long time ago my parents tried to delivery the point with forcing me to mop the floor. Why do I remember it only now? :)

Olympics: Audience

I had an interesting thought while watching the Olympic games. It is about how audience differs today from the audience of the past and of the future. Take for example camera flashes. Every major sport event, when shown on TV, has lots of photocamera flashes in the audience. Think about it. Flash on the camera is to add some light to the subject of the photograph. In case of sport events, audience is too far away from the subject and there is no way a small flash can light up the stadium. People who are into photography know that. That’s why they either get closer or don’t use flash. Other people use point-and-shoot cameras which are automatic all the way and decide for themselves if the flash should be used or not.

30 years ago photocameras weren’t that cheap and popular. They were less automatic. Flashes were external. If you watch video recording from the 30 year old events, you will not see any flashes in the audience. Only from the media corner.

In 30 years from today, camera’s will be way too smart to attempt lighting up the stadium. They are constantly getting smarter. So, you will not see that much flashing from the audience of the future.

There are other examples of how audience changes. People weren’t putting team colors on their faces for ever you know. Flags and team scarfs weren’t always there too. Interesting, isn’t it?

Do you have any other examples? :)

Thought of the day

I think I have finally realized today why I don’t like “corporate” and “enterprise” programmers and the technologies that they enjoy, like Java and XML. Many of them don’t take languages like Perl, Python, and PHP seriosly. Text files in general and the word “script” in particular make smile. I think, many of them are just hiding behind the complex technology.

Programming skills should grow from small and simple to large and complex. Most people have a kind feeling of nostalgy towards things they have learned in the beginning of their way. Sciprts and one-liners do provide small and simple things which programmers should start with. People who jump straight into Java classes will never be able to produce nice code. And those who had started with one-liners will stick to them until there is a strong reason to do otherwise, since it is natural for people to use the most common way, the way they know better.

So, finally I understood that it is not the laughing at my favourite tools that makes me disrespect “enterprise” developers, but it is their lack of base knowledge and unprofessionalism. Maybe now I’ll find peace with them…

Disagreement with Sean Russell’s RPM Hell

Today I read an essey by Sean Russell called “RPM Hell. A Perfect Example of Good Software Crippled by Bad Design“. In this essey Sean is explaining why he does not like RPM to the level when he is prepared to change the Linux distribution he is using.

I, on the other hand, do like RPM. It has it’s problems but what doesn’t. Some of Sean’s arguments I disagree with and hence this post. Before reading it, please read the original essey by Sean, since I am quoting only the relevant parts.

P.S.: I have notified Sean Russell via email about this post.

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