Zac Bowling’s Blog

Subversion

Subversion is finally putting the last nail in the CVS coffin it seems. All but GNOME and Mozilla’s CVS are the only two of the most mainstream active projects I know that still stuck using CVS. I can’t figure out why GNOME hasn’t switched yet, but I know its going to be a bit of trouble for Mozilla with the make scripts, lxr, and anonymous mirrors.

Also the ViewCVS project has now been renamed now to ViewVC as of 1.0, and has taken up residence on tigris.org with SVN itself.

Bye Bye MSDN

After having an MSDN subscription on hand for over 10 years, my MSDN sub. is now gone, expired, and dead. I just couldn’t figure out why I needed it anymore. I’m sure I will come to a point where I will need it again, and I might buy a new one in the future. So far I’ve done just fine without it for over 4 1/2 months without it.

Maybe, I might buy another next year… blah… maybe

Mozilla control for MWF

No more compile errors from Mozilla’s headers! Whoohooo. Still lots more work to do. I have to thank the Epiphany guys and the Galeon guys a ton for their help.

Seems I have to directly break some of the documented rules with Mozilla’s embedding API because some of the headers in Mozilla don’t follow them either in some of their unfrozen APIs. From what I gather from everyone though, it’s not that bad calling the unfrozen interfaces in there. Usually requires a few nights of hacking after every major release of Firefox/Mozilla to keep everything working and I don’t mind doing that. Not like we are going to be doing anything that special (hope those aren’t famous last words). I’ve got Firefox 1.5/Seamonkey/XULRunner support right now and I’m nearly there for supporting backword compatablity with Firefox 1.0/Mozilla 1.7.

I was going to go crazy on features since its so easy to tie in anything in there, but I don’t know which part will get rewriten in the next Mozilla based incarnation to be released. I used gtkembedmoz as the main basis for about 50% of my code, so I already support just everything it offers already. I’ve also added support for getting more information from the click and key press events, and I’ve added the ability to disable a few features that you might not want (frames, plugins, images, meta-redirects, etc). I even added support for forcing a repaints, and accessing and consuming a lot of events like before a URL change or on any click or keypress that happens.

However, currently, I’m debating on adding:
* Print/Print Preview support
* Access to the clipboard and the selected text in the window from code
* Access to cookies, history, cache, etc.
* Access to Mozilla’s configuration settings (for reseting the default font’s, text size, etc)
* Access to evaluate Javascript (even get a boolean return code) in the page and get even catch Javascript error callbacks (Galeon does this).
* More networking control (proxy, file handlers, etc).
* DOM integration - will have to be with the XPCOM bridge (unless someone wants to wrap the huge root nsIDOMElement class, the root of all elements, in C for me :-P)

All these features, with the exception of the DOM access, is very easy to add, however the more I add, the more any change in Mozilla’s codebase in the future could make it easier to break.

I think I’m going to play it by ear when wrapping the WebBrowser API in MWF to see where I get too.

I’ve still got a lot of work to do before its ready, but I’ve started work on a new Gecko based web control for both Managed.Windows.Forms (for Mono) and System.Windows.Forms (for MS .NET). I just stuck some of the code in a new directory in the SVN called “mozembed” (see it here).

It’s not compiling out of the box yet and I’m working on backwords compatibility with Mozilla 1.2-1.7 and Firefox 1.0.x. Currently only Firefox 1.5, Seamonkey 1.x, and maybe XULRunner will work (and you have to bootstrap with ‘-DFIREFOX_1_5′)

One really nice part, is just like our version of libgdiplus, I’m planning on leaving the native library completely open for anyone who wants to consume it for whatever they feel like for a simple way of embedding gecko without having to do deal with Mozilla’s massive embedding API.

None of the managed code is in there yet (still changing to much to post it in since its based on older versions that I got to compile in the past week). The configure.in file needs some magic (autoconf, “That’s Hot” (R) )

Lots of work still to do.

My name is Zac Bowling, and I approve this message.

Mono is pretty big and gets tons of press attention all the time. Nothing to special at this month, but I though I might link a few articles that caught my eye.

Article on Linux.com talks the ease of Mono and the ability to recycle your .Net programming force.

Article on Goverment Computer News talks about Mono on Novell Linux Desktop.

Article on Mono in The .NET Developers Journal about the history of Mono in light of Mono’s up comming 5 year anniversary.

After putting in a little over a year with Telligent Systems working for Match.com, I’m moving on. I learned so much, and I have to to say I had a ton of fun.

That means I’m on the hunt looking for something new. Specifically, I’m really looking for somewhere that I will have me hacking Mono everyday again. I’m also very open to moving out of Dallas, but that all depends on the job. I should have my resume back on my site later tomorrow if anyone is looking for new talent.

Another Google service is out called Google Finance, and it really is pretty neat. Surprisingly Google went with Macromedia Flash to animate its really nice charts instead of XMLHttpRequest+DHTML (AJAX) approach usied in Google Local, GMAIL, and in other various other services.

These charts provide something that I always found missing. When there is a peak or high volume day, I always want to know why without having to do a ton of research to find what happened. Some sites provide a new ticker about the company, but can’t correlate the news to the stats. Like when researching a company history, its always hard to match the day when a stock peaks or falls to the news stories printed on that day about the company, it’s competitors, or the market at whole.

You can see here with Novell’s stock. You can match the day that the Q1 statements where out to when Novell’s stock dropped a point or two (which now it looks like its slowly gaining again).

Another interesting feature that Google added was a blog post ticker which shows recently updated blog posts about the company. (I wonder if this post will show up on there? :-))

Disclaimer: IANAL, but I should maybe mention that I don’t work for Novell but I do have an intrest in them.

Tags: Novell AJAX Google Flash

After hearing from Miguel back in September, talking about Second Life was currently planning on using Mono’s VM to embed into Second Life and switch their system over to compile Second Life’s scripting language (LSL) into CLI, I was floored. The thing was that I had just had my first run at Second Life a few weeks before that and just had recently became addicted.

To be completely honest, I was sort of annoyed with it at first. It has a bit of learning curve. However after working at it for 30 minutes, and giving up, I kept coming back to it. It’s like a drug. I couldn’t really get over what I was looking at (and if it was real), it is HUGE. Well since then I spend at least 6 hours a week tinkering around in my Second Life world. It’s amazingly addictive. You can pretty much do anything you can program. People have made casinos for gambling, fully working air fields, clothing stores, houses and reality for sale, elf farms, dance clubs, and some women running around in some very skimpy clothes. Though, I don’t think that I was really hooked until this one guy. This one who thinks he is Santa, who flys around in Sleigh he created, around his ice palace, creating toys for all the kiddies. He created everything himself. Anyways, everyone has a Second Life story.

Anyways. Here is an amazing video presentation the guys at Second Life gave to the guys at Google. Its a good hour to watch so here is a good tip: jump to 14:50 to hear about the scripting technologies and at 15:34 you will hear about how they are using Mono.

(No, I won’t tell you how to find me in Second Life. I keep my personal, work, and Second Life completely seperate :-) ).

Everyone likes freebies, so here is a somewhat simple example on of how to do p/invoke callbacks in C# and C with Mono. Enjoy. (Of couse, it requires a mono+mcs, a C compiler, and make)
http://www.polystimulus.com/PinvokeCallbackTest.tar.gz

Keywords: pinvoke, delegates, function pointers, callbacks

Looking for services to ping to get your blog known? Well I compiled a list of 69 of them. Enjoy. Oh yeah, Wordpress users should maybe install the “No Ping Wait” plugin before trying to ping more then 10 or more of these at a time.

http://polystimulus.com/pinglist.txt

Update: switched to link instead. For future reference, having a 85 line long post with list of urls, sort of anoys some people who are syndicating you.

It’s “offiical.” Here is it is. Window’s boots on A MacBook Pro

http://www.mathcaddy.com/windowsxpbootsonamac!!!!1/

This is fairly funny.
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/…

Resolved as Not Reproduced by Microsoft on 2004-07-30 at 16:11:56

Unfortunately, because of legal restrictions, we are unable to download and compiler mono source.

If you can give a more reduced test case, we may be able to look at it.

From a few people I know on the inside (who shall remain nameless) tell me that Microsoft won’t allow anyone to even look over any code from most open source projects out there because they are afraid of the trouble they might get in (SCO anyone?). I understand that in a broader perspective.

Mono too has a policy that if you seen the Microsoft Shared Source released code (like shared source version of the .NET runtime, codename Rotor) that we might not be able to accept any contribution that you submit. With the several scary clauses in the shared source license that prevent commercial use and redistribution, who wouldn’t be scared about getting caught with that clause?

However, I really don’t get why Microsoft has a problem with the reverse, by taking a look at Mono’s source code I mean. More specifically, our framework class libraries. All of them are released under MIT X11 based license. I don’t think there exists a more liberal license in wide scale use (Its just like public domain, minus the act of really releasing as public domain). Its even less restrictive then the original BSD license and Microsoft has openly looked at BSD released code in the past without issue.

The source code to the class libraries is literally sitting there, open for the picking. Of course you need a runtime to make use of the libraries and if you don’t care for ours (maybe because you or your company is unnecessarily scared of the LGPL), you can use Microsoft’s or DotGNU’s perfectly good runtime for that part. You could even break out Mainsoft’s C# compiler (check out their grasshoper project), and compile all our C# based libraries to Java byte code instead.

It would be awesome if they could use our class libraries to compare to their own code when bug tracking, or when considering new features for .NET and to use as a base line when they are afraid of making breaking changes. Maybe if all else fails on that front, instead of looking at the source, just test against our binary releases.

Shoot, maybe even someday, I would love to see some microsoft.com email addresses submitting bugs reports in our bugzilla. It would sure would be nice to see someday, since I see our contributors posting bugs to Microsoft’s product feedback all the time.

I don’t know. Just a thought.

(Might be good to point out too that any opinions expressed above are purely mine. The above might not reflect the opinions of Novell, the Mono Project, or any of the other contributing developers, even though I know a few people who feel nearly the same way.)

Man.. blond jokes died years ago, but this one is the best ever so its worth a link.

This blog post is amazingly funny .

Everything in this blog post, at one point or another, I could so relate to. Everything up to the second to the last paragraph is right on for me. Its a must read.

Favorite quote: “That’s programming in a nutshell: long arms, good coffee, and a natural aversion to rat fur. ”

I love this app on my windows box. imeem. If you are into social networking software, this is one of the best. They do some absolutly amazing things with GDI+ with SWF on Win32.

They just released their new mac client. It runs on top of Mono and binds to cocoa using a new interface they designed called Dumbarton (released under LGPL). Good work guys!

Now, since you got Todd Berman from (but not limited to) MonoDevelop over there now, I expect a native GTK# interface soon too…

Ok. I got a new laptop. You might remember my rants about my laptop order from Dell. I waited over 2.5 months to get that laptop and they never shipped. So ordered an Alienware. A $5,000 dream machine.

Its been a month since I ordered and I just got it. Turned it on and used it to upload a couple pics, and then about 6 hours layer I decided to stretch its legs and try half life 2. Played great for 30 minutes, then *CLICK*, no video. Apperently the video card wasn’t screwed down tight or there was poorly soildered connection somewhere. All I know is that the mother board and video card are damanged ($2100 worth of parts). I called and no questions ask, they are taking the machine back and sending me a new one. Dell would of given me the third degeree.

While I still don’t have a good machine yet, but at least I don’t feel like I’m getting up the rear like I did with Dell.

In the mean time, I just ordered a new Soekris board. Going to get Mono on it. Might tinkering with getting mono running on iPod linux later thats to the new working port on the ARM processor. Hehehe

People who use talking points and dumb exit rebuttals should be shunned and slapped from this point on. If you hear one, slap the person who said it. We need to institute a requirement of some original thought and personal research if you wish to have a public opinion. I believe in freedom of speech, but not freedom to spew someone else’s crap just because they said it and you must repeat it. Its cachos. I don’t care what politcal group, goverment, agency, company, team, school, or whatever you are part of. No body should stoop to “talking points”!!

If you are appointed to speak for your group, you should know the material personally and be able to answer on your own. If you are asked for an opinion or to make a judgement call about something you directly don’t know, yield to someone else or just say your not sure. If you have to use prepared statements to speak on behalf of your group and try to debate on that foundation, you should not be speaking.

As another option, if you must, you may speak in the third person repeating someone else’s opinion since you really don’t have one of your own and that way we know its not your own personal opinion or statement (from you, the clueless representative to your group). You may defend the person who said it then based on your own personal experiences. That way we can stop this jumble of misinformation.

On another note, one thing that has been driving me nuts lately is the rebutting of the argument against Bush’s reaction to the most recent disaster in New Orleans saying we are blaming Bush for the weather. The argument is not about Bush could do anything to prevent the weather (which is still much more debatable that he could of helped that), but what is hardly debatable is his horrible appointments to FEMA, his timely response time to the disaster, and his countless bumbling through fixing the issue.

Carlos Mencia says it best: “DUHHH-DUH-DUUUUUHH”.

I guess thats just my personal pet peave or something but seems to make sense.

Got my travel plans in place and I’m starting to get excited. Going to be in LA for Tuesday and Wednesday for the Mono meeting in LA (just a short walk from the Microsoft PDC conference). If you are going to be at the Microsoft PDC conference, I urge you to come on over. Directions and information about the meeting here. It starts at 6 and goes until 9:30 so it should fit into the PDC schedule nicely.

Really amazing pictures but I do warn you to enter at your own risk.

http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/new_orleans_msi_aug31_2005_dg.jpg

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM