I am taking a slightly different route this month and working on my Half Fast DevOps writing project. Borne from 25+ years in the trenches of software development, IT, DevOps, and any number of popularized names from the past two plus decades, it is part therapy, part satire, but mainly an attempt to make my tech-writing less soul-crushing.
Most of the documentation I read seems to have been created by a sleep-deprived robot in a stand-up or by a caffeinated squirrel with memory issues. So, I am searching for a voice to bring something different to talking about broken pipelines, observability bills expanding faster than my waistline, and heroic config file linting for the impatient.
I aim to make writing (and reading) my documentation tolerable (and perhaps even FUN!). I hope to make the next person who has to read my written word laugh and absolutely confirm my clear lack of sanity.
As somebody in the ISP/webhosting business back then, I spend quite a bit of time helping people set these up. Such a blast from the past. Glad to see it is still hanging around!
Free Pascal, but I am interested in Ada and will be learning it more this year. I love the readability of the syntax, and on the outside looking in, the community seems good.
I have also moved back hard to using TCL as my scripting language. I like it too much, and bouncing between Python, Go, and such for DevOps glue tires me out.
For systems, I love using plan9 (9front) to solve problems, which grounds me to C, awk, sed, and the rc shell.
I had one of these growing up, until it was replace with a Tandy 1000 from Radio Shack. Well, I kept it around until I moved into my second house.
I had TI Forth, the huge accessory box, a disk drive, the works. It was fun, I learned quite a bit and have forgotten most of the Forth that I learned.
I think the TI Forth was based on L&P-83 FORTH (L&P for Laxen and Perry, the two authors.) I was in a friend's house in silly valley and met a friend-of-that-friend and started talking about tech. At some point I mentioned TI forth and L&P83 on the PC and how it was a great, simple system. He said "thank you." Turns out I was talking with Mike Perry.
I had a similar setup eventually with Wycove Forth -- can't remember even the existence of TI Forth. Anyway playing with that was my foot in the door to a summer job at FORTH, Inc. as a teen.
Lost all of that code because my 99 system got stolen a few years later.
Didn't TI-Forth have a mode where it would use a 3x7 font so you could get 64 characters per line? I still have nightmares. But... you have to appreciate the work that went into it.
While I love typing on typewriters, it doesn't compare to writing with a good fountain pen loaded with excellent ink. But more and more, for writing that I intend to end up is some where in the digital void, I have found myself writing writing using WordStar, running DR DOS 7.0 on a ThinkPad T23, using a clone of an IBM M13 keyboard.
So, for my major writing projects it is:
* Outline, snippets, and drafts with a fountain pen.
* Writing, re-writing, etc. on WordStar.
* Typeset (i.e.: prepare digitally) on my regular systems. This is the only place I get distracted.
I always hated the feeling of the fountain pen scratching the paper while writing, but I only used it for school when I was very very young, and probably it was a crappy fountain pen.
Some of the nicer fountain pens just glide over the paper -- you can look for reviews on several fountain pen forums, and on the fountain pen subreddit. I personally like several of the ones from Pilot. Also, Sailor pens will give you feedback that feels more like a good graphite pencil (so not scratchy, but not glass smooth either). Another good option is the Pilot Varsity ones, those are disposable (and priced as such), but for something built to be cheap price they sure do write good.
Interesting. I don't know if it will distract me from Acme, but I will try. I'm unsure if I am ready for a rest API interface when the 9p interface to Acme works so well.
Yeah, I happen to see Adrian's Digital Basement on YouTube showing how it works. When he described that, I shook my head and called myself an idiot that I didn't think of it.
To this day, TCL is still my go-to for internal scripting languages or, quite often, creating a simple configuration DSL (or an internal linter for configuration files).
Of course, I also do most of my scripting in TCL, so I'm a wee bit biased.
It is a bit more complex than that; what matters is the correlation between the initial trajectory and when the batter's vision believes the ball will go. The dry spitball (knuckleball) and the spitball work on the same concept (i.e., the lack of spin will cause the ball to react differently than pitches with spin).
Most of the documentation I read seems to have been created by a sleep-deprived robot in a stand-up or by a caffeinated squirrel with memory issues. So, I am searching for a voice to bring something different to talking about broken pipelines, observability bills expanding faster than my waistline, and heroic config file linting for the impatient.
I aim to make writing (and reading) my documentation tolerable (and perhaps even FUN!). I hope to make the next person who has to read my written word laugh and absolutely confirm my clear lack of sanity.
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