The BileBlog

TIme to round up and respond to the last couple of rather controversial rants. First regarding webwork/opensymphony. I happen to agree with ‘toy app maker’ that bragging of a 50 (rampting up to 800) user deployment is a bit laughable. There’s nothing wrong of course with such an app, and more power to you if some framework or the other helped you deliver it in a more timely and functional manner. However, to cite it as an example of scalability or robustness is hilarious at best. Also, I agree that Jason’s tedious chest-thumping and anti-Strutsism is pretty detrimental to webwork 2.0 (and more generally, to anyone associated with him). Nobody likes someone who brags of their own work, and I suspect that his attitude and irritating personality (at least, the online version) contribute towards people avoiding webwork 2. Human nature being what it is, it’s particularly delicious when someone like that fails for whatever reason. Slagging something off as an outsider is OK (of course, I WOULD say that, so no pot related comments please), but slagging off your competition to big up your own work is a bit cheesy. If your product is that great, then it’ll speak for itself (given of course, you have something more serious than a beta2 to offer, teehee).

Finally, for all those who offered help/participation in webwork 1.3, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. I’ve picked up the development of that and it’s now moving forward again (so far with xml reloading, cleaned up build structure, functional testcases, fixed skeleton app, and a new push tag). Testcases, docs, new features, and even backported 2.x features are all welcome. The goal isn’t to be cool or knock 2.0, it’s simply to cater to the quiet crowd out there who use webwork 1.x in production environments and would still like new features and enhancements without having to waste days retesting everything or ‘upgrading’ to some new API or paradigm.

Next up, the build.xml advice. Imagine my surprised when I saw that TSS was kind enough to pick this up and copy it into their article body verbatim. Hrmph. Far funnier though were all the maven twats farting away about how maven solves all these problems. What astounds me is that it wasn’t even a joke suggestion. People seriously think that the answer to badly written build files is to use maven. How the hell can you fix such braindamage? Where would you even begin? No wonder the world is in such dire shape, with such pretentious turdburglars deciding that the best way to deal with incompetence is to increase complexity.

Finally, I’m heartened to see that so many people despise linux. I’m particularly proud of the fact that I was called a microsoft slave. I actually had a bet with someone that that would happen. I won’t pretend I even understand the workings of such a mind, but I know the symptoms. How they make the leap from ‘linux sucks’ to ‘I want to bend over and take it up the dirtbox from Bill Gates’ is a leap of faith the like of which hasn’t been seen since some guy on a stick became synonymous to God. Oh and you know what? I haven’t had a BSOD in Windows for a few years now. I wish I could say the same about kernel panics (the linux variety, I haven’t had an OSX kernel panic after 10.0.x).