moving parts of the kasper clan

Our little KPilot Summer of Code project that Bertjan and I are co-laboring on is going fairly well.

We’re working through finalizing the Use Case, with me helping out with some word-smithing and architectural review (http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdepim/kpilot/conduits/base/design/ ).

Bertjan has started doing Class and Sequence diagrams for the main and alternate flows (http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdepim/kpilot/conduits/base/design/bouml-design/ ).

We’re pretty much on-track according to our schedule (http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdepim/kpilot/conduits/base/design/SOC2007-schedule.ods?view=log )

And Bertjan has set up some info on his blog (http://bertjan.broeksemaatjes.nl/), and has done some level of progress-updates as well ( http://bertjan.broeksemaatjes.nl/node/4).

Also, I had a very interesting conversation with the inimitable JPR on Friday about a little bit of this and a little bit of that… and we chatted a bit about KPilot and OpenSync and other things. Anyway, just for the record, I was aware as I was chatting with him that I don’t know if I’ve clarified my intentions regarding the future of KPilot and OpenSync play-together-nicely-ness. It’s kind of become a religious war as of late (OpenSync, kitchensync, KPilot, etc.), and it’s easy to bash us KPilot folk for having the audacity for continuing to ply our trade instead of throwing full effort in with the OpenSync and kitchensync guys. But here’s some things to consider…

1. OpenSync is still trying to stabilize itself. 0.30 was just released very recently, and as of yet, it doesn’t have the full complement of plugins that are necessary to make it useful. That’s not to say it’s not a viable thing to be working towards, but it does mean that there’s some lead time before it’s a viable replacement, imho.
2. KPilot, when it works correctly, is the best syncing solution for Linux that I’ve seen and/or used (imho). It synchronizes very nicely with the KDE PIM suite, which I have currently convinced myself to use.
3. KPilot does things that OpenSync does not do. That’s not to say that OpenSync can’t be made to do them, but currently, it doesn’t. For instance, last I checked, OpenSync (at least kitchensync’s usage of it) does not allow for a constantly-running daemon that handles syncing for you. KPilot users have come to rely on this, and not having it would be a regression at the very least.
4. KPilot’s conduits are good at what they do but are lacking in having a common code base underneath. This is actually the entire focus of the SOC project this year for KPilot–to finally give KPilot’s record-based conduits a common and solid framework. Once this framework is in place and the conduits are ported to it, we could conceivably leverage the OpenSync framework for the lower-level common syncing algorithm. That’s my hope, at any rate.

So, anyway, hope that clarifies something for someone (man it’s getting late)…. The goal of this year’s KPilot SOC project is to stabilize, refactor, and re-architect KPilot’s conduit code so that it can be maintained going forward and at some point in the not-too-distant future, synergy with kitchensync/OpenSync would actually be a doable thing.

In other news, my darling bride encouraged me to splurge on a $100 Krups coffee/espresso maker. I have yet to master the fine art of frothing. And from what I’ve read, the hard water that comes out of our well will require me to also learn the fine art of descaling/deliming. Any suggestions on good products for said espresso-maker-maintenance-foo?

Update Thingey (TM):  I spent some time talking with Dan Gollub (Hi Dan!!  =:) ) the other day, making sure that my take on the current and future state of OpenSync holds water, and was pleased to find out that I was not talking out of my ear (read: yipee, I knew what I was talking about!).  So, my plans hold and at some point after: 1) KDE4’s KPilot is usable and stable, 2) KPilot’s Summer of Code project is finished, 3) KPilot’s conduits are ported to the new SOC-produced architecture, and 4) KPilot has a functional Keyring conduit, I will start moving towards 5) helping to improve OpenSync’s palm plugins, 6) looking to replace pieces of KPilot’s syncing logic with  OpenSync, and 7) looking for synergy/commonality/duplicate code with kitchensync.  Oh–also, other examples of some things that KPilot does that OpenSync was not designed to do include installing databases, doing scheduled backups, dealing with Palm’s VFS, and managing the Palm’s userid/username stuffies.  Okay, bye.

2/21/2007

Originally uploaded by imurdock

LOL! My apologies for plagiarism to Ian Murdock, but this is too funny to not do… =;)

In other news…. I’m holding onto my hope that one day soon, I will be able to do that which I’m most passionate about professionally…. =;)

<vanRijn> also, do not upgrade all of your KDE packages without logging out/in again
<pusling> vanRijn: you could just have run kbuildsycoca manually
* pusling only recieved about 10 bugs in kde abouth the upgrade to 3.5.7 broke their installation
<vanRijn> pusling: meh. Real Men Zap X (TM). =;P
<pusling>
<vanRijn> heh
<vanRijn> I just went through re-install hell the last 2 days
<vanRijn> got 4 hours of sleep 2 nights ago
<vanRijn> went from opensuse 10.2….
<vanRijn> installed fedora 7…
<vanRijn> apparently my cryptoloop-encrypted home partition is completely unusable with kernel 2.6.21. i blame the new pata drivers.
<vanRijn> so downloaded opensuse 10.3-alpha4 (all 6 cd’s, ’cause they don’t have a dvd iso, grr)
<vanRijn> installed it (went surprisingly smoothly for an alpha)
<vanRijn> and found out that it also is unable to use my cryptoloop-encrypted home partition (kernel 2.6.21 also)
<vanRijn> did a rescue boot off of a suse 10.1 dvd
<vanRijn> copied all 30 gigs of my home partition off to an external usb drive (like scraping your gums, it’s so slow)
<vanRijn> reformatted home with straight XFS, copied it back (went much faster, not being encrypted)
<vanRijn> re-installed fedora 7, thinking that things would be better this time
<vanRijn> discovered that fedora 7 is a big, stinking piece of poopie which does not play nicely with my hardware (thinkpad T42–hangs it intermittently and refuses to shut down cleanly)
<vanRijn> re-re-installed opensuse 10.3-alpha4
<vanRijn> and am now back to where I was before all this started, with a new alpha4 release which runs as smoothly as anything I’ve ever run before
<vanRijn> also, 10.3-alpha4 (well, Factory, actually) has KDE 3.5.7
<vanRijn> which is what I updated to immediately before I blathered about the mime-type issues
<vanRijn> and that’s where you came in all “kbuildsycoca”-ey…
<vanRijn> =;PPP
<vanRijn> Oooh, I need to blog that

I have seen these published elsewhere, but I got these from my beautiful daughter recently and meant to post them. They are very funny and not at all outside the realm of me being serious about them. =:)

Rules for Dating My Daughters

1. If you pull into my driveway and honk you’d better be delivering a package, because you’re sure not picking anything up.
2. You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter’s body, I will remove them.
3. I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don’t take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.
4. It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is: “early.”
5. I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.
6. As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process than can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don’t you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?
7. The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to introduce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka - zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.
8. Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, balding, middle-aged, dimwitted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.
9. Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit the car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.

I love you, my beautiful daughters! =:)