Advogato blog for xriso

4 Mar 2001

Sun, 4 Mar 2001 02:16:44 GMT

Begin Rant
I'm sorry, but I have to say this: Advogato sucks. Hmm... let's see why...

There are no threads in discussions. Can't we get some order in here?
Users communicate through their diaries. Can we add a little private-message thingy at least?
The documentation for the site is all over the place.

C'mon. This site is about free software discussion, right? We need to make communication easier, IMHO. Yes, I know a lot of you will think "OK, then do it yourself!". The thing is, it will take me a while to get the feel of the advogato code. Also, I don't know enough of the libraries that the code uses. Other people are better suited to messing with the code.

BTW: If someone adds threads and private messaging, I have an idea: any replies to your comments will be put in your private-message list, if you wish.

If you reply to this through your diary, I probably won't see it. I don't spend all day looking at diaries. If you need to tell me something, you can use my comments form.
End Rant

3 Mar 2001

Sat, 3 Mar 2001 19:44:42 GMT

Well, that was an interesting adventure. I wrote up a nice comment CGI thingy, entirely in C. I put up the little CGI+forms framework under the GPL here.

I've repackaged hexman as well, because I made 2 real levels (medium and hard difficulty). The game still doesn't do levels consecutively, but it works well enough right now. If you downloaded a previous version, there were some bugs that I thought I had already gotten rid of. The next step in development will be more levels, and then something which makes it easier to play. I suppose eventually I will need an install process, and a data dir.

Just wondering: I have my hexman project page set up, but how do other projects get other people on their list? The advogato system seems quite ... obscure. I think this probably has something to do with me only being Observer. If you have an answer, you can use it to test out my comments form. :-)

Oh yeah: Thanks to voltron, angelsun, and baueran for certifying me!

26 Feb 2001

Mon, 26 Feb 2001 00:55:51 GMT

Boohoo... I'm not Apprentice yet. :-)

Begin bragging session.
Anyway, I think I qualify for Apprentice because I have made an OSS project called hexman (which I am documenting better). I've actually done a lot of programming of little things, and I've submitted a few bug reports over the years, but not anything major yet. I consider my C programming skills to be good. I fully understand the grammar of the language (OK, I haven't totally memorized operator precedence yet), and I know some extra programming things. Here's what comes to mind:

Pointers/arrays
Function pointers (very cool, IMO)
Pointer addition
Screwing around with dynamic memory using malloc(), realloc(), and free()
String handling
Linked lists
B-trees (haven't really used 'em yet)
Structs, bitfields
Variable arguments
Binary logic and bitwise operators
File I/O
Modular programming (multiple .c and .h)
Really simple stuff: loops, strings, displaying, functions, etc.
How to use man pages <-- Ultra-necessary, IMHO

And, anything I don't know I can learn in a jiffy.
End bragging session.

Update: I fixed a bug in hexman which I thought I had gotten rid of. You can now move properly using the keypad with numlock off.

Update: I'm really working on this thing now. I'll update the diary again when I get finished doing stuff.

Update: OK, I made the PLAYING file. I haven't repackaged yet, I'll do it tommorow.

24 Feb 2001

Sat, 24 Feb 2001 18:31:26 GMT

Nothing much happening right now. I am hacking up a little game right now. It takes place under ground, and you can have dirt falling when it is disturbed. Fortunately, I have a flexible structure so that I can later add water, hot air, buildings, units, etc.

I'm not sure where exactly I should proceed from here. I could either make it a single-unit mission thing, or a multi-unit battle thing. I was originally aiming for the battle, but controlling a single sniper would be kinda cool too.

I suppose with the battle option you could set up scenarios that only give you a sniper, so I should go for that.

Also, shouldn't there be a page with all the Advogato documentation on it? It would be nice to not have to hunt it down in different areas.

PS: If you want, you can certify me as Apprentice or something.