Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 11:06:29 -0500 From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <pfgiffun@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> To: "G. Adam Stanislav" <zen@buddhist.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Applications Message-ID: <3718B184.8C3396C4@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> References: <199904160601.XAA88836@rah.star-gate.com> <19990415224102.A47059@ontario.mooseriver.com> <199904160601.XAA88836@rah.star-gate.com> <3.0.6.32.19990416161503.0092d260@mail.bfm.org> <3.0.6.32.19990416204339.00924d30@mail.bfm.org>
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"G. Adam Stanislav" escribió: > > You mean you can release fonts as ports? I have designed quite a few > PostScript fonts some time ago (not lately, though), so that is something I > am quite interested in. All of the fonts were hand coded (I wrote a font > compiler and a font disassembler for that purpose, although right now it is > on an old computer which currently I cannot take things from). > Take a look at the gsfonts port, these are type1 postscript fonts, so I used type1inst as a port dependency to generate the appropiate files. I never figured out how to add the font to the XF86Config line from the port (port author are lazy by definition), and the fonts want to run unscaled on certain low resolutions, but the GIMP and netscape are happy. > > I will not comment on much of it being junk because I choose never to > decide what is junk and what is not when it comes to programming. Although > I will admit that I was taught a completely different way of programming > 30+ years ago than I see today. Our teacher beat it into our heads (and we > were impressionable high schoolers) that after we write a program, we must > go through it line by line and find the one line we can cut out. After > that, we must go through the program line by line and find the one line we > can cut out, and so on, until, theoretically we end up with one line of > code (we were also assured that would never happen). > On school I also used to take quite a time to ensure less instructions, these were Pascal prgrams, but while someone found took the time write 2000 lines, I got it in 200. > > OK, how? I prefer releasing the libraries separately from my programs so if > someone wants to write a better program that uses the libraries (I am much > better at libraries than at the programs that use them), I don't want them > to have to list my program as a dependency, only the library. > You can use libraries as either build or runtime dependencies, there are many examples on the ports tree. Take a look, for example, at URT (ports/graphics). > > >OTOH, if the port builds and work correctly don't expect much feedback :-). > > Not immediately perhaps. But sometimes people ask you years later if you > are the guy who wrote such and such thing. I created the Avatar console > protocol for Opus BBS over a decade ago, wrote a DOS device driver for it, Maybe you could give FreeBSD's console a hand...I've always wanted to see module that supports those old BBS extensions (RIP, ANSI music)...probably no one else would appreciate it but...cool nevertheless :-) > > a language and a compiler, and things like that, all in assembly language. > I received very little feedback at the time. I kept a very low profile for > many years since, and now that I started getting active in FreeBSD lists, I > started receiving messages from people asking me if I was the creator of > Avatar and thanking me for it and how good it was. It was quite a surprise: > I thought no one would ever remember (I mean, a decade in computer history > is ancient, besides, while it was an improvement, it was nothing earth > shaking) -- I'd probably have continued my low profile had I known this was > going to happen. :-) Still, it's kinda neat - it makes one realize we > programmers make more difference than we admit to ourselves (especially > when one is "old" and remembers the days before computers, when chip was a > piece of wood, hehehe). > The time of the wooden computers and the iron programmers...I was just a baby in those days, but I heard the leyend ;-). > > Adam > > P.S. Anything I post here should be read with an implied "IMHO" at the > start of every sentence - I guess it does not hurt to state that explicitly > every so often. > --- > Want to design your own web counter? > Get GCL 2.10 from http://www.whizkidtech.net/gcl/ > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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