Atlhack

Erik:
    creating (system) architecture diagrams and descriptions,
    to foil inevitable "postgres/rails is unproven, use oracle/.net" fear-mongering
Kelly:
    going to do "National Novel Writing Month" (NaNoWriMo)
Stuart:
    wants to write a web applet that uses a Kalman filter
    for tracking stock prices
    rush, zappa, shoegaze,
    "i rewatched american psycho again last month, and i really want to live that lifestyle"
    (stuart’s motivation for persuing a finance degree)
Rob:
    "i like small cups"
    and vampire shirts
Alex:
    scrabblebot,
    gödel, nagel paper (which also appeared on ltu)
Mark:
    learning ruby on rails and appcelerator,
    asking Erik about ActiveRecord

since last time
Alex
– wrote JES code to apply image transforms to gridded squares of a larger image

Miriam
– hung out with Alex’s mom
– is packed and ready to move

Mark
– wrote Haskell (and Python and Processing) code for the ICFP 2007 contest
– is starting to understand Monads

tonight
Miriam is finishing Harry Potter
Alex fixing up some JES code
Mark is trying to get Wiimote support for Haskell (bywayof FFI, IOBluetooth.framework, Hiroaki’s Wiimote framework)

completed
Mark got a Haskell FFI program to compile,link,run. Objective-C not compile
Alex did boxes from inside JES, fixed two know bugs, python classes wrapping java classes, unconflating.
Cute pictures of Mr T and Mike McCracken

after much running around outside of the programming spheres, i’m finally back in the work and starting up much needed catching up and whatnot.  the funusual moments are somewhat punctured here and there.

first off, i’m heading in the right direction (at last!).  i found out yesterday i’m going to lead a team of one (me) in creating production software to read and transform data from a variety of lame sources (XML, excel, access) and pretty it up into a more sensible database.  that starts in august, and continues on through january (for now).

right now, i’m creating a facade that links up an ArcMap plug-in (UI) to the backend code.  it involves serializing objects to and from XML.  it’s actually more fun than it sounds, since it’s my first real foray into a practical C# application.

today i got distracted and played around some with F#, microsoft’s implementation of ML with .NET framework.

that’s all for now.  i swear i’ll make it to octane one of these days and meet up with you cats.

6 March 2007 – record turnout

Jason, Will, Mark (qaboomers)
Sonali, Tejus (structural fusioners)
Alex, Erik, and Graham

Since Last Week-
qaboom formed a team of some five developers.
structural fusion worked on legal documents and incorporation.

This Week’s Plans-
Graham- will get some ChucK code ready for jamming.
Mark- jamming with Graham, refactoring geometric primitives
Sonali- taking it easy, reading Agile Web Development with Rails
Tejus- trying to use the ruby mp3 decoding library
Alex- solving the facebook raptor movie seating problem.
Jason and Will- redesigning qaboom, brightening the face, adding classes view
Erik- looking up blog by subdomain. targeted towards web users.

Alex- simulated annealing, implemented local scoring rules.
Graham and Mark- first jam with triangles

20 July 2006 – last of the atlhackers?

SInce Last Week:
Vinny- started a SourceForge project SwixUL, attempt to take SwixML and make it XUL compatible. Optimi agreed to release it open source, which is good.
Graham- Wikipedia! AJAX hacking for the chuck album.
Alex- playing chess and SWIMMing.

This week:
Discussions, in person and electronic.
Graham played with the new chuck+audicle!

15 June 2006 – fluidtoons!

This week:
Mostly uncaffienated drinks with Alex, Graham, Kate.
Attended the ATL film fest showing of Brett’s fluidtoons + R. Thomas!
Plans were made for an upcoming accordion attack!

Since last week:
Graham + ChucK rocked the laptop battle (got into finals).

note carefully i mentioned nothing of this by name for obvious reasons.  if you’re interested, drop me a line and i’ll indulge you.

i code in scheme.  it’s not real scheme.  it’s some guy’s idea of what scheme should be.  he redefined the syntax.  it gets interpreted through mzscheme embedded in a c program.  well, it’s not a exactly a c program.  it becomes a c program.  the original software was written in a language he invented.  more like a preprocessor for c.  it was his idea of what c++ should be.

where i work now, we have a guy that calls himself the gatekeeper.  that’s right, zuul.  his job is not to guard gozer, but to basically preform the role of a piece of software you might have heard of somewhere called cvs (and its replacement, subversion).  man is smarter than the machine, right?  especially at merging different versions of scheme code.  especially when you don’t know scheme.  it makes you more careful because you don’t know what you’re doing – you do it right because you incorporate the changes just as they appear.

in fact, i lied.  he’s not where i work.  he’s in a different company.  through some bizarre legalese, this company possesses the QA and the production server, and will not allow us to have write access into that machine.

why we don’t have write access to the source directories of the product that our company is using is beyond me.  initially, this was because we both used the same product and the same source.  now, they have their own version and we have ours.  but they still control that server.

you would think we could buy a server and put our version on there.  considering the cost of having a server versus the cost of fixing scheme code that somehow manages to get mauled everytime it goes by zuul, you would think this issue would have been cleared up quickly.

it’s been going on for four years.

guys, we’re just janitors.  we know everything that goes on, what’s wrong in the world, but all we do is mop up shit after hours.

the life of a programmer.  keep your head up and don’t smell.

user allanfemistoreinc is a spambot. I blocked him.