Zompist Bboard Again

I have some mixed feelings about zeptoed at the moment. In general, it is working great, and I am tempted to release it as it is. However, there's a few things that bug me about it at the moment. The first is that there are issues with indentation and unindentation when spaces are mixed with tabs. These feel like really stupid corner cases, and it'll bug me to no end until these issues are resolved. So I have to work on it even though it's really stupid actually. The second is that I am really tempted to do scope creep. The smallest scope creep I see is adding Emacs-style line kills where one can cut a section of text line by line rather than with a selection (currently cutting text in zeptoed can only be done on whole selections at once). Bigger scope creep includes things like adding a buffer list buffer or a Forth evaluation feature with output in a log buffer. I want to do it, but at the same time I tell myself I shouldn't, because I want zeptoed to fit all in RAM on the RP2040 even when it is compiled purely to RAM rather than to flash; this is currently the case, but that could change if I go whole hog on adding new features.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 2:49 pmThese feel like really stupid corner cases, and it'll bug me to no end until these issues are resolved. So I have to work on it even though it's really stupid actually.

Ah, that feeling.

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 3:04 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 2:49 pmThese feel like really stupid corner cases, and it'll bug me to no end until these issues are resolved. So I have to work on it even though it's really stupid actually.

Ah, that feeling.

I know it well. It's why I never get anything done.

alice wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2024 3:07 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 3:04 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 2:49 pmThese feel like really stupid corner cases, and it'll bug me to no end until these issues are resolved. So I have to work on it even though it's really stupid actually.

Ah, that feeling.

I know it well. It's why I never get anything done.

And it now works, and I'm making a new release including it!

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 1:16 pm I'm currently working, mainly for my own amusement, without having to do it, on a brief chronological overview (in German) of Anglo-Irish relations throughout history. (Real-life history, not conworlding.) So far I've gotten to March 1921. I admit that I kind of dread the idea of completing it by going all the way to the present. But I don't really like the idea of leaving something I've started unfinished, either. Even if it's just a purely personal hobby kind of thing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm done. Phew. 22 (A4) pages. Rather more than I would have wanted.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2024 3:32 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 1:16 pm I'm currently working, mainly for my own amusement, without having to do it, on a brief chronological overview (in German) of Anglo-Irish relations throughout history. (Real-life history, not conworlding.) So far I've gotten to March 1921. I admit that I kind of dread the idea of completing it by going all the way to the present. But I don't really like the idea of leaving something I've started unfinished, either. Even if it's just a purely personal hobby kind of thing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm done. Phew. 22 (A4) pages. Rather more than I would have wanted.

Congratulations!

I think it's been very windy here for weeks now.

It's hard to enjoy the mild weather in Chicago in February without thinking of how much we've fucked the climate.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 11:16 am It's hard to enjoy the mild weather in Chicago in February without thinking of how much we've fucked the climate.

I've had the same exact thought (albeit about southeastern Wisconsin).

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 11:16 am It's hard to enjoy the mild weather in Chicago in February without thinking of how much we've fucked the climate.

Yep. On one hand, I hate cold weather, and therefore am glad that winters are mild now, but on the other hand, I of course know that this is not how it ought to be, and am worried about it.

Closer to the equator, it feels like half-spring, half-winter now (February used to be one of the coldest times of year for me). I have a feeling this summer is going to be awful.

A user yesterday identified a major seemingly long-standing bug in console I/O for the first task started on the second core of the RP2040, which has since been fixed. Thing is, though, that I feel like an idiot for having not caught it myself, because it was such an obvious bug.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 10:44 pm A user yesterday identified a major seemingly long-standing bug in console I/O for the first task started on the second core of the RP2040, which has since been fixed. Thing is, though, that I feel like an idiot for having not caught it myself, because it was such an obvious bug.

Welcome to the wonderful world of software development We've all been there.

alice wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 2:47 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 10:44 pm A user yesterday identified a major seemingly long-standing bug in console I/O for the first task started on the second core of the RP2040, which has since been fixed. Thing is, though, that I feel like an idiot for having not caught it myself, because it was such an obvious bug.

Welcome to the wonderful world of software development We've all been there.

Oh, I know this far too well. I personally classify bugs into stupid bugs and non-obvious bugs; most bugs, such as this one, fall into the former category (and even many bugs that superficially seem to be in the latter category really are in the former at closer look).

There's a blog I've been reading for a while where I honestly don't remember the exact year when I started reading it. Is that a sign of my age?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 4:40 pm

alice wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 2:47 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2024 10:44 pm A user yesterday identified a major seemingly long-standing bug in console I/O for the first task started on the second core of the RP2040, which has since been fixed. Thing is, though, that I feel like an idiot for having not caught it myself, because it was such an obvious bug.

Welcome to the wonderful world of software development We've all been there.

Oh, I know this far too well. I personally classify bugs into stupid bugs and non-obvious bugs; most bugs, such as this one, fall into the former category (and even many bugs that superficially seem to be in the latter category really are in the former at closer look).

In any case, I can recommend this. Automatic bug resolution ftw.

alice wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2024 2:25 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 4:40 pm

alice wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 2:47 pm

Welcome to the wonderful world of software development We've all been there.

Oh, I know this far too well. I personally classify bugs into stupid bugs and non-obvious bugs; most bugs, such as this one, fall into the former category (and even many bugs that superficially seem to be in the latter category really are in the former at closer look).

In any case, I can recommend this. Automatic bug resolution ftw.

There are automated bugfinding tools like American Fuzzy Lop and EvoSuite. These could be useful for non-source code aspects of the project if the platform issue doesn't get in the way. Otherwise, there's always Continuous Integration, but writing effective tests manually is a pain.

A few days ago, I forgot to click "send" on a important email.

Over the last few days, and, to some extent, over the last few weeks, my mood was one of two things:

Either I've had something to do right now - a household chore, a personal project, some serious or silly stuff online. Then I focused on the task at hand.

Or I didn't have something concrete to do at the moment. Then I was usually feeling blue.

Right now, I'm in the latter state.

OK, fair warning: this post might get a bit rambling. Also a content warning: it is about changing social attitudes towards child sexualized abuse.

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As I wrote at the time in the "What are you reading, watching and listening to?"-thread, a few weeks ago I watched the Netflix documentary on Jimmy Savile. Together with some other stuff, it got me thinking about how social attitudes towards sexualized abuse of children changed during my lifetime.

I grew up in the 1990s. Back then, child abuse was already talked about a lot - more so than in previous times, from what I've heard - but there was apparently still a prevalence of certain unspoken assumptions that are pretty painful to think about today. I remember one incident that, IMO, illustrates this fairly well:

The school I went to at the time had one straight male teacher who had a reputation of being creepy around the girls and one straight woman teacher who had a reputation of being creepy around the boys. I myself never noticed either one do anything bad, but I knew about the man's reputation; in the case of the woman, I only heard about her reputation when I graduated.

Anyway, one day, there was a kind of school assembly-like event in the gym. I dunno, perhaps it was a bit like what would be called a "pep rally" in the USA. Part of the programme was that a choir of students sung little mocking doggerel rhymes about various teachers, to the tune of a traditional German folk song (The Birds Wedding, in case anyone wants to know). The rhyme about the male teacher was directly about his creepiness around girls. And the entire gym laughed. (Myself included, IIRC.) Which is, of course, a pretty horrible thing to remember from a 2024 perspective. If something like that would happen today, people would either be shocked about a teacher being abusive, or they'd be shocked about a teacher being wrongly accused of being abusive. In either case, they probably wouldn't laugh.

But that seems to have been how things to a large extent how things worked back then: abuse of children wasn't seen as a good thing, of course, but it was widely seen as something that could be handled by joking about it and making fun of the people who did it, instead of subjecting them to anything worse than ridicule. The world is in many ways messed up these days, but this is one change that I'm glad about.

Somewhat related to this is the evolution of my own attitudes towards Michael Jackson. Now, I'm just about the right age that when I first noticed him, he was already well into what you might call his "Greetings Humans!"-phase. So for a long time, I simply didn't take him seriously. I knew that he had a lot of very passionate fans, but I didn't really know why, because I wasn't old enough to remember the early periods of his fame. I eventually assumed that he was simply one of those people who are famous for being famous.

As for the accusations against him, I knew about them, but treated them, I'm ashamed to say, as simply one more reason to see him as ridiculous. We joked about that, too. When he was acquitted, I rather stupidly assumed that that was that.

Then he died, and various places on the Internet that I occasionally visited at the time posted videos of the stuff that had made him famous in the first place. My initial reaction was basically "Wow, that guy actually had a lot of talent! Turns out he was not just one of those people who are famous for being famous after all!" Even then, I simply didn't think much about the things he was said to have done. Only years later, when there was a serious debate about his legacy, did my attitudes towards him change for the worse. Which is, of course, really messed up, now that I think about it.

That's all I kind think about on this topic for now. Any thoughts or comments?