On Sun, Sep 10, 2006 at 04:03:52AM +0900, Logan C. wrote:
On Sep 9, 2006, at 6:22 AM, Chad P. wrote:
Good point(s). I’ll post links here, at least:
[ snip ]
(Getting really OT now…)
I just want to say thanks, the chapter on Automata was really good,
and it had the best explanation of the proof of the halting problem
I’ve ever read.
Quite welcome. I’m glad it was valuable.
Now if I can just get Brian Harvey to relicense UCBLogo under less
restrictive distribution terms than GPL, my work will be complete.
Sorta.
On 9/9/06, Chad P. [email protected] wrote:
free to tell me if I am wrong ] to you on this point.
central UCBLogo resources page:
Computer Science Logo Style
the creators’ zeal for producing a language implementation that is
have been often and thoroughly distracted by the demands of other
languages in my life, alas), and the language absurdly easy to learn.
It has been the single biggest factor in my growing appreciation for
arithmetic prefix notation, and functional syntax in general, so far.
Suddenly, I’m considering creating a mailing list . . . damn. Like I
don’t have enough on my plate already.
Than ty even more for having taken the time 
Cheers
Robert
–
CCD CopyWrite Chad P. [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
“Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having to
build programs out of the wrong concepts.” - Paul Graham
–
Deux choses sont infinies : l’univers et la bêtise humaine ; en ce qui
concerne l’univers, je n’en ai pas acquis la certitude absolue.
In article [email protected],
Chad P. [email protected] wrote:
Now if I can just get Brian Harvey to relicense UCBLogo under less
restrictive distribution terms than GPL, my work will be complete.
I’d say that’s unlikely. He’s quite the idealist (he was my first
instructor in CS, and I was a TA for him later). Not quite RMS (he’s
far more relaxed), but in the same vein.
On the other hand, if you offer him enough potstickers, you never know
what he might do. A BSD-style license might interest him.
Thanks very much for all of the posts - I’ll read them all on the bus
in a moment!
Cheers,
Benjohn
On Sun, Sep 10, 2006 at 08:55:09AM +0900, E. Mark Ping wrote:
what he might do. A BSD-style license might interest him.
Idealism isn’t an obstacle to me – it’s the wrong ideology. The things
I dislike about the GPL have nothing to do with commercializing things
as proprietary software, and everything to do with granting people the
right to distribute software freely. The GPL, in case you haven’t
heard, has been used by the FSF as justification for threatening small
Linux distros with lawsuits if they don’t devote significant resources
to maintaining, and making available, archives of software for several
years after the software in question has become obsolete by the
project’s standards. According to the GPL, once you make a piece of GPL
software availabl to someone in binary form, even if only for a few
hours, you must then provide easy accessibility to the source for three
years thereafter – and linking them upstream is not sufficient to suit
the FSF.
This is going to make a lot of would-be Linux distributors think twice
about creating and distributing a distribution. It will especially
affect smaller project would-be founders think twice.
It made me think twice. I now won’t ever be part of any GPL binary
distribution chain, ever – which pretty much makes BitTorrent a
non-option for me as a means of getting Linux installer images, since
BitTorrent’s value for that is negated when I’m not allowing uploads to
“give back” to the torrent availability. A distribution I was working
on has been canned. Et cetera.
On Sun, Sep 10, 2006 at 10:15:51AM +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
someone actually been asked not to participate in BitTorrent exchange of
Linux install media by the FSF? I download Quantian, Gentoo, CentOS,
OpenSuse and occasionally other distro images all the time with BitTorrent.
Nobody associated with BitTorrent distribution of GPL software binaries
has been threatened with a lawsuit or otherwise coerced to cease
participation in BitTorrent exchanges YET, but I don’t want to run that
risk personally. Someone was the first person to get individually sued
by the RIAA – someone may be the first person to get individually sued
by the FSF. I’ll let it be you.
Speaking of licensing, a couple of days ago I downloaded OpenSuse 10.1
and installed it. You ought to read the Novell EULA when you install it
– I almost bailed out and probably won’t use it, since it was quite a
bit slower than Gentoo anyhow. 
Oops … one of the terms of the EULA
was that I not publish benchmarks.
I’m still waiting to see if EULAs are even enforceable – that hasn’t
been settled yet. In any case, I don’t favor SuSE of any flavor, so
that’s not much of a concern for me personally. That doesn’t mean I
approve of the EULA approach to things. Retroactive contractual terms,
particularly when implicitly applied, don’t make me happy in the least.
You may notice that I snipped all your rambling to the effect of “Nobody
should want to create a new distro anyway.” There’s a good reason for
that: it’s not for you to decide what someone else does or does not want
to do, and it is in large part the ability to fork and/or compete as a
lone enthusiast that keeps the FLOSS community vibrant. All of your
commentary about why one might or might not want to spin off another
distribution is irrelevant to the point at hand, as far as I’m
concerned.
Chad P. wrote:
hours, you must then provide easy accessibility to the source for three
years thereafter – and linking them upstream is not sufficient to suit
the FSF.
This is going to make a lot of would-be Linux distributors think twice
about creating and distributing a distribution. It will especially
affect smaller project would-be founders think twice.
I can’t personally imagine why someone would want to be a “Linux
distributor”. There are two major “for-profit” Linux distributors
already, Red Hat and Novell, three major community distributors,
Slackware, Debian and Gentoo, and lots of little splinters and hangers
on. If you’re motivated by money, work for Red Hat or Novell or someone
who uses them. If you’re motivated by community, contribute to Debian or
Gentoo or Slackware.
There are a lot of things not to like about the GPL and the FSF in
addition to the ones you mention. But even in the absence of potential
FSF lawsuits, there are lots more interesting and potentially profitable
problems to be solved within the context of existing distributions,
rather than creating a new one.
It made me think twice. I now won’t ever be part of any GPL binary
distribution chain, ever – which pretty much makes BitTorrent a
non-option for me as a means of getting Linux installer images, since
BitTorrent’s value for that is negated when I’m not allowing uploads to
“give back” to the torrent availability. A distribution I was working
on has been canned. Et cetera.
I wasn’t aware of the BitTorrent interpretation of this FSF policy. Has
someone actually been asked not to participate in BitTorrent exchange of
Linux install media by the FSF? I download Quantian, Gentoo, CentOS,
OpenSuse and occasionally other distro images all the time with
BitTorrent.
Speaking of licensing, a couple of days ago I downloaded OpenSuse 10.1
and installed it. You ought to read the Novell EULA when you install it
– I almost bailed out and probably won’t use it, since it was quite a
bit slower than Gentoo anyhow. Oops … one of the terms of the EULA
was that I not publish benchmarks.
“Martin DeMello” [email protected] writes:
On 9/9/06, David V. [email protected] wrote:
Benjohn B. wrote:
Personally, I’m on a Mac. If there is a solution for my world, that
would do for me. Something global would rock though.
The best I can think of in portability is using wxWidgets / FOX / Gtk to
draw inside a 2D buffer in a window / GUI widget.
I think all the GUI toolkits insist on running their own mainloop,
which plays badly with IRB
OpenGL or SDL to draw full-screen.
You can run OpenGL or SDL inside their own windows. I think this is
the way to go.
rcairo works without a main loop if you only are interested in
drawing. (I.e. you’ll see inactive windows.)
However, the source for the X11 and Quartz canvas are unreleased and
only on my disk.
And the drawing API needs a nice and easy wrapper, of course.
On 9 Sep 2006, at 19:12, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote about tcl/tk
Thanks for this pointer - I’ll have a look at tcl/tc too, although it
seemed like a lot to get a little thing done last time I had a play.
I think it is part of OS X by default.
Cheers,
Benj
On 9 Sep 2006, at 10:36, Martin DeMello wrote about RubyGame
Thanks very much for the examples and pointer to Rubygame - I’ll give
it a good look.
Cheers,
Benj
On 9 Sep 2006, at 10:16, Chad P. wrote:
snip
If you’re willing to try a different language, there’s always
Logo. In
particular, I like UCBLogo (which, unlike other Logo versions,
implements macros along with the rest of the Lispishness of the
language). It has a very friendly functional syntax, has an excellent
lineup of native graphics procedures (aka "functions), and is the
example language used for an excellent trilogy of computer science
books
that are available free, online.
snip
I’ll definitely give this a look. Logo was my first language, and I
had a lot of fun with it. It would be nice to see what I can do with
it these days.
Cheers,
Benj
On 9 Sep 2006, at 16:50, Paul L. wrote:
I think all the GUI toolkits insist on running their own mainloop,
which plays badly with IRB
But (IMHO) you shouldn’t be using irb anyway. You should be using a
user
entry event loop that evaluates the user’s entries with “eval”.
That would make sense if I was building an application that did
drawing and made use of Ruby as the drawing description scripting
language. That’s not really what I want though. I want a very simple
library for drawing. One that I can use from a stand alone program
should I wish, but also use easily from irb.
Cheers,
Benj
On 9 Sep 2006, at 16:45, Paul L. wrote:
snip
as you are describing. You would have to write the program, then
you would
have to integrate a graphic interface. And in the worst case, you
would
have to perform the second step for each platform of interest.
snip
That’s okay, I’m a programmer; I don’t mind doing some work. It
should certainly be possible to build a simple abstraction that can
be implemented for any given platform. I’m surprised that it’s not
been done already, and everyone here is giving lots of useful advice
for either something similar, or for putting it together.
Cheers,
Benj