16 Feb 2009 (updated 16 Feb 2009 at 00:47 UTC)
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I don't do a lot with peer-networking sites. I've never had
a blog. In fact, I don't really know what to write here,
nor anywhere else on this site. I do, however, write
software and I've never been paid for it. I started with
BASIC on an Apple IIgs in 1991. My father fried the RAM
around 1995, and the only thing available to program on was
my HP-48g, which I programmed day and night for lack of a
real computer. I lacked other programming resources until
2003, when I finally had a computer of my own. I sought out
and learned what I know about programming independently,
mostly through websites, message boards, manpages, tearing
apart code I've come across, and coding for days at a time until
I figure out how to make something work. Programming
steals my life, so I try to save it for good ideas. It
steals my sleep, my dreams, and even the world right in
front of me. My life is elsewhere, yet I remain a slave to
my text editor.
I'm not a professional developer, I don't have a
degree in
CS, nor will either apply to me in the future. I study
cognitive science and mathematics. I'm sure I'll have more
to say about that later.
I don't generally use IDEs and I don't have much of an
interest in GUI programming. Most of what I develop takes
the form of algorithms, frameworks, infrastructures,
libraries, and many other things not readily usable by the
non-programmer.
I have several "open-source projects," made so by
virtue of
being hosted as such, but I put most of my time into one.
Ironically, the one that consistently has zero downloads. I
actually don't program for others to use my work; I publish
my work so my time doesn't go to waste. I'm a
compulsive perfectionist with my code, so when I get
something right I like the idea of someone else being able
to come across it and see what I've done. I'd like to think
that everything I write can be of some use to someone, but
that really isn't the point.
This isn't to say I don't care about what I put out
there or what other developers think. I often retract a
download after noticing a misspelled word in the README for
fear of publishing something with an error. I feel quite
ashamed when I come across bugs in my own work, even in the
alpha and beta versions. It always strikes me as a
misrepresentation when I put my name on something with a bug.
I'm just starting to get into collaborative
development for
a research project I'll be working on. I'm the informal
development lead, but the actual algorithm design will be
done by computer scientists.
For now, please take a look at Resourcerver,
my
main project.
I'd really like feedback on the design; however, please keep
in mind it's only loosely related to dbus, dcop, etc.
(multi-process app control vs. IPC framework.)
Kevin