Android relies heavily on something called "resources" to access portions of the system that aren't directly in the Java code. For instance, if you had an ogg file that you wanted to use to play a sound with, you would add it as res/raw/foo.ogg. Then, during compilation, the aapt tool transforms all your resources into a Java file called R.java, which is basically a series of integers that can be used to reference the actual resources. For instance, to set up our hypothetical ogg file, we would do:

MediaPlayer mp = MediaPlayer.create(context, R.raw.foo);

That's all well and good as far as it goes, and if you don't have any reason not to use it, you should. However, with Hecl, one of my goals is to make it very easy to create applications. This means:

• No complex directory layout structure.
• No big long build files that require tools like ant.
• No complex compilation steps.

I'm not there yet, on the Android platform, which is a bit more complex than Java ME (where it is indeed so easy to create new Hecl .jars that it's possible to do it on the fly via this web site: http://builder.hecl.org), but I am making progress. One thing that a user might want to do is add their own files to the .apk file that actually gets installed on the phone. Since it's just a zip file, that's pretty easy:

zip -r Hecl.apk res/raw/foo.ogg

However, without a resource, there is no way to access that file, so the question is: how can we get ahold of it somehow? The first piece of the puzzle is Java's ZipFile class, which lets us open up a zip compressed file, such as the .apk file that contains the ogg file we're interested in in this case. The critical passage is getting ahold of the actual filename on the Android filesystem of the code that's currently running. It turns out to not be too difficult, if a bit obscure:

String filename = this.getPackageManager().getApplicationInfo(packagename, 0).sourceDir;

With that information in hand, we can feed it to ZipFile, and then access the contents at run time. It's not a perfect nor complete solution, yet. So many of the Android API's require a resource ID, so it takes some extra coding to do things from the InputStream that we can get out of the zip file, but there may be ways to make this easier. For instance, we could simply dump the contents of raw/ into an application specific data directory the first time an application runs, in order to at least be able to access the files as files, rather than InputStreams connected to ZipEntries. In any case, at least it's possible to access files added to the .apk without requiring the compilation step. I'm not sure how many other use cases there might be for direct access to the .apk file, but if other people need to do this, hopefully this information will be helpful.

Much as been done on ctioga since the last release, not even two weeks ago: small bug fixes, tangents improvements, the rebirth of a --subplot option, a saner framework for plot styles... But the most significant improvement in my opinion is the possibility to make non-linear axes: you just need to provide a two-ways transformation between the standard coordinates and the axis coordinates, and ctioga does the rest:

ctioga -N --xpdf --math --math-xrange 2:8 \
  'sin(x)' --xaxis bottom --new-axis biniou top \
  --axis-function biniou 1/x 1/x \
  --lines-color biniou Gray --no-title

As you can see, I did profit to add the possibility of background lines corresponding to the axes' major ticks. The only real trick that is left is to find a decent way to partition the target segment so that they ticks are "natural" (not 0.34759, for instance) and reasonably equally spaced. I thought other plotting programs had dealt with this, but in fact, that doesn't seem to be the case: I'll have to do that myself.

Imagine when a frequently used application doesn't work anymore on your machine. It simply won't start anymore, whereas an older version does work flawlessly. Of course you would submit a grave bugreport, wouldn't you? And maybe you will be able to find the cause for the problem and submit something like a patch to fix this problem? At least you are sure that you are not alone with this problem, right?

Usually you would think that this kind of bugs would be fixed really fast and a new and fixed version will be uploaded soon, right?
But that seems not to be the case for PowerPC users, who are waiting for over a month now for a fixed version of Icedove.
Is there any (unknown) reason why there's still no fixed version of Icedove that works on PowerPC? If so, please let me know...

Daniel notes that self-delusion is a necessary component of all voluntary work.
Any human activity can be over-analysed into oblivion, especially if the terms of reference for "meaning" are impacted by a view of the real world that is overly abstract. Even paid work needs some self-delusion because no matter how much money you earn, the old maxims bite back - "you can't take it with you" and "no point earning it unless you can enjoy it".
Before I started with voluntary software work, I was heavily involved in voluntary charity work and the motivation is much the same. "The grand scheme of things" will never be sufficiently affected by any activity such as to provide the sole justification for that activity. The vast majority of people and the vast majority of actions simply are not and cannot become that important. (This is where religion is important for some people, the hope that despite all evidence to the contrary, acts of random kindness have some meaning to the person doing the act instead of just to the recipient.)
Voluntary work is generally for the benefit of others. In free software it is about writing code to solve our own issues in a way that others can use without facing the problems that we had to solve. Writing new code to solve a problem or fixing bugs in existing code to solve a new problem can only help others if the solution is shared. So the validation of that work is in helping someone else accomplish a task without having to spend the time fixing that issue, leaving them time to fix the next one.
Working on free software of all kinds is worthwhile simply because it is a way of helping others.
"When all things are considered", most people working on Debian are the lucky ones. Born into an environment where good education is available and where parents/relatives were able to indulge our fascination with electronic and computerised widgets that had no direct bearing on whether our basic human needs were met with regard to food, warmth and health. Trained at great expense and able to use that training not only to meet our personal financial needs but also to make time available for other unpaid tasks that benefit others who do not have those things. Living in a time of peace and stability, where the more esoteric and "frivolous" tasks can be undertaken without causing hardship or neglect of others. (My nephew frequently sums up this whole idea as like having won the lottery just by existing.)
There is an element of justification that can be derived from such a view - an element of responsibility and duty. After experiencing all those good things and after realising that we have such an opportunity, it can engender a feeling of obligation to do something that justifies what we have already received to balance out those who have the skills to do what we do but, for reasons of birth alone, do not have that opportunity or the means.
That is a form of secular humanism - validation of our own situation in the use of our skills and time to make things easier for those who are less fortunate.
OK, Debian isn't about providing clean water for all, or the redistribution of food and medicines to those without but the organisations that do that work can be assisted indirectly by making the systems used by such organisations work more efficiently, with greater stability and with more flexibility.
Not everyone can (or should) be on the front line of whatever acts of kindness will solve the problem of inequality but there is an obligation on those of us who have received the benefits of inequality to do what we can to make it easier to redraw the balance.
Debian is one such way and it is a truly international way of benefiting others too. It is more beneficial than the charity work that I did previously - chiefly because that was a very local service that was very labour-intensive and so could only benefit small numbers of people.
Improving Debian won't make us more important to the universe, life and everything (the answer to that is 42 as we all know), but it will help others do what they do, it will improve their lives and their ability to spend their time on what they want to do instead of having to fix problems that we have already solved.
Debian, to me, is about sharing solutions. Helping someone else do something that Debian could not do before, without requiring them to fix all the problems that I had to solve to devise the solution in the first place. Sharing not just the solution but the method of the solution and the means to extend the solution to new problems.
We, as Debian developers, have been granted the access and tools to solve these problems for the benefit of those who do not have upload privileges. Those rights come with responsibilities (as always) to use our skills and time to find the solution and without making things more difficult in the process.
In the grand scheme of what I can actually do as opposed to what might be possible if X, Y and Z were different, what I do in Debian and Emdebian is worthwhile. In fact, it is just as worthwhile as my paid non-IT employment in healthcare provision because, within healthcare, I can only help the single person in front of me. In Debian, I can help all those people who I will probably never meet but who want Debian to do something that I am able to achieve.
What is particularly nice about Emdebian is that there are people who tell us that our work is worthwhile by putting up the hard cash to fund work sessions and conferences that bring the various developers into one place. The international aspects of Debian can be a barrier in some ways and things always happen more quickly when the various members of the team can be brought from the four corners of the planet into one place for a week or so. It is these gatherings that boost the motivation and the enjoyment of making progress towards a common goal. Debian can be a solitary world where communication is limited to plain text. Probably the best way to "oil the wheels" in Debian is to get a group of Debian people together and just let them hack.
Voluntary work of all kinds requires personal motivation and working alone with only limited means of communication with others can be quite demotivating. Getting people together is a very useful antidote.

I'm home. I feel great (except occasionally when I don't *g*) Everything is so much more tiring than it was in the hospital so it might be a couple days before I post

But the summary is that everything has gone exactly as predicted and almost everything is improved over pre-op.

Thanks all for the thoughts, wishes, and prayers.

I’ve been provided the latest Verizon and Sprint EVDO cards to evaluate in the field for the past month. I now have to decide which to keep. It’s a close call (no pun intended). I’ve tested them both over various areas in Greater Boston and Washington DC. Key observations: (1) Speed: The Verizon card is usually faster. I’ve clocked up to 2.5 Mbps using the Speakeasy speed test on Verizon. That’s getting to be respectable enough to use a VPN without annoyance. My top rate on the Sprint card is about 2.0 Mbps, but usually it’s more like 1Mbps down / 0.5 Mbps up. (2) Coverage: There are more Verizon “dead” spots with no service at all. In those spots, the Sprint card invariably works fine. I’ve noticed this in some government buildings as well as on the T in Boston. (3) Device: The Verizon card I’m testing is a USB device (UM150) with an extendable antenna and the ability to power on/off right from the device. The Sprint card is one of those newfangled half-width PCMCIA cards, which requires an adapter for my laptop. There are pros and cons to each: the Verizon card is more compact when closed up and fits easily in my coat’s lapel pocket, but it seems quite precarious when actually plugged into the laptop. It could fall out easily or break if someone hit it with their bag walking by. The Sprint card, by contrast, is quite sturdy. I certainly can’t throw my laptop in my case with the Verizon card still plugged in, while the Sprint PCMCIA card can stay in without trouble. A colleague warns me, though, by keeping the PC card in I’ve created an opening for my dust and whatnot to enter the laptop. (4) Software: Finally, the (Windows) software for the Sprint card is much better than for the Verizon card. The updated Verizon software is as flaky as the last iteration. It definitely doesn’t like it if you try to disconnect after you go out of EVDO range. It also doesn’t usually survive a sleep cycle, and sometimes requires manual intervention in the task manager or a reboot to clean things up. It also has some silly features like a control panel to launch your web browser and email client. I’m not sure anyone wants to use their dial-up client that way The Sprint software has its own share of silliness by having nonstandard decoration (it looks like someone thought “skinning” it would be cool, so they took away any resemblance of regular window frame). But it’s stable and solid, survives suspend/resume, and I’ve yet to have to kill it even once. So there you have it. If anyone wants to speak in favor of one or the other, please do so in the comments. As a side note, I’m promoting broader use of the term “aircard” to make it easier to speak with nontechnical people about the difference between EVDO/WWAN and “WiFi.” Technorati Tags: Sprint, Verizon, EVDO, WWAN, Aircard

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Being fairly interested in this whole mobile phone software thing, it's pretty hard not to sit up and take notice of the iPhone SDK that was just announced. A few thoughts:

• Of course it's nice, polished, and lets you do some interesting things with the phone. That was not too surprising though.
• The "investment fund" seems like something of a response to the Android Developer Challenge, and is certainly an interesting move on Apple's part. Strategically, it certainly alters the focus of the money flowing into the equation. Comparing the two, the dollar amounts in the ADC are much smaller, but they are also more "concrete": N people will get X dollars in time frame T. As an independent developer, that works fairly well for me as something to have a go at and then move on from, win or lose. An investment fund backed by Kleiner Perkins is on a whole different scale and level. The amount of money is huge (they won't even bother with less than 100K), but who knows how that works out in practice, or how much of that is actually 100% committed to iPhone companies. KP aren't the sort of people that are going to just hand that out to any old company that does an iPhone app. They're also going to want to be involved in the companies, which means there won't be too many of them. In short, it brings in all the good and bad aspects of venture capital. In short: in one corner, lots of money for relatively big, organized players, and in the other, small, quick incentives to do cool things that anyone has a shot at. We won't really be able to judge the results until we see how it plays out. (As an aside, I still have some bad memories of the management that KP foisted off on Linuxcare).
• The system for selling applications is smart. You will have one place to go to to get your apps, and as a user you'll have some assurance that they're up to certain quality standards. People will like that kind of thing, and is far nicer than anything JavaME ever had. Instead of multiple, fractured marketplaces, you get one big one. Of course, it also keeps Apple in control of everything, which also has some negative implications as well.
• 37 Signals seem to be wildly ecstatic about Apple's potential, but I'm a bit less sanguine. I don't doubt that the iPhone has a bright future, that much is pretty obvious. However... dominate? First of all, if it's so widespread, it loses some of its cachet, doesn't it? I don't think Apple wants that. I don't see them licensing the system so that other phone manufacturers can use it, so it will only be adapted as widely as Apple sees fit. Cheaper Nokia models are very popular over here in Europe. Will iPhones at those price points (less than 100 euro) be available and competitive with Nokia's offerings? Open and adaptable aren't necessarily things that Apple is known for, which might be the difference between "strong presence" and "dominate", as we saw with Mac vs Windows. Getting 10-15% towards the high end of the market might be what they aspire to, rather than ubiquity.
• I could, however, very easily envision Apple getting into some kind of business niche and dominating that completely, as they did with education for a while. That might not extend to the broader market, though.
• Moving on to other considerations, this one is important to me: apparently, according to the license agreement, you can't run an interpreter that fetches code and executes it, amongst the various other restrictions! That's kind of a deal breaker for Hecl, which counts that ability as one of its strengths. I don't think a port was in the works in any case since Hecl is written in Java. Still, though, that's the kind of annoying restriction that reaffirms my commitment to open source.
• As an aside, I wonder what Sun is up to at this point - between this and Android, they have to be under enormous pressure to release a successor to Java ME, which was a good effort for its time, but is beginning to look dated and limited, even though it is very widely deployed.

I'm an open source guy at heart. I love openness and source code and the freedom to tinker... and while I'll certainly give Apple their due for making some fine products, closed and controlled is simply not for me. Others may feel differently - it's a matter of taste and preferences. So for the moment, my efforts will be focused on Android, which I see as the best, most open thing out there at the moment.

Often if you see a block diagram like this, what comes to mind is a compatability layer in between a program and several operating systems. Generally something that's general-purpose like java, or a web browser, or a widget toolkit.

-------------
             
             
-------------
             
-------------
             
-------------

(Generally it's drawn up all purty, but I'm lame.) But lately I've seen and written a lot of code where the diagram is more complex:

-------------
             
   program   
             
             
-------------
  V  C  S    
-------------
     OS      
-------------

Sometimes the program code is littered with multiple switch statements, as in debcheckout, debcommit, and etckeeper.

case "$vcs" in
git)
svn)
hg)
esac

Sometimes it pushes the VCS-specific code into modules.

use IkiWiki::Rcs::$rcs;
rcs_commit();

But if it does, these modules are specific to that one program. This isn't a general-purpose library. dpkg source v3 doesn't need to use the VCS is the same way as ikiwiki, and even ikiwiki's rcs_commit is very specific to ikiwiki, in its error handling, conflict resolution, locking, etc. pristine-tar injects and extracts data directly from git, using low-level git plumbing, in a way that probably can't be done at all with other VCSes. But even as I was adding that low-level, very git-specific code into pristine-tar, I found myself writing it with future portability in mind.

if ($vcs eq 'git')  
    # git write-tree, git update-index, and other fun
 
else  
    die "unsupported vcs $vcs";
 

When Avery Pennarun talks about git being the next unix, he's talking about programs like these, that build on top of a VCS. But if git is the next unix, then so is mercurial, so is darcs, so is bzr, so too even svn (unless it's Windows?). In other words, we're back to the days when every program had to be ported to a bunch of incompatible and not-quite-compatible operating systems. Back to the unix wars. In Elija's discussion of the "limbo" VCS state he gives several great examples of how multiple VCSes that each seem on the surface to offer similar commands like "$vcs add" and "$vcs commit" can behave very differently.

echo 1 > foo
$vcs add foo
echo 2 > foo
$vcs commit

What was committed, "1" or "2"? Depends on which $vcs you use. Compare with unix where open(2) always opens a file, perhaps with different options, or different handling of large files, but portably enough that you generally don't need to worry about it. Even if you're porting to Windows, you can probably get away with a compatability layer to call whatever baroque monstrosity Windows uses to open a file, and emulate open(2) close enough to not have to worry about it most of the time. A thin compatability layer that calls "$vcs add" isn't very useful for a program that builds on top of multiple VCSes. mr is essentially such a thin compatability layer; it manages to be useful only by being an interface for humans, who can deal with different limbo implementations and other quirks. The VCSes are to some degree converging, but so far it's mostly a surface convergence, with commands that only look the same. Where will things go from here?

• Maybe there will be a standardisation effort like POSIX for VCSes. Though it seems harder; VCSes have a wider interface than just syscalls and filesystems, so there's more scope for incompatibility.
• Or will complicated compatability code like cygwin be developed, to let a program that was written for git use bzr instead, carefully hiding all the differences?
• Another option would be that one VCS wins. So far I'm seeing some consolidation, but little indication that one VCS will emerge as the choice for everyone.
• Maybe the VCSes might begin to support each other's repositories. If a program only supports git, and you use svn, that's fine, if git can transparently access the svn repo.
• Or will we go on for decades spending a lot of time on portability code?

Between February 29 and March 4, 2008 I attended the Sage Days 8, hosted at the Enthought headquarters in Austin, Texas. This was my 5th time in the USA and it was a marvelous experience, as with all my visits in the states.

As usual, I had some adventures in Atlanta, that interested readers can find at the end of this post. Anyway, on the Austin's airport I met Peter and his wife Crystal, Fernando, Benjamin, Jarrod, Eric and Clement. We went to have a dinner and then me and Clement were staying at Peter's house:



You can see the neighbor's cat and Peter's dog Trinity behind the window. The next day we went to Enthought, that was providing us with a breakfast and a lunch each day - and it was delicious. After the breakfast, we gathered in the room and introduced ourselves. Enthought rents 3/4 of the 21th floor in the Bank of America building, so when I looked left I saw:



When I looked behind I saw:



and in front of me, I saw all the participants (I took photos of all participants together with names). As you can see, there were really good people in there, like Travis (creator of NumPy), William (main author of Sage), Eric (CEO of Enthought), Fernando (author of IPython), Jarrod (the release manager of SciPy), Michael (the release manager of Sage) etc. See also the Fernando's welcome speech and the video of each of us introducting himself.

The views from the windows are terrific. I enjoyed working on each of the 4 sides of the skyscraper with completely different scenery, or when the sun is going down, that's also very cool.

We spent the whole Friday doing presentations, some of which you can find here. Then we went to Eric's house to have a big dinner together.

On Saturday, Sunday and Monday we were all hacking on many different things. I joined Fernando, Benjamin, Brian and Stefan on ipython1, Travis was implementing a new type (gmp integer) in NumPy, William wrote a manipulate command in Sage, Eric did the same in Traits, Gary and Michael implemented parallel testing of Sage, ...

On Tuesday we had final status reports and people left in the afternoon. In the evening we went with Clement to have a dinner and then we visited some bars on the 6th street, having a beer in each.

On Wednesday I visited John and Roy from the Computational Fluid Dynamics Lab at the University of Texas, Austin, who wrote the libMesh library, that I extensively used and also created a Debian package of. It was very influential to see the libMesh "from behind", also John and Roy are cool people (not mentioning the Debian tradition of having good relations with upstream:). Then I visited some professors at the same campus, after which I went into the Capitol and then I took the bus to the Barton Creek Square Mall to buy some ipods and jeans, so that I can say I have jeans from Texas. BTW, the ipod works excellent in Debian - I plugged it in and it just shows on my Gnome desktop. It's true that naively dragging mp3 files on it didn't make it play, but these instructions made it work.

On Thursday I fixed the remaining release blockers in SymPy and made a new release. In the evening, I am going to meet Aswin, he also uses SciPy and also is a friend of Kumar, who is now maintaining python-numpy and python-scipy Debian packages with me (Kumar also knows Prabhu, the author of Mayavi2 hosted at Enthought, so it's all connected).

Anyway, the whole workshop was an excellent experience for me. I learned a lot of new things and being able to speak with people who wrote tools that I use almost everyday is important. We also extensively discussed the future of all the projects (Sage, SciPy, NumPy, IPython, Cython, SymPy). See my summarizing email to the SymPy mailinglist.

Another thing, that I find very interesting is that Microsoft is financing the windows port of Sage, that will make basically anything that uses Python/Cython/C/Fortran very easy to install on windows (just a spkg package in sage). I find it really cool that MS is not only supporting but even financing a truly opensource project.

Finally the promised adventure in Atlanta: we took off the Prague airport on February 28th with a 2 hours delay (due to some paperwork as we were told by the captain). As I had 3 hours in Atlanta for the connection to Austin and I had to go through immigration, it was clear that I'll miss it. But I was not surprised, last time I was flying through Atlanta, they canceled my flight to LA completely. We arrived in Atlanta an hour and a half before my departure, then I was waiting for about an hour at immigration, it was incredibly slow. When I had around 20 min to departure, I had to ask people standing in front of me if they let me in, they were very nice and did. I was leaving immigration 10 min to my departure, then I was running to get my luggage and myself through customs and screening, it was 5 min to my departure when I ran down to the display with departure times. Then I was sprinting like hell to the terminal D to only see the clerk doing some final paperwork with all the people already boarded and the jetway door shut. After a little persuading he let me in too, fortunately there was still one seat left, so I made it. You can imagine my pleasant surprise in Austin when I discovered, that my luggage made it too, considering that I handed it to the Atlanta's airport personnel exactly 10 min prior the departure.

Many of you have seen the net classic If Operating Systems Were Airlines. Today, let's consider what the world might be like if version control systems were airlines...

Before anyone gets mad, this is all in fun, OK?

RCS Airlines: One of the first airlines, from way back when this whole aviation thing was new and exciting. Each RCS flight carries exactly one passenger, which RCS believes is a superior way to fly. Although most RCS airplanes are rusty and battered today, RCS Airlines still retains its historic dedication to security. Each airplane is kept locked as much as possible for safety. Occasionally flights will be delayed for hours because the pilot can't open the locked plane. When this happens, the pilot will frantically try to get the cell phone number of whoever it is that has locked the plane. When the plane finally gets unlocked, you may be tempted to ask why it was locked for so long. Veteran RCS users have learned that the answer is usually disgusting, and never ask anymore. Main competitor: CP/M airlines.

CVS Airlines: Founded on the belief that they could be more efficient than RCS by carrying multiple passengers per flight. They still carry each passenger in a separate RCS-built airplane, but the airplanes fly in a goose-like ",V" formation. Watch out for layovers, though. It can take hours to merge new passengers into the formation properly, and it might take several attempts to take off afterwards.

CVS flights often feature fights over who gets to fly. CVS piloting fights are legendary; rumor has it that OpenBSD got started after CVS airlines refused to allow a passenger to board on the grounds that he had in the past refused to stow his tray table in the upright and locked position.

CVS airlines mostly counts as customers the "over-50" crowd who grew up using CVS and don't like change. Its in-flight magazine features advertisements for balding-reversal treatments and uuencode tools.

Main competitor: AIX airlines.

Subversion Airlines: Started by some grey-haired CVS executives with long, wispy beards, Subversion airlines got started by trying to be "CVS, but better". Subversion airlines was the first major airline to use planes that seat more than one passenger. Unlike CVS airlines, all passengers on a Subversion flight travel in the same plane.

Subversion airlines is famous for its Soviet-like centralized control. All operations must be approved by the Kremlin, and you are allowed, by the grace of the Party Leader, to gaze at the massive airplanes. Those that have served the Party and Airline well for many years are allowed to enter the Great Shrine of the First-Class Comitter, and actually make changes to the airplanes themselves. Plainclothes Subversion Airlines security agents lurk on every flight, and you should not be surprised to be thrown out an airplane window if you make a joke in bad taste about the pilot's flying skills.

Subversion airlines thrives on the concept that "photocopying is cheap". You are encouraged to make photocopies of your ticket, or to photocopy your photo ID, and give copies of each to as many people as you can. At checkin time at the gate, if more than one person arrives with a copy of the same ticket, they are ushered into the "merging room" and each person is given a brick. The door is closed, something magical occurs, and the one person that emerges still able to walk is allowed to board the plane.

Main competitor: Windows airlines with no Administrators allowed.

tla airlines: Founded by one of those eccentric British noblemen, Lord Tom's airline is the utopian philosopher's airline. Chafed by the heavy-handed control of Subversion Airlines, tla airlines wants every passenger to be created equal. As you approach the gate area in the terminal, you will find many philosophers occupying the gate area, extolling the virtues of tla airlines. They compare tla airlines to reaching out and touching the heavens, leaving behind the bonds of a ground-based life, actually merging with the stars. Oh, the gorgeous beauty of it all! The things we will see!

As you see people arriving from another flight, you observe that some of them have burn marks. One of them comments that "merging with the stars doesn't work." Immediately, a dozen philosophers get in a fight with him, claiming that he simply doesn't understand what it means to merge with the stars, and that if he gets his inner being in the proper state first, he'll have a much better experience.

As you board the tla airplane, you obvserve that the jetway is a mile long. The airplane itself reminds you of something of a cross between a gothic cathedral and a level of Doom. There are spectacular archways everywhere, sometimes where they don't really belong. Each archway is supported by ornate curly braces which you don't normally see on airplanes, and frankly, you'd rather not, because they look all pointy and confuse the kids.

As you arrive as your destination terminal, you see it too is full of philosophers, most of them dining.

Main competitor: VMS airlines.

Darcs Airlines: Unlike every other airline, this one uses physicists instead of engineers to design its airplanes. One brilliant Darcs physicist has finally come up with The Theory of Everything, and as such, Darcs knows where you want to go before even you do. Darcs airlines prides itself on customer service, and asks your preference for even the tiniest details about your trip.

Each seat pocket features a copy of the Theory of Everything for your reading enjoyment, but nobody actually understands it.

Occasionally, you will find that Darcs pilots get into angry conflicts with the control tower in mid-flight. This results in the control tower revoking your permission to land. Legend has it that one Darcs pilot of a plane with exceptionally large fuel tanks actually resolved his conflict with the tower and landed two weeks after taking off. Experienced Darcs users board with several parachutes: one for themselves, and a few more for the newbies.

The Darcs physicists claim that the Theory of Everything predicted the pilots would act this way, and that all pilots eventually act this way throughout the entire universe. They toil day and night finding a way to adjust the gravitational constant of the universe, thereby reducing the anger factor of the pilots.

Main competitor: OS/2 airlines.

bzr airlines: Founded by a South African who had been injured by a curly brace on tla airlines, bzr airlines aims to be "tla done right". They have shortened the jetway, gotten rid of the curly braces, chased out the philosophers, and no longer have a vision of merging with the stars. Many that were injured on tla airlines fly bzr airlines, and out of respect for tla airlines, bzr airlines will still honor tla tickets.

bzr passengers consider themselves part of an exclusive club because each flight takes off from a launchpad. They often can be seen standing in the terminal passing out bzr literature, trying to get passengers of other airlines to fly bzr, and can't understand how other airlines continue to exist while people keep walking past their airplanes.

Main competitor: BeOS Airlines.

Bitkeeper Airlines: One of the world's faster airlines, Bitkeeper airlines occupied that obscure gate for rich people at the end of the terminal for many years. Tickets on Bitkeeper Airlines were rumored to cost thousands of dollars, and were rare and jealously guarded. Then for awhile, Bitkeeper Airlines started giving away tickets for free, though they also kept around the expensive tickets for those with discriminating tastes. Free tickets were made widely available, but the 3-point type on the back of tickets said that you were never allowed to think about another airline before, after, or during your flight, and some people claimed they actually saw the small print morphing right before their eyes.

Bitkeeper flights often featured arguments over whether people were harboring secret thoughts of other airlines. If you were caught thinking about another airline, you were expected to scream vigorously while being thrown out the escape hatch without a parachute. All of this commotion tarnished the rarified air that the rich people paid to experience, so one day it was decided that there would be a Great Purge, because obviously all free ticket holders had harbored lustful thoughts of other airlines, so they were all thrown off the airplanes simultaneously. Today, people aren't exactly sure where the Bitkeeper gate is, but everyone suspects it still lurks somewhere.

Main competitor: SCO Airlines.

Mercurial Airlines: The "there's one right way to do it" airline, Mercurial is a sterile, agile, and shiny airline. Every Mercurial airplane looks identical to every other one, shiny and clean. You could swear that all the passengers look alike too, and as you approach the gate, it seems like you too look like everyone else. Mercurial passengers tend to be a happy bunch, who can't comprehend anybody that flies Git Airlines. Specks of dirt and dust confuse the pilots, so it is best to make sure you have showered before boarding. It is rumored that, through bolting on more engines, some Mercurial airlines can fly to as many places as Git airlines can, but most Mercurial passengers are content to not worry about that.

Main competitor: Python Airlines.

Git Airlines: The "there's more than one way to do it" airline, Git flies the world's largest and fastest airplanes. Git Airlines was founded by some priests who were flying for free on Bitkeeper Airlines and survived the fall after the Great Purge. Git airplanes start as spartan, empty cabins, with no carpeting, chairs, or piloting controls. At the departure gate, each passenger is handed a bag containing 173 standard airplane components, accompanied by a 4x5" sheet of information on the theory of flight, written in 1950. Once onboard, the passengers use these components to finish out the airplane for flight: installing chairs, rudder controls, etc. Every flight results in a plane assembled in a different way, and passengers on each flight believe they are flying the world's best airplane. Arguments in the terminal after a flight are common, as passengers from different flights debate the merits of their particular design.

Despite all this, Git planes turn out to be safe, and Git passengers believe they get to their destinations in half the time it takes any other passengers, though sometimes they secretly wonder if the Mercurial flight got there faster. Occasionally, passengers on Git airlines build an airplane that appears to go into a tailspin. When that happens, they simply assemble a tool that lets them go back in time and change history so that it doesn't crash, although it is rumored that if you are a member of the public watching this happen from the ground, it will lead to seizures.

Git airlines takes special pride in the one piece that passengers don't have to assemble: the plumbing. Every Git lavatory is equipped with state-of-the-art never-fail plumbing, and the best porcelain washroom fixtures money can buy. None of these cheap plastic toilets like you get on every other airline. Here, we have fine porcelain fixtures.

During a flight, after passengers use the lavatory, they frequently get into arguments with each other about which style of porcelain toilet is the best. These arguments are only resolved by the Zen-like Git Priests, who insist that only inferior passengers need to use a toilet while in the air.

Main competition: Perl Airlines.

Since Switzerland s three main cell phone providers (Swisscom, Sunrise, and Orange) are apparently happy to remain stagnant, here are two business opportunities, in case you re fidgety and looking to get rich. The second actually applies to all of Europe, or even the world.

1. provide a true EDGE flat rate. The three providers all have unlimited data options, but cap their offers at 1.5-2.5 Gb/month, after which you end up paying horrendous amounts for each additional Megabyte. The marketing people are, of course, aware of this unlimited lie, while the casual customer does not have to be since s/he won t generate this amount of traffic.
2. peer with local providers and come up with a plan that allows me to roam about and use my phone from anywhere in Europe (or the world) for the exact same fees as always. I realise this will be quite difficult because it involves a large number of peering agreements, but think of the potential: I d switch immediately, I d even forego any remaining term I still have on my contract, and I am sure I am not the only one.

Once you hit the black numbers, please hand over a small percentage of your stakes for my ingenious ideas. NP: Gazpacho: Night Update: Gunnar replied with a peek into the situation in Mexiko. Yes, I am spoiled.

JoeyH wrote a while back some thoughts on why he hates the DGT SVN repo (mainly our policy to import just the incomplete source of packages - usually just the debian/ directory).

He updated that blog entry and latter said:

Update: I realized after posting this that while the space gains on alioth might be illusory, there is certianly a space gain for people checking the whole repo out. What's really needed is a way to keep all the upstream sources in svn, but check them out only when wanted, and check out all the debian directories for cross-game work.

I was thinking, how about having a different area of the repo where the full source is present and which pulls the debian directory as an external from the current location?

I know it has the huge disadvantage that anything outside of the debian/ directory, but part of the diff, is, for sure, lost. (Still, there is also another team policy to not track anything outside debian directly, except through patches[1], except for really exceptional cases, but even then, there is a need for a strong justification).


Would that work? (I know git-svn doesn't support externals properly, yet, so there's not much gain).


[1] I know Joey, you hate those, too

I'm looking around for a way to handle a bunch of command line options, and so naturally I was drawn to the Apache Commons CLI, where I found this line:

There are currently no plans to continue the 1.x line beyond bugfixes. The 2.x design is generally preferred and is in use, however there is no current activity to make a 2.0 release. To this end, the 1.1 release is recommended to most users while the 2.x line is recommended for anyone interested in helping to get this better API released.

So: one is not being worked on because it's old, and the other isn't being worked on... for some other reason? This is, in part, what The Paradox of Choice is about. I'm sure either one would meet my needs, but the doubts cast on the whole thing by the lack of a clear and easy choice make you a bit frustrated because you have to choose between two things, neither one of which is clearly the "right" choice. This is clearly a bit irrational given that you're getting, in any case, a bunch of good code that very likely does its job, but there you go... that's why it's called "the paradox of choice".

Obama is world’s choice for Democratic nominee? So, no surprise there then! If you’re reading this in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island or Vermont, please go place a vote tomorrow for the rest of us out here and also for someone who understands the internet, creative commons, freakonomics and wants to make life easier for those that need it.

While most of you people and readers are doing quick and great works in Python, Ruby, or any modern language, there's still people like me fighting with The Low Level. I like that, but the X architecture is just the proof of concept of an architecture which wrongly evolved because it was not designed to. Xlib and all concepts it is based upon where probably fun and sufficient in the 80's, but nowaday, it can really be a joke. I really hope that somedays Xorg will break things and start a new fresh X design (at least from Xlib point of view). It's not that I think Xorg people are doing bad stuff, but there are mostly bailling out from a long code and design history IMHO. So, last weeks I was trying to fix the sloppy focus in awesome. I've found a real interesting Web page from Alex Hioreanu about various issues that we encountered too. I've been trying ahwm hack, but it's not really reliable. And then I've been trying a lot of things, and this morning I figured out something which works pretty well. It just fails in some corner case with GTK+ apps that are not reporting XMotionEvent when the pointer move, and I don't know why and how get them. Let's see.

So, Ross went ahead and spoilt my fun by announcing the funky new Poky site with the awesomely cute Beaver mascot. I’ve been spending the last few weeks getting the release together and testing on some of our new hardware platforms. My main contribution to this release however was the awesome new Anjuta plugin that does lots of cool stuff to help you develop with Poky. Enough babbling, go for the screencast (OGG version).
Woooh! Anjuta plugin in action Thanks to the nice guys at iRex Technologies for sponsoring this work. As usual, packages are available at the OH repository.

As you know I implemented the support of symbols files in dpkg-shlibdeps/dpkg-gensymbols, and I would be very pleased if libc6 could start using it as most packages would then benefit from weaker dependencies on libc6 and be more easily installable on previous versions of the distribution (sid package directly installable on etch in some cases). Some time ago I tried to get the ball rolling by providing a first patch in #462444. Unfortunately the glibc team has not been able to finish the work up to now and the base freeze is approaching… so it would be great if some people could jump in, make the required changes, test and propose a new (fully working) patch. I just sent a message to give some indications on how to get forward, hopefully that will help anyone who wants to tackle this. Thank you for your help! Partagez cet article / Share This

I recently realized how nice the Packages Tracking System is for upstream developers who want to follow the status of their software in Debian. By subscribing, they can easily monitor (and reply to) bug reports, and the general status of their software in Debian. I’m trying to help with coreutils maintainance, and it’s great to see upstream developers answer directly to bug reporters on Debian. So, maintainers, tell your upstreams about the PTS! ;) It might be a good idea to actually mention that use case on obvious places (not sure what the obvious places are, though).