Why I'm Not a World-Famous Open-Source Programmer

I've figured out why I'm not a world-famous open-source programmer. It's simple, really; I don't have many itches to scratch. Most of the software I have with me pretty much does what I need it to do.

I write software when my aesthetic sensibility is offended. And I have much to be offended about this week. I've been deep inside the guts of FireWatir this week, the web application testing framework written in Ruby, and I have come to the conclusion that the FireWatir programmers have at best a passing familiarity with Ruby and Javascript.

I even showed the FireWatir code that offended me to a co-worker, a programmer of phenomenal youth and skill (I'm the one with age & treachery), and he agreed that the code was offensive. Six hundred lines of the same three lines repeated over and over, each with eight lines of comments above it. Those three lines defined subclasses of Element, for individual HTML components like divs, spans, and paragraphs.

I replaced the whole mess with one four-line function, a one-line list of names, and a one-line call to generate classobjects from the function for each name on the list. My list is more complete than theirs.

In another example, their code builds this humungous raw chunk of javascript, which it then uploads to the JSSH JVM, executes, takes the return value, and then... does nothing. The variables defined and described live for the duration of the test, even though they're never re-used. The builder does this component by component, intermingling ruby and javascript in a mangled heapin' mess of unreadability.

I wrote the lookup function in pure javascript, using a BSD-licensed function findElementsBySelector. When the program starts talking to the JSSH JVM, it uploads and instantiates a single new object, _firewater, which has a reference cache and a collection of functions, including the selector function. All of that huge, ugly ruby/javascript now devolves to this:

oblist = self.command('_whiskey.locate("%s", "%s");' % (selector, self.element_object()))

(Oh, that's another thing; the idiom 'send this, then read the response' is everywhere in this damned code. You'd think after the third time they'd have boiled it down to a single command. And my command function is smart enough to append the semicolon if you forget!)

See? I'm offended. It must be fixed.

Thursday's Brain: The Dull Pain Of Sleeplessness.

So true:

May I just observe that while Barack Obama relies on having well-written speeches to make his oratorical performances impressive, Bill Clinton is just relying on pure skills of awesomeness to make texts that are pretty disjointed on the page seem incredibly compelling.

Republicans set up "War Room" in Denver

( Guess what they call it? )

A reporter asks McCain about his honor

( And that famous temper remains just barely below the surface. )

Talking to the local firefighters...

One of Kouryou-chan's friends had a birthday this past weekend, and the parents chose what turned out to be quite the nifty activity: a field trip to the fire station. What might have started out as a school activity with just the kids turned out to be an educational experience for the adults as well. I put on my writer's cap and tape recorder, thinking this might be a good setting for a Yowler story, and spoke with the guys working the station.

We spoke about the psychology of fire victims and how they respond to crises. I talked to one guy about the amount of paperwork they do (he grumbled a lot that the cops have figured out how to push a lot of paperwork onto the firefighters). Another and I discussed the physical construction of the trucks: who makes them, what powers them, how they're protected, why they spend so much time cleaning them. "You people spend a lot of money on these trucks; we had better keep them in the best working order." It was a mantra with him; whether he really meant it or it was just the best line he had (or some combination of the two), I couldn't tell but he seemed sincere. He also mentioned the new exhaust lines hooked up to the trucks that vented to the outdoors when running the engines in the garage: "We have six times the national average for lung cancer among non-smokers from all the diesel fumes." Another showed me the calendar: they have blue, gold, and red teams, like on submarines. There was no pole: "Too expensive to insure."

The commander told me that the standard shift is 53 hours over three days, then four days off. "Every night on my shift this week, I've been on two calls a night after 11pm." I asked him if that was unusual. He shrugged and said, "It used to be. It used to be that we'd get a full night's sleep two out of three nights. Now we never get one."

I asked him if that was because city services hasn't kept up with growth. "No, it's all medical. People don't have insurance, so they can't see a doctor. They let it go and go until they have to call 911. Our call rate for medical has nearly tripled in the past nine years. It's up 185%."

---

I was reminded of this conversation today, when I read that John McCain's health care policy advisor has a plan for dealing with "the uninsured":

The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American - even illegal aliens - as uninsured ... Anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort.

Eric Martin observes the truth once again: "The Republican Party is deeply unserious about governing. That the American people have been beaten over the head with this reality for eight years and somehow half the country still can't quite make out who it is that's been swinging the cudgel is a source of immense frustration."

---

Amusing final anecdote: while talking to the firefighters, I learned that there was a plan to tear down the station and replace it someday. While researching the demolition aspect of the project, the engineers discovered that the current building is not up to statewide earthquake safety standards. A seven and up (the last one was a 6.8) might pancake the place. The schedule has been moved up accordingly.

Lieberman / McCain

Woah. This is not a photoshop:

Now, if you click there, it'll redirect you to "Citizens for John McCain," but it's interesting that such a link is already hot and ready inside Google's sponsored links engine.

Blogging the Obama Speech

So, I watched Obama's speech tonight, and the opening pieces.

I have to say that the opening video was very thrilling, and I admire greatly the way the producers of the video did not shy away from the hard impression that Barack Obama is black. When you hear him talk or when you watch him in person or on television today, that doesn't come across. But the teenage kid with the afro, standing next to his very white mother, really drove home the blackness of Obama in a way that usually isn't strongly obvious in his day-to-day appearances. The video didn't shy away from his father, either.

More importantly, when Obama himself came out on stage, he introduced his family, his two lovely children (who were just adorable onstage), and other people who supported him. He went after McCain's record, and he challenged McCain's rhetoric. He was especially good on going after Bin Laden, and even moreso when he emphatically said that McCain is an honorable man who lives in a bubble of privilege and celebrity, who wants to do the right thing but doesn't know what the right thing is. He turned both the celebritard and the warhawk memes on McCain in ways the McCainites did not expect. This speech was a suckerpunch.

I was pleased that he didn't lean too heavily on the anniversary of the "I have a dream" speech. He did what he had to do, and he did it well.

It's all about meeeeeeeee!

So, John McCain posted this ad, "Convention Night," congratulating Barack Obama on his nomination. Many who've seen the ad call it classy, and dignified.

I have to disagree.

John McCain is watching his future slip away. He's fighting with everything he's got, but in the process he's losing more and more of his legacy, his campaigning has turned ugly, and he has even lost sense of what honor and dignity mean. It's clear to me what's happening: John McCain used to be a celebrity. He's been in movies, he's been on Leno, Letterman, and Saturday Night Live. Now he's watching the next generation, a vibrant, powerful young man, take from him everything. When Obama went to Europe, the cameras followed him in a way they did not follow McCcain. (Nevermind that McCain damn near taunted the press into following Obama.) The attention that has been the feedbag of McCain's existence, the constant press fawning, has turned dark and ugly, and McCain doesn't know what to do with himself anymore.

I have no doubt that some part of McCain thinks the ad tonight was sincere. But I also have no doubt that posting it at the same time as Obama's speech was a calculated way to drag the press's attention back to John McCain as soon as possible. (See, I'm feeding his narcissism right here.) He couldn't wait to inject himself back into the conversation as soon as possible.

At the end of the ad, McCain says, "We'll be at it again tomorrow." But after the sucker punch of Obama's speech tonight, I bet McCain's not much looking forward to it after all.

Watching the far right react...

Man, the crazy is just beginning. Let's start at The Corner, where K-Lo always delivers: Kathryn Lopez: "Normal Americans are telling me it was 'mean' speech."

Johan Goldberg: "I think his shots at McCain were ill-advised. Who the hell is Obama to try to out-hawk McCain on Bin Laden? Please. Not plausible." (Really, Jonah? Then why did we go to Iraq? It wasn't about out-hawking. It was about using the military correctly.)

Andy McCarthy: "LAME. This is a very weak candidate. As I'll argue in a piece for tomorrow, there's no question Hillary would be a far more formidable candidate." (Because, dammit, we had all this ammo to use on her!)

Jim Geraghty: "Obama's speech was predictable, it was implausible, and it was strikingly, inexplicably, angry." (Translation: You really don't want an angry uppity black man in your White House)

Yuval Levin: "Given his considerable talent, he could have done much better. But it wasn't bad." (Translation: the bump won't be 15%, and you should therefore interpret the poll shift as indicating Obama is a loser!)

Jay Redding: "Negative. Shrill. Lacking in vision. This is not the Obama that inspires. This speech is flopping, and I can't see independents going for this. What was the Obama team thinking?"

Towhall: "Obama changed his strategy, attacked back, made decisions to avoid being attacked. This turned him in a typical politician." (Translation: Please, dear God, let us find a way to recast Obama the way Obama's team has successfuly recast McCain.)

Say Anything: "'This is not about me.' I hope nobody had their mouth full when he said that."

Save The GOP: "Is that the theme to Saving Private Ryan they're playing now? Just get off the stage, jackass."

Rightwing News: "Maybe that this is the pinnacle? Maybe, that this is going to be the top moment? The last top moment? Yes, I think that's it. This show doesn't feel like the beginning of anything, but the end."

Redstate: "The atmospherics were impressive, if more than a little bit imperial... Once the harsh shots are finished, it is more than a little bit disingenuous to suddenly and self-righteously pronounce that we ought to put aside the old politics of imputing bad motives and ill intent to our political opponents. Republicans didn't just get politely disagreed with in that speech. Republicans got accused of every nasty thing under the sun and merely because Obama stopped every once in a while to assure us that Brutus John McCain is an honorable man, doesn't mean that he meant it." (Translation: Look, a monkey!)

AnchorRising: (subject) "Quick Thoughts on the Five Minutes of the Speech I Could Actually Endure." (Translation: I'm not really serious about being a responsible, thoughtful voter.)

And for the real craziness, we have to turn to:

Stormfront: "Do you really want a gay black man for president?"

World Net Daily: "I didn't need to listen to him. I've read the Communist Manifest."