bkil vs. programming

I have finally uploaded my nice OPL program that I used with the fridge mentioned. It can be found at my scripts , in the repo! Direct link: >> fridge.opl << It might happen that some more small programs of mine will follow.

Well, actually it is, but never mind. :) At first, I thought one had no choice but to migrate to Haskell or Clean if in a need for programming in an elegant manner. Fortunately, I since then have found some languages that would also do the trick. I plan to review most of these based on some criteria, preferably through a real-life problem set. Maybe I will initially base my research on the ready-made solutions found at the great language shoot-out game. As you probably already know, Haskell (and Clean) allow the expression of deep thoughts with very conscious syntax (and semantics) for most domains. Erlang is also nice, though a bit LISP-like on the syntax side (read: crude). I still need to learn a few more languages that are said to be pretty interesting. As I've heard OCaml (ML) and maybe Python could be good candidates. Now, before you come up with the valid argument that powerful language-extending features and Turing-completeness make this a non-issue, I am not sure if I woul...

I still need to get used to blogging. I have added some new creations to my ASCII art section last week. I have also done some major refactoring of the quotes - I added some more while at it. I have updated or removed a few broken links from my archive. I try to finish updating them in a month (or a few?), but progress is slow. The ones below the asterisks are left. I know how frustrating broken links can be, so I handle this with top priority.

The first OS I have installed was probably some DOS for a friend or classmate in primary school, I can't remember which. You understand if normal people can't install and configure that properly, as it is considered pretty difficult. I then did winblows a few times, though that's a harder treat. How do you expect a normal user to feel at home with his computer if he can't even install it for himself? It's supposed to be user friendly or so. Also note, that after removing the installer disk and placing it on the shelf does not end your responsibilities. If you install new hardware, software, or just simply switch some setting that change a major part of the system, you will need to get used to handling setup dialogs and wizards. And by the way, if the installation process is usually done by a semi-professional anyway - either in the shop before you buy, or if you ask help from a friend - then that voids the major part of the very common argument against using any unu...

I'm not specialized in doing that, but I had to commence many operating system installs to this day. I plan to write a bit on that next time. Here's how I've installed Debian 5.0 Lenny (qualified as testing as of September of 2008). I did it two times in a row to be exact, because of an unfortunately hardware fault after two days of usage (okay, maybe it was partially mine). The second one should have taken much less time, but I goofed with the settings of apt-move. You see I got it right with Etch before, but I forgot to write it down (I found it in the file anyway). I have been writing down what I customize from the start just because of that. Thankfully, that's a good habit of mine. Some words about the instructions in the file ("almost" a shell script). I tried to be self-explanatory, and have written a little preface to help place things in context. NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND: I am not held liable for anything you do wrong with the text given below, not even...

Planning to construct a logo for a T-shirt has been on my mind for some time now. It should look neat, but be practical at the same time. What I am certain of at the moment, is that the design ought to include program source code or ASCII art of some sort. License will be GPL of course ;-> In both cases, the number of characters should be minimal. I'm thinking along the lines of a few hundred bytes or so, and about six or seven lines of code. Readability is at paramount: a well educated person if mathematics, information technology or engineering ought to understand it in a minute.

This is nearly a trivial project, really. However, I do plan to achieve the most general implementation feasible. What needs to be done are the following. * Internal representation of the game state (board, turn); * Presentation to the user (only coordinates at first); * Input from the human player (coordinates); * Generating valid steps for the AI (simple enumeration at first); * Heuristic function for the AI (something wired-in at first); * AI core: minimax at first, alpha-beta with some simple ordering and pruning later on; * Simple interface that enables a GUI at a later date.