An old top level page is appears below to maintain previous top level links until the new site format subsumes old content. As you can see, I abandoned my old plan for this site. But there's no reason to discard archived content which is still interesting, especially the sample code.
Starting 28feb2009, the new programming language focus of this site appears on the new qi page. But the usual sort of stuff will keep appearing here as always. The log — whose recent entries appear below — remains a compost heap of whatever strikes my fancy. The qi page will focus on getting stuff done in code (bleeding over to the log).
The new focus of this website appears on the qi page: dialogs exploring a Lisp variant named Lathe which Wil plans to turn into a toy for unit testing purposes.
For clarity, and for my sons' sake, part of this is an experiment in literate programming. But instead of mixing code and docs in files, I plan to mix them in the pages of the site. Eventually how the site works ought to be (approximately) self describing.
license
What I publish here will use some open software license† minimizing my exposure to nuisances, among which I number corporate patents and open source community code forks. What's sure to annoy me? Racing ahead, using what I make to put social and/or legal roadblocks in my path.
costs
What's this costing me? Not much in dollars. But writing in plain language will seriously eat into my free time to code, which interests me considerably more. I'm eager to avoid seeing the cost balloon as a result of more email. (Publication of email is partly deterrent.)
It might seem I'm spending energy on appearance, with nice page formats and color, etc. But this is really easy after long practice, and the clarity of the result is at least as important as the words.
benefits
What do I stand to get out of this? As much as I enjoy just coding for fun, it still must justify the time to me by providing value someday, by shrinking or streamlining something I do professionally, eventually. Code that's undocumented is hard to use industrially.
I hope the amount I document here later opens doors for professional use, in a more comprehensive sense than normal cherry picking over the years.
But that's long term. In the short term, I only mean to benefit by seeing my sons have an environment in which they can learn to code by writing software they and their friends might care about. And of course, I expect to enjoy playing with novel web site infrastructure too.
attitude
Though I want to have my say here, it doesn't mean I suppose you care. I'd be surprised if you did. Most folks who keep a blog hope to be read, but I expect little. Starting February 2008, I expect to write more fiction in the third person about imaginary developers who sometimes discuss ideas, games, and charades in some mix of boring technical programming chatter and slightly interesting science fiction and fantasy. (Short named characters are virtual personas.)
hand images
The hand images on some pages only mean to provide visual cues to reinforce perception of place. (I made several dozen of these a couple years ago in the same format, but never used them until now.)
briars & thorns
Thorn imagery and a briar patch metaphor both correctly convey a clue I might be prickly or socially distant toward feedback since my purpose here isn't really social, so peer pressure is moot.
peers
If you insist on peer pressure, here's what would make you a peer. You need minimally the following: much more than 10 years of professional C++ coding, a focus in memory managment and performance, plus experience coding Lisp and Smalltalk runtimes in assembler, C, or C++.
Naturally, I'm likely to appreciate fine technical points from folks who know a lot more than I do about Scheme, Smalltalk, and Python, as long as the perspective favors implementation.
If you're a big dynamic language geek or enthusiast, that's great and your interest is welcome, but I'm really trying to get stuff done. No hard feelings. I just want to keep working without frittering away much time. I've no time at all for politics or pep rallies.
Just because C++ is my tool of choice to be productive today, that doesn't mean I'm wed to it, or that I want code & libraries properly styled in C++ fashion or religion, or that I seek existing tools. I just need total runtime control.
competition
Many software developers are competitive to the point of sociopathy. There's a good chance something about what I'm doing will stick in someone's craw because I encroach some territory, even if I don't undermine a business model with my alternative.
I'm not competing, and I'm not out for your kudos, territory, money or whatever. I'm not parading my chops, or advertising or selling anything. Whatever you need to be best at — terrific, you win. Cut me some slack, I'm not in the game.
identity
I'm no one of consequence. This isn't one of those masked man fighting for justice things, nor is it a Dread Pirate Roberts thing. Just think of me as that one guy — yet another geeky engineer. (On pseudonyms: if a message is missing my name or briarpig, then I didn't write it.)
contact
david (at) briarpig (dot) com — I seldom respond to email, but it's possible I'll make an exception in your case, if you write something interesting. Questions are rarely interesting, tending to flattery and other forms of shallow antagonism.
