John Antypas

As I said elsewhere -- the world needs more mad scientists, and, I promise to keep this monster in the basement until it can be socialized for nice walks in the park...  Maybe I'll even give it a name -- how do people feel about Lil' Marvin?

Lil' Marin isn't that big, or that scary.  He's actually quite mundane.  But for a first experiment, I thought I'd start with something small, something you might do with your My First Monster kit.  (And a special note to Mom and Dad here -- if the little evil genius in your life needs a reward for being a bad little boy, these things make great Christmas presents....)

Lil' Marvin, like any beginner's kit is designed to do something simple, and to work even for the beginning evil despite.  In this case, because this is a blog about software, this was the quick (discount brand) Bernie Clogmyer recipie for an IPv6 server setup.  (OK, it's someone else, the baking lady Betty, or Bettsy, or Buela, I can't remember... but we'd have to pay if we used her name and likeness.)

There are lots of good HOW-TOs to do this, but none were, in my view, a true recipie.  Many said, "3 eggs, 1/3 cup oil, and some other stuff we'll mention on another box..."  There was always something missing, if you wanted it to just work you had to do some digging.  I've dug, and the recipie is here.

Every programmer learning the craft hears the same command -- Comment Your Code.  The reasons are good, solid, reasons.  You never know who will have to pick up your code when you move on, and we've all had to pick up after someone who didn't.  However...

Programmers might not like to leave comments.  Leaving comments means leaving evidence -- evidence that others can read at a later date.  The comments will later be viewed as we do paintings on cave walls.  For all we know, that painting wasn't celebrating bear for dinner, but rather, it was Og, saying Hey Guys, it actually works this time!

Every programmer leaves the cave paintings.  In my earlier days at a large computer company, I had a chance to spend a lot of time working on collaborate software efforts.  That meant I spent a lot of time fixing other people's code.  And, like cave painings on the walls, I saw gems like:

Oh God!  What an evil hack.... but it works now, I'm not sure why.  No touching!

Or this little gem

No one will ever go beyond 5000 elements.  I know it's wrong. but I've got to go home before my wife kills me.

Of course, someone discovered elemet 5001....  And we can't forget my personal favorite....

This program will sort through your contacts and eliminate information from people you don't like.  We'll call them twits.  There is a limit of 100 twits.  If you have more than 100 people you don't like, you don't need a software program, you need an agent.

Attention fellow programmers, be careful what you write.  The cave walls remember....