Seth Milliken — Words, Thoughts, Tech

Kris Kopicki created a jEdit application bundle that addresses a number of problems with 4.2pre versions of jEdit on Mac OS X. But it is not very easy to find at all, so I'm posting a link here.

"I've noticed a few problems people have been having with

background mode, missing icon and the cocoa libs not being

found. The 4.2 bundle will fixes all that."

You can get it here:

Interviewing for FileMaker positions recently, I wanted to be able to provide a demonstration of my skills without breaching my confidentiality agreements with previous clients. So I built this Scrabblet over a weekend using FileMaker 6.0v3 on Mac OS X 10.2. Although a bit on the slow side, it does a decent job of tracking and scoring plays in a game of Scrabble.

Here are some known issues with this first version:

- The UI is not phenomenal, and there are likely a number of usability issues as a result of my being the sole tester.

- Minor redraw glitches.

- Can't play a single tile as the first play.

- Allows a play of more than seven new tiles in a turn.

- Scoring is not implemented for the remaining tiles on the final racks.

- While in game replay mode, records for successfully challenged words will erroneously be deleted.

- While in game replay mode, definitions of blank tiles are not remembered.

- Mode for freeform board setup is not complete.

- During a play, blank tiles collide with tiles whose letter is the same as the letter to which the blank has been defined; those tiles must be entered as blanks (e.g. "?") for a valid play.

- Responsibility of some lower-level functionality is not well-defined.

- Calling conventions, preconditions, and postconditions are not always clear.

- I made a couple of ugly script hacks in the name of expediency over redesign.

- A number of fields and scripts could be pruned to improve cleanliness and prevent confusion.

- Lacks thorough commentary in many areas.

- Didn't fully exploit the stack-based computer emulator. Not well documented.

- Requires the not-inexpensive full version of FileMaker Pro 6.x.

- And yes, it can be a bit slow at times, especially when a play creates many new words. :-)

At long last, I have a working issue tracking system. I finally solved the tomcat classpath issues that were confounding me, and successfully installed scarab. This makes me very happy. Now on to adding my projects ("modules" in scarab parlance) to the system....

Before a marathon session of Soul Calibur ass-kicking, Tadhg introduced me to the "screen" utility. Now in the saftey of my own home, I've only been playing with it for only ten minutes and already I see great potential for usefulness. As the man page mentions, "A weird imagination is most useful to gain full advantage of all the features." Right.