Version Control Systems and You

Everyone knows these days that it's important to have some sort of version control system while working on a project. The big question is, which one do you want to use? I've used my fair share of them and though that I'd dole out my opinion.

CVS
Pretty much the originator. I used it in a Linux command-line environment and I loved every bit of it. The diff is great, it's pretty much seamless as far as editing goes, and it handles conflicts pretty well. It was indeed command-line based, but you know what, it worked fine that way.

Perforce
Probably one of my least favorites. Adding, removing, and moving files around is a major nightmare, the commands are far from clear-cut and the interface is pitiful. It does however have a decent diff tool, and it handles conflicts decently.

SVN (Subversion)
This is pretty much a souped-up version of CVS. In that regard it was pretty good. The only problem I had is with it's diff tool that I ended up replacing with WinDiff. If you're using windows, this is probably the optimal solution for you.

CM Synergy
It may be cross platform, but I've had nothing but trouble with this one. The diff is better than nothing, but it's still not great. The commands are confusing to say the least, but the history viewer is excellent. Its handling of conflicts is a bit iffy, but not that bad overall. I'd still rather have CVS or SVN.

Copying Folders
If you're doing this, who are you kidding? Sure it works, and sure it might be great for some smaller projects, but it would just be so much easier for you to use a decent version control system. Mind you, there's still a good case for copying your version-control database to a backup drive, much the same way as you'd copy a folder to a backup drive.

If you're not using any sort of version control, ask yourself this, what happens when you need to re-write a major part of the program? What happens if you need to get someone else to work on the project at the same time as you? If you absolutely can't afford to set anything up, at least copy your folders to a gmail drive or something like that. Just don't tempt fate, it's not worth it.

Light Morals

Should I feel bad that I'm lying to my current coop placement saying that I'm going for an interview on friday when in fact I'm going rock climbing? Part of me says I should feel bad about this, but most of me says "who cares, it's not like you're going to do anything at work."

In conclusion, rock climbing is awesome and I'll have fun on friday.

Bollocks and Such

Well the plan to go to Ubisoft didn't work out so well. They' pretty much turned me down on the spot. I didn't even get to speak to an HR rep. Oh well, at least the train part was fun, and first class on the way back was totally worth it.

I've got a job offer from Ross Video, I'm thinking I'll take it. I've basically given myself until Friday to make up my mind. It's a good place, good pay, but it's a lot of work, and I won't get to slack off as much. That as you may know, is something that I dearly enjoy doing.

I'm having lots of fun in the WoW expansion pack, I hit level 63 last weekend, and I'd like to hit 65 this weekend. Though things aren't really going fast enough with my girlfriend constantly interrupting my play time. That's a good thing mind you, I'd rather have my girlfriend than play, but it is still slowing down my questing and leveling. The money rate, experience rate, damage rate, drop rate, and nearly everything are totally awesome. I can't say enough how much fun it is, how how much of a sense of accomplishment it gives to finish a quest or two.

So as you may have guessed, I'm bored at work right now. I've already exhausted my supply of places to read on the internet. I'm down to either playing sudoku or whizzball. There's also this carefully crafted blog entry that I can work on. All the other coops either weren't here or were too busy to go to lunch and play some pool, so I had to eat lunch at my desk. Quite the boring prospect.

I'm thinking that I might just write a very long blog post, or maybe make the wikipedia entry for the Barrhaven movie, or make some plans for some engineering project, or maybe I'll even write a short erotic story, that could be moderately entertaining. I dunno, maybe I'll just keep playing whizzball until I'm in the top 50000, or the top 10000. If only they didn't lock out my usernames from other computers, then I'd be right at the top of the charts. Now that I think of it, I should definitely think of what I'm getting my mom for her birthday, and what I'm going to do for valentines day. But that's all boring... Oh well, maybe something interesting will come up. Something that doesn't involve removing #ifdefs.

I'm Trying To Be Clever

So Ubisoft still hasn't gotten back to me about my possible job. So here's what I did to get their attention. I first wrote an email to the webmaster claiming that I had lost the email of the hr department. This unfortunately didn't work as the links on their website didn't actually lead to anyone. So much for that little bit of social engineering.

So next up is google, I search through google for any mention of Ubisoft human resources. Thankfully, I find the name of the VP of HR, and the name of the director. Now for anyone who knows about corporate email addresses, it's usually in the form of firstname.lastname@company.qq and this case was no exception. Sure it took a few dozen bounced emails, but the point is I finally got one through to the director. Or at least it hasn't bounced yet. Now I don't know if it's going to get ignored, or if I even got it to the right person, but they'll definitely see that I at least tried to get back in contact with them. Also, when I show up on their doorstep on Monday, they'll know I told them about it.

Might be a total waste of time, but at least I tried. Besides, I'm pretty sure that I can always go back to Ross Video or something like that. I could even try EA Games, even though I hate Madden and all related activities.

The best part of the email was that I told them I was going to be there on Monday. I didn't ask them, I told them... in a nice way.

Here's to hoping that my cleverness pays off. Back to work I guess.

Coding...

Well my little game has progressed slightly. I've now got 3 kinds of enemies with proper wait timers, and some nice abstraction going on there. I realize now that my code is utter crap, and that I should have planned things out a little better. I suppose it's time for me to make a semblance of a menu system, and maybe a pause button or something. The boss will come later, as will the enemies shooting back and the wave cannon.

I've also decided that I'll go to Ubisoft on Monday next week instead of friday that the GF needs a ride to the train station. Ironically, somewhere that I would have been going. I'll probably write the HR department an email beforehand explaining that I'll be showing up, and that not throwing me out of the building would be appreciated.

In other news I've been reading Izzle pfaff lately. Which by the way, is absolutely hilarious. Sure it doesn't beat the off-colour rants and jokes of bash, but at least it's mostly work safe. Myself not having any penis jokes, or hilarious bathroom stories posted here, I don't think that he'll be linking to me any time soon. Too bad, seems like a cool guy.

Afternoon as Promised

Well, I didn't in fact get what I wanted for lunch, instead I got Thai noodles, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes. It was really weird, didn't really enjoy it at all. Whatever though, it's food and I was hungry. Good enough.

So Ubisoft hasn't written back yet, and I'm starting to think I'm going to have to make a trip down. It's always a risk to do that though. For all I know they'll have the guards take me out for showing up unannounced. It will however make a strong impact on them, and they'll have to pay more attention to me. Failing that, I'll just get released to look at other jobs. Sucks, but I'll have no choice, except for EA. I don't want to work on Madden.

So the CS games are coming up soon, and I haven't had any word on whether or not I'm on the team. I wish they would get their act together because I need to let my boss know in advance. Would be a bit rude to just not show up for work one day.

Speaking of work, I'm quite bored. I've got no real work to do as my manager is quite busy. I've been playing sudoku all day, even though I don't really like it. I've gotten down to about 8 minutes per easy board. So not bad at all. No, I haven't attempted a harder board.

I'm thinking that I'll have to stop playing WoW for a while so that I can code up a video game to show off at Ubisoft. I'm thinking that a standard side-scrolling shooter with a few effects would be good. Haven't decided if I'm going to do it in Java or SDL yet. SDL would make the per-pixel effects easier, but Java would probably make the sprite drawing easier. Though I do have a book on making games in Java. This might actually be a good time to bust it out. Come to think of it, I've got a half-finished shooter I could do something with. Just add a menu, HUD, more enemies, and a boss, and that would be it. I've still gotta figure out how to properly load images though. Gotta stop that flashing on first display nonsense.

It'll probably just be an updated copy of my game I made in high school, Starbeast Surprise. I'll have 3 kinds of enemies, the sinusoidally-moving UFOs that try to collide with you, the darts that fly quickly across the screen and shoot two or three shots at you, and the hunters that mirror all your horizontal moves (slowly) and try to collide with you. I'll also have to add in my special wave cannon along with the standard glowing missiles. The part that will absolutely have to be there is the lemon boss, with the straight-shooting sewage balls, and the angled and aimed orange plasma balls. I think that I'll have to actually put an enrage stage on this boss though. I didn't have time at school, but it would be fun if it did.

Crap, that's quite a lot of work. I think I'll have to prioritize it. So enemies first, wave cannon second, HUD third, boss fourth, menus fifth, and then extra enemies and the like. Should end up at around 3000 lines of code or so. Ill probably have to do some of it tomorrow at work even without a compiler. Hmm, I'll also have to reinstall 3dsmax. Well, better get cracking now with some algorithms for the movement of the ships.

Get In Ma Bellaeh!

So it's nearly lunch time here at work and I'm starving. If only the other coop would come get me to tell me it's time to go to lunch.

Also, I hope that I've got something good for lunch, like the leftover ribs, or something like that. I don't want the beef stew from yesterday, I dunno, I just need something with some sugar in it. I suppose I could always get something from the cafeteria if I'm desperate. I can buy a snack there until 3PM so if worse comes to worse.

Woot, other coops are here! Time for food! No more whining! Better post this afternoon!

Meh

So I decided after all that it was too much trouble to go and get my copy of the WoW XP at midnight. In about 20 minutes I'm going to leave work to go buy it (and Wario Ware: Smooth Moves). If they don't have my copy that I preordered, I will tear the guy at the desk a new one, get my money back, and promptly go to futureshop, best buy, or wal mart and buy me a copy.

So it seems that my work hasn't really been going anywhere. The card I'm doing work for isn't going to be ready until the second week of February or so. So now I'm relegated to writing a script for the VisionICE debugger to get the flash up and booted. Basically this involves changing some register values. Unfortunately I've got no clue wtf is going on in there. I've read the manual for both the VisionICE and the chipset, and now all I know is that I'm going to need one hell of a hex calculator. Maybe I should program on in C++ in the meantime. Oh yes....

Dear WindRiver HSI,
Next time you make debugging software, make it so that I don't have to re-navigate to where I just was every time I clear a breakpoint. That's just retarded. The lack of compatability with a scroll wheel however, that's just utterly ludicrous!

Well, 15 minutes to go, I'm sure I can manage to waste some more time with some more utterly useless comments.

So I was surfing the net today (at work obviously), when I realized that I don't really visit enough good sites to keep me entertained all day. Espescially when gmail, google video, youtube, etc. are blocked. So far I've got Digg, WoW Forums, Wikipedia, Bash, and that's it. Booo...

I can only be entertained by forum trolls for so long. After a while, their QQing and the like doesn't even register.

I'm going to go indoor rock climbing at Vertical Reality again this weekend with my friends. Should be loads of fun. Unfortunately, it'll probably be freezing cold. I'll try to remember to bring some chalk this time. Maybe I should work on my grip until then. Those stress balls might be good for that, and I could probably work on my leg strength simply by wearing ankle-weights all day. Might have to take them off for driving though, otherwise I'd actually have a lead foot.

Whoops... apparently my habit of pressing Ctrl+S all the time to save got the better of me there and posted for me.

Anyways, I'm thinking that this weekend I should also go UEing with my friends to the quarry again. This time bring a camera and try and document our adventure. I'll probably end up posting the results on uer.ca just to see if I can finally get some decent recognition. Not to mention that it would help with my uber plan of claiming to be from the Canadian Urban Exploration Club, and that I was interested in documenting the tunnels under Merivale. Heh, it might even work. Now that would be some good social engineering for ya.

Well, I managed to waste an entire 13 minutes by writing this long winded and mostly useless post. I'd say that's good for now.

The Night Of

I'm trying to decide if I want to go to EB Games tonight at midnight to pick up my copy of the world of warcraft expansion pack. On one hand, it'd be totally awewsome, and there would be no way that I wouldn't get my copy. On the other hand, it's cold, snowing, late, and I have to work early the next morning. I think you can tell that I'm leaning towards the no side. I'm still going to give EB Games a quick call in a couple of minutes to ensure that they'll be getting my preorder in. They'd better be, I preordered that back around march last year when it was first announced. Seriously, if they screw up like they did with Guitar Hero, I'm going to beat them.

In other news I decided that I'd only work at my current coop placement for 4 months instead of 8. It's not that I dislike the place, it's just that I'd like to get other experiences before I go out on the job market. I applied to Ubisoft today, and I'm giving them 2 (very generous) weeks to get back to me before I phone them up or show up and ask for an explanation, or at least give them a gentle reminder that I'm still here. If they're really not interested, then I suppose I'll start looking at other places that the coop office can provide *shudder*. Or maybe I'll try going back to Ross Video. They seemed to like me, and I mostly enjoyed that.

In marginally more emo news, I'm tired of all my ideas getting shut down by my parents and girlfriend. I wanted to buy a 240sx, no, I wanted to buy a skyline, no, I went back to more available cars, yes but only when I graduate. And the latest is that I wanted a car for my last year of studies, so that I wouldn't have to take the bus every day. It is in fact several hundred dollars cheaper to buy a parking pass instead of express passes, but then there's gas and other stuff. Either way I was shut down hardcore again. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just a simple no, but instead it's a 20 minute conversation as to why it's wrong and why I should stop bothering to ask questions and announce my intentions.

That's not a bad idea though, I'll just stop announcing my intentions and just do it. Next time I see a decent Kouki S14 for sale for a decent price, I'll just go for it. Seriously, enough of having every single move I do questioned. If it worked for buying computer parts and software (much to my parent's displeasure), it should work for other things.

Product Release

So being the curious monkey that I am, I decided to check out the Lumenera web site to see what they had done since I left. Also to see if anything has been done with my work. So surprise of all surprises, it looks like the finally released my MATLAB driver to the world as an official version 1.0. OH EM GEE

Seriously, when I was there, it was just sitting stagnant and being beta tested by a few unnamed companies and myself. Looks like Mathworks finally approved it and thus it's released. Woot! That would be my first major product release. And it's a driver of all things.

Work Internet

I'm working here at an unnamed high tech company. It's just my second week and already the corporate internet is annoying me. First off, they blocked every conceivable web mail site, along with any useful port except for FTP and HTTP. There's also a firewall in place that apparently tracks everything I do (lies).

The worst part of all this though is the speed. The entire 250+ employees share a single T1 pipe. My home internet is an order of magnitude faster than this thing. It just took me 20 minutes to download 2.5MB. Granted the server was slow, but that's almost dial up speeds. I used to work at a company that had a 20 (or so) Mb line for roughly 50 employees. Granted they made digital cameras, and transferring 21MP images to and from customers isn't exactly trivial, but if they could afford it, I don't see why this company can't.

I suppose it's to block people like me, that want to download things like WoW patches at work so that I can leave my home computer to download other important things. Oh well, guess I won't be coming back here for a second semester. Or at least until I figure out how to set up a web proxy at my house. Or now that I think about it, maybe an SSH tunnel + VNC...