Hideout Blog - english edition

StackOverflow.com

2008-09-23T13:11:00.001-07:00

I read Joel Spolskys blog. He wrote about a site he and Jeff Attwood started a while back, a programing Q&A site. After much consideration (2 minutes :)) I decided to give it a try. I mean the idea is pretty cool and smart. Since Joels background is mostly in Windows, I was a little worried that I won't find any topics I'm interrested in, like Linux programing, open source C/C++ libraries, etc.

To my surprise, I found out that there are other kind of questions. Questions about C/C++ in general, Linux programing, shell scripts, etc. Some of the questions were very interresting. These questions then got voted up (this is how I found them in the first place). The good answers were voted up, so I found the answer. I checked the correctness, then I was compelled to vote it up.

One problem though: you got to have some reputation to vote. It's logical: you have to prove that you know stuff or you can ask good questions. Yay!

So I answered a few of the Linux/Bash/C/C++/etc. related questions. I had my doubts that my answers were usefull, but soon people voted on my answers, and I got the required ammount of rep to vote. But just up. You have to prove some more to criticize other people.

Also, later on I asked some question about the Linux kernel (about the likely/unlikely macros). Soon I got answers, really good and helpfull answers. This got me thinking. Nobody would give me such detailed replies on another forums.

Or if they do, I would have to read through pages and pages of crap. Flame about how Linux is good/bad, is likely/unlikely necessary, etc. And the nth answer would propably be helpfull, like an RTFM with a link thats stale or shows an answer that was good on 2.4.x or 2.2.x kernels (but not in this case :)).

So what makes people answer these questions in detail? In their own time? Are they karma-whoring? Are they that nice? I don't know. If somebody knows the answer, please post it in the comments. Thanks.

And now for some criticism.

Subjective questions that get a lot of votes. There are some subjective questions that get too many votes. Granted, they are sometimes interresting, but that's not the point. The point is that - as far as I can see - some of these are voted up/down entirely depending on some convoluted (or random) social rule. Why does a question about programing humour get voted up 20+ times and a question about how to start a software company voted down? I think that under other circumstances it would be the other way around. But this doesn't happen that much.

Also, you got to admit that it's pretty general, so topics about C#, Java, Ruby get a lot of votes/answers even if it's only modestly interresting. It's understandable: these are the popular and cool languages. Most programmers don't really program on Linux. But it's cool that even so there are experts in these areas.

All-in-all: it's a very good site. Wheter you're a newbie who wants to ask a basic question about memory allocations in C or an expert trying to find an answer to some haunting problem, it's a must-have.

Have fun in trying it out.

ASD exam completed

2008-02-21T09:07:00.000-08:00

So, I decided to continue my English blog. I don't really care if people read me, but maybe I could share some insight I might stumble upon working with (you guessed) Symbian.
Currently I'm a programmer at CCC Hungary Ltd., working with S60 smartphones. I also completed my ASD exam, which is why I can use the image on the left. Neat, huh? :-)
So stand by as I'm going to write some "interresting" things about... well, anything I can think of. Afterall, this is the purpose of blogs.
So, see you next time.

Rejected and beaten...

2006-05-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

So, my applications where rejected. Fame and fortune, they all vanished. But what the heck? I'm still a programmer, I'm still one of the good one's, I think. Or not. It's fun, both ways. I'll keep this blog for the future, because I'll apply in 2007 again. Until then I try to get involved with other OS projects.

Ulcers

2006-05-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

The student proposal evaluation period is (was) over at 17:00 CET (08:00 PDT) today. And I think I'll have ulcers if the results delay even a little. Fsck! Oh, what the heck! I can't do nothing untill I'll know the results for sure.

Proposal deadline

2006-05-10T07:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, the deadline at SoC is over. According to Douglas Adams it should make a whizzy noise when passes. I gave my applications in 3 days before the deadline, so I didn't hear that noise. Well, that's good, isn't it? :)
Because the term is over, I can publish my two applications. So it's here. I wish that at least one of them gets accepted

1. Irssi: Script binding for LUA

Name:
Viktor Hercinger

E-Mail:
xxxxx@xxxxxxx.com
xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.hu

Project title:
Script binding for LUA.

My suggestion is that we should use lua (http://www.lua.org/) as an additional scripting language, because of it's ease of use and because it has a simple and clear C API, which can be easily used to extend any application. It can be used eighter as a configuration language and as a simple way to create user defined hooks for specific features, but it is also usefull as a fully featured language too. Lua is not as powerfull as Perl, but because little effords are needed to learn this small language, virtually everybody could use it to customise Irssi. Lua has some good string processing facilities, which - I think - are necessary for a scripting language in an IRC client.
So the benefits for the Irssi community are clear: to use a simple and small language to customize the client. People, who needs scripting has to learn at least a subset of Perl, which could take several days to several months, depending on the experience of the user. Lua can easily be learned in a couple of hours. I've managed to learn it in 12 hours, including the creation of bindings.
The project would improve Irrsi in several ways. Some people don't want to learn complex languages, like Perl, but they would like to add custom functions and features to their IRC client. When I used Irssi these thoughts crossed my mind before. Perl is good, but lua is simple. And I think easyness is a key factor in such scripting languages. It is simply practical.
If you happen to chose me, I could devote my full summer (from the middle of May to September), because I have no other work and assignment. I could work on it 8-10 hours daily, depending on the needs of the project. I can write an English, Hungarian and German documentation if needed. Together with mentoring, coding, testing and documenting the project would take two, maybe two and a half months to get done.

Bio:
My name is Viktor Hercinger, I am a Hungarian computer science student at Pannon University (formerly known as University of Veszprém). I've been programming since high school, where I learnt to programm in C, C++, Pascal, PHP and some other languages. In 2004 I encountered the language Lua, which I've used for creating configuration scripts to other programs (like a backup program using sqlite3 and lua), and even a simple http server.
I've been teaching at the Dept. of Information Systems, helping students in C socket programming. You can find the sample programs of the 2005 exam I've written (one is an HTTP server with uploading feature, the other is a simple IRC server). These can be seen at http://hideout.extra.hu/progs/. I know they are not very well written, but I was on an insane deadline, and had to hurry. So they are provided as-is, as an example.
At this time, I have only worked for my university. We've been making a nutrition database, with an expert system. It will go open cca. in 2008.

2. monotone: pserver implementation in monotone
Name:
Viktor Hercinger

E-Mail:
xxxxxxx@xxxxxx.com
xxxxxxx@xxxxxx.com
xxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.hu

IM:
jabber://xxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.hu

Personal blog:
http://hideout-soc.blogspot.com/ [English]
http://hideout.extra.hu/ [Hungarian]

I'm Viktor Hercinger, a 22 years old Computer Science student at Pannon University in Veszprém, Hungary. I'd like to apply to your Google SoC project, creating a pserver implementation for monotone. I would like to take the harder approach: implementing pserver to monotone itself. I know, it's a hard project, but I have the full summer to work on it. I can devote myself fully to implementing it.

I have experience programming in C, C++, PHP, Lua and other languages. I've already worked on a project called menugene, which is a nutrition database and expets system primarly for Hungarian hospitals (this is a university project). It is not yet done, but it's only developed during school-time, so I will have no obligations to that project.

I could be a good pick: I understand the concept of both networking (socket programming, precisely) and version control systems (currently at user-level). I have used monotone for my personal coding tasks. If you want to see some code I've written, then you can do so at http://hideout.extra.hu/progs/ (English), where I published two examples (an IRC server and an HTTP server, both with only the most basic functions) for socket programming lectures. They were the samples at the Dept. of Information Systems, where I teached in the labor class about socket programming. I was in a rush, so the code isn't properly debugged, but it works.

I think monotone could use a pserver implementation: since the most of the programmers who try Your VCS have already some experiences with CVS, so providing a pserver implementation within monotone can be a great help to gain new users. First, the project needs to implement the basic read functions like checkout, list, status, etc. When they are done, we can move on to the write functions, like commit, add, remove, etc. Since I had used SQLite before, I could make a standalone pserver for monotone. I have the whole summer to work on it and if needed I could work on it after that, too. If it is possible, I would choose the language C, because I know this language the best.

It would be a great opportunity to create something usefull: I allways wanted to work on some Internet protocol, but I never found a real opportunity. Google SoC had a good timing: if you would apply me then I would have an excuse to code all summer.

Aplications sent

2006-05-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've sent my first application to the SoC event, and if they accept me, then I'll work on a new Irssi binding language. At this moment I'm writing my application to monotone, as a backup if my application should fail. It will be a tough one, there are (according to my calculations) more than 1000 applicants, and only 4-5 hundred will "survive".
Great! I have a new title for this: Google Summer of Code 2006: Survivor. :)
Ughh! Even here, in Hungary they run this show, but I hate disaster films. And now a whole series about them! Man, I hate that.

Application for Google Summer of Code 2006

2006-05-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

Recently I read about Google's Summer of Code 2006, for witch I'd like to apply. So, for the better understanding, I will set up a new blog here, to post my thought's and idea's for the SoC.
So I shall post my resumé here, too.
If I happen to fail, I'll continue this blog to gain some English reader's too. My Hungarian blog is hosted on extra.hu, and everithing will be posted here, as well as to my Hungarian blog.