This is my page, is it not shiny and doodley?
My Name is actually Björnke, but its also allowed to write it Bjoernke.
Never write Bjornke, or Bjorn, that gives you bad Karma!
I am inching forwards with BvG Docu, at about a quarter hour per day (in average). I think that’s not enough, and I tell myself to invest the time, but I’m not following my own commands…
Also I am often trying to solve ChatRev Server bugs on linux, which seems to be a bit of a futile undertaking. I’ll most likely just use workarounds for the slowdown bug I’m experiencing.
Currently I’m creating code for the editor of BvG Docu 2. This editor should enable people to create their own documentation topics, for example for add-on libraries. Currently it mostly enables my anger and frustration. I need to save XML, and not only that, XML that was defined by someone else (RunRev).
I really hope to get the editor finished the next time I code, and then add stuff that deals with the creation of third party documentation topic sets, as well as their settings.
Today I discovered another blog about rev coding: A journey trough revolution.
Unfortunately, it seems as if the blogeress is keen on stopping already, due to “only 200″ page views since about a month. Being at this since a year or so, with around 1 view per day (most likely by google) I wonder about what she complains…
For her counsel (and because I always know everything better), Here a respond for her:
Blog reading is not a mass sport. There are millions of blogs, but also only millions of readers. Most blog reader look at 2-3 blogs daily, and look at about 4 blogs per week to see if they like it (most don’t). However some blogs do have millions of readers. With a little math, one can easily see how that can’t work well for the reader count of smaller blogs. For general blogging, about a highly interesting thematic, I’d assume a lead-in time of a few months, before the readership reaches even hundreds of readers per day.
However, the topic of Revolution development is not really something to get millions of readers. I assume the number of people who actually own a Rev version is less then a million. Building on that bad start, most of those are not interested in community building, or even reading about Rev. Rev is a tool for people who just want to get a result, whereas a language like C++ caters to tinkerers, who like to brag about their achievements, and like to hear other brag about theirs. Based on these numbers, I guess that there’s about 20 people who actually are interested in Rev blogs.
So Sarah, if you’re into blogging to get lots of readers, you really should choose another topic. But if you want to do Rev blogging, be sure that you’ll only do it for yourself, and not for page hits.
Finally, never forget to have fun.
I am stuck on a GUI problem. I want the Users to have much control over how to show the documentation entries in BvG Docu 2. However, I don’t want to confuse people. And settings always confuse people. To explain how I came to this conclusion, I’m gonna tell the story of the boy named Steve.
Steve was a little Boy with a little Company. In the nineties, they mostly made simple and colourful computers, and flashy Shows to introduce them. but Steve was a special boy, he had the power of not being a Geek.
Let me explain what a Geek is. A Geek is a fearsome Monster. It knows very much about how things work, and loves to tinker with details. Because our boy was not one of them, they laughed at him, and said he’s a “hippster”, and an “unwashed illusionist”. But the Geeks where only this mean to Steve, because they where afraid. Geeks are proud that they know so much, but they do not understand everything well. For example they do not understand how other monsters work.
But our little boy monster Steve knew the one thing the Geeks never will know: Monsters which are not the geeky kind, they do not want Settings. For example, they do not want to make settings before they use stuff. They want stuff that just works, exactly as they expect it to work.
Many years later, Steve has become a very big and successful monster. Of course the Geeks still do not understand Steve, or the other monsters. So he will become an even bigger monster, before he’ll stop.
A part of this is that monsters are happy if their stuff barely works. Even if it’s not working how they want, they will just continue to use it. That is something another little Monster understood very well, but this was not the story about the little boy named Bill. And for me, Monstersteve always was much more interesting then Monsterbill.
So back to my Docu Stack. I’m actually thinking about ditching the “customise the look of the Docu styles” Settings altogether. Don’t get me wrong, I intend to keep the Geeks happy, there will still be hooks to do that. But them geeky Monsters like to tinker. They don’t need a nicely styled GUI for settings, because they’ll even find settings if they’re hidden on purpose. But, that’s yet another story, the one about little Linus…
Today I made some further refinements to ChatRev. And despite not finding a proper recipe for the “I don’t want to talk” bug, I filed it.
Yesterday I made a few BvG Docu 2 advances, but nothing major. There’s much too much work, and I fear it won’t be ready in May, if I continue this way. So I need to force me to invest more time into it. Wish me luck with that…
There seems to be a interesting bug which prohibits the use of the linux server: It stops reacting to network messages, but only when I’m asleep. How does it know that I’m asleep? I don’t know, but i suspect it to be the first sign of the cyber-apocalypse…
Today’s productive time was split between looking for the above, “I don’t like to respond anymore” bug, and finding another very strange network bug. That one only happens over NAT (port forwarding), but not when the connection is made directly. The first one still is unreproducible to me, but I filed the second one.
Yesterday I installed the new Linux Server (again, due to filesystem corruption). Today I mostly made lots of small changes to the ChatRev client and server. One big feature is the Forum RSS update. basically ChatRev will notice you about how many unread forum messages there are on the runrev forum. One can subscribe to those messages, or shut them off again. The cool part is that all the client developers out there can just ignore this, if they want to. The server does not send any kind of new message now (only private messages), but it can receive a new message. Therefore implementation is completely compulsory, and backwards compatible.
If you have made your own client, then you might want to know how to use the subscribe message that you can send to the new server:
“subscribe” & return & return -> Will get you a private message with information wether you have subscribed already, and when the last forum post was made.
“subscribe” & return & “rss” & return -> subscribes or unsubscribes you
If a User is subscribed, he’ll get a private messages about how many newer posts there are, since he last received such a private message. The Server polls the forums about every 5 minutes. The new server will be in use after 2.9 comes out, and is sufficiently stable for server use.
On the server I:
On the Client I:
Not bad for two days…
As I wrote Sunday, BvG Docu 2 is my current project. There’s still much planning to do, but I think i’ll like how this will turn out. Most changes to current code will not be for new features, but for simplification of existing code, which then benefits the new features. Currently I plan to have two new Features, but both are major additions, so I’m not sure if I’ll really make both.
Obviously I need to post more often. There’s no approach to take, or plan to follow. The only way to post more, is more posting.
In other plans, the Website will be updated in March, and I’m making BvG Docu 2, wich should be finished shortly after that.
I only made one library for Rev up to now. The UI to use the library is not really well made. As I am now thinking of making a second one, I am also thinking what went wrong with the UI of “docsLib by BvG”, and what approach would be best this time.
In rev, there are quite a few ways to store data, and to access them:
In “docsLib by BvG”, I used lots of custom properties. Most of those where also mirrored with parameters one could send to the handlers.
Similarly there are different ways to execute code, or trigger it:
There where few commands, which mostly created custom properties as a result of running.
Last time, there was a problem with the way properties where ignored when parameters where used. Mostly this was because the parameters would replace the properties this time, but next time there was no parameter specified, the property would be used. This time, I’ll try to use custom properties as settings, and additionally parameters. So this time around, parameters will automatically set the properties. In addition, there’ll be fields, which will be automatically set too.
Also, last time the properties weren’t well understood, so I’ll add handlers just for managing properties this time around. Of course there needs to be a more thorough documentation this time around.
I hope that people will understand this approach better, so that my future libraries get more often used then my current offer.