I typed too soon last night. I have just uploaded an interview with Alife academic, Andy Phelps;

http://www.biota.org/people/andrewphelps/

You have to love a gauntlet-throw-down interview. I'm 100% with Andy on the Alife game API stuff. I think it would be great to work on something like that. It has echoes of BiotaAtHome.

Doug Rushkoff has broken the decade silence.

Just a quick linking update for the ether.

Good afternoon.

The previous entry was inspired by listening to my favourite WeFunk show;

http://www.wefunkradio.com/show/2003-05-02

Hence the operatics.

Dynamic Strings

One point I have been missing in recent Log entries has been my dynamic string work. Dynamic strings are another way of handling files, text data, conversions to HTML and embedding additional links. It's a powerful technology because it has been done badly to-date. I have been reading a bit of SQL, a little Java, updating my misconceptions of major scripting languages. My analysis comes through memory management and the ability to have a set of near infinite strings that are constantly updated, added to and indexed referenced.

The big problem with HTML, traditional HTML, even PHP et al is that the text information can't be parse-referenced on the fly with updated reference links. For example, for all the topics I write on through the Log, there are re-occurring themes. But the terminology other than the reference to Regulars isn't cross referenced and it is impossible to do this with current technology dynamically.

The commodity of weblogs and academic papers and news casts et al, is text. So the software, the mechanics that dynamically parses text in dynamic strings, that is my current interest.

Some of it comes from logtrack, some from FreeEngl and some from the CtH work described last week.

It's great when the software just works together in an automated fashion.

Good night.

Coding Style Versus Time

I have been reading two books together on writing better code. It's an interesting set of sometimes competing ideas. I read and sometimes return to these texts about once every three years. In fact I bought one book three years ago and one four years ago. What strikes me more than anything is that consistency, even when it might be stylistically wrong, is better than flitting between different styles through code.

I don't think there is a section of the Noble Ape code that is a decade old. In fact, the source is touched so frequently by me, I don't think there should be a line of code more than about five years old. Perhaps nothing remains the same from the Stockholm Re-Write. However the time I write the code directly effects the style.

Through my professional career I have seen so many coding styles and I think the code I am working on professionally - the style/spacing/et al - is reflected in the Noble Ape code. This may account for the regular code flushes where I re-write and re-format large sections of the Simulation. I'm sure there are developers who are fixated on format and using exactly the same formatting methodology through their career. I seem to be more focused on the ideas in the code. I've tried to get my active mind thinking more about format, but the code aesthetic and the surrounding code always breaks any hard and fast rules.

Word is Bonds (or in the US, Hanes)

I heard today that Nathan and Sanjay - the two engineers behind the Apple implementation of Noble Ape - are no longer with Apple. I've been in contact with them for three years now. In fact I emailed them last month about getting them Noble Ape tshirts. I'll be sure to track them both down to get them the tshirts no matter what. In these kind of circumstances, all you have is your word.

Hobbyist Action

I received an email from Bruce Damer today. We are on for the Sunday meeting. I'm recharging my digital camera batteries currently to capture a snap for the Log. Per the earlier entry there are so many topics to cover with Bruce, I'm almost feeling like putting together a dot-point agenda.

The biota interviews will be an interesting topic to cover. It's proving really easy to get Alife hobbyist responses to the interviews but Alife academics seem to be more challenging. My personal feeling as an Alife hobbyist is that biota.org should cover both academic and hobbyist Alife however as there are academic Alife conferences and journals, biota.org should give a little affirmative action to the hobbyists. The interesting point is that the hobbyists, through there passion and need to communicate their enjoyment of creating Alife are providing the affirmative action through their passion.

Looking at the most recent biota project manifesto (a document I co-authored);

http://www.biota.org/athome/whitepaper.html

There isn't a heavy distinction between hobbyists and academics, although all the working group folks were non-academics.

Bruce mentioned there might be something worth announcing following our meeting on Sunday. Honestly, I was a 20 y-o kid when I first started communicating with Bruce on biota.org. Just meeting him in person and the chance of spending a Sunday afternoon bouncing ideas and chatting on a wide variety of topics will be enough for me.

If A Decade Falls in the Woods...

With the news on meeting Bruce and the departure of Noble Ape's chief evangelists at Apple, I wanted to finish the Log entry on the decade of Noble Ape. I have emailed everyone on my list of folks to try to expand on the relatively dry request for a couple of lines of experience.

If I don't receive a single response from the fifty, minus four who are no longer contactable, this re-enforces the original emotion of the development. Without Noble Ape, I'd be in a shed in Australia. If I'm the only person to wax about the decade, it's been one amazing trip.

Good night.