> Then I remember using our dialup to download every possible 3rd party VB form control and throwing them in a Form to see what they did. I don't know why I found this entertaining enough to keep doing it.
Wow, that takes me back. My local library also had a copy of "Visual Basic How-To: The Definitive Vb3 Problem Solver" and at some point I'd renewed my loan of it so many times they told me I couldn't anymore. I remember building a working interface based on the "Peanut Computer" interface from the beginning of _Out of this World_.
That said, it's one full page scroll down, and that after two clicks at not-too-obvious menus. Not exactly in your face in terms of discoverability.
Hopefully this is just a first step – keeping archived sites indexed and/or automatically forwarding people to IA links once the original goes down would be amazing!
Within reason, of course; there's possibly a point where it would be a bit "too discoverable" and make people exclude their site from archiving as a general precaution. (I could see people being generally fine with being archived, but not with being google-able forever.)
I used the GMT extensively in 2002/2003 or so while doing summer research. Not a low barrier to entry but incredibly useful and versatile, and was my first non-amateur introduction to CLI/pipeline style coding. Great to see it's still around and learn some more about its history.
For the interested, the book Two And Two has a lot more about the Old House. I used to visit regularly when I lived northeast and there's no place quite like it.
Hey -- I don't see another way to get in touch with you, so advance apologies for the comment spam. In a past comment you mentioned that you used to run the Ricochet modem wikispace and have a bunch of documentation/etc -- perhaps I can host them on the Internet Archive? Particularly interested in the Garage Gateway stuff, I've never seen the code and I have an otherwise working Ethernet Radio & pair of poletops I'd love to get properly running. Email's in my profile if you'd like to get in touch.
> Outside of fundamentally better workflow improvements, most professional fields don't randomly change their tools. If you gave a professional artist a new pencil that had to be gripped differently for no reason, they'd throw it in the trash.
>
> But in software, we tolerate buggy tools that change all the time for no discernible reason. We tolerate software that simultaneously targets professionals and casual users, serving both segments poorly. We tolerate software that can't be customized or adapted for specific workflows. It's tough to put into words, but if you watch a musician or a painter interact with their tools, there's a very clear difference that emerges, and over time you start to realize how much better all of their stuff is.
>
> In most professional artistic settings, workflow changes only happen because they have a clear benefit -- drawing from your shoulder instead of your wrist, changing your embouchure if you play an instrument. And even in those fields, it's generally accepted that over time people will end up with very specialized setups that are very consistent and refined and that remain constant for years and years.
>
> Only in the software industry would someone tell me that my professional tools should change because change is inherently good. Only in commercial software would an elegant, consistent interface like Markdown that allowed me to build up decades of muscle memory until my computer was an extension of my fingers and I didn't need to think about the way I typed -- only in software would that be considered a bad thing.
There is middle ground between doing significant changes all the time and no changes in ~30 years.
I was working at a software company years back that was doing this significant interface change. I suggested we have an 'end goal' interface and breakdown changes into multiple releases over time, organised it so each version change is easier to adapt to and educates somewhat in the changes as they occur, but this approach got no traction. I still wonder if its the correct approach or its better to get it over with in one go and then try to be stable.
At least in my experience the “one and done” feels better, but make it so the new one is somehow faster or easier or something. (Not salesforce lightning, e.g.)
The other ends up feeling like death by a thousand cuts.
"He told me that in 1886 he had invented an original system of numbering and that in a very few days he had gone beyond the twenty-four-thousand mark. He had not written it down, since anything he thought of once would never be lost to him. His first stimulus was, I think, his discomfort at the fact that the famous thirty-three gauchos of Uruguayan history should require two signs and two words, in place of a single word and a single sign. He then applied this absurd principle to the other numbers. In place of seven thousand thirteen, he would say (for example) Maximo Perez; in place of seven thousand fourteen, The Railroad; other numbers were Luis Melian Lafinur, Olimar, sulphur, the reins, the whale, the gas, the caldron, Napoleon, Agustin de Vedia. In place
of five hundred, he would say nine. Each word had a particular sign, a kind of mark; the last in the series were very complicated ... I tried to explain to him that this rhapsody of incoherent terms was precisely the opposite of a system of numbers."
Sorry folks! One of our datacenters lost power for a couple hours. We're fairly redundant across sites but in the case of an ephemeral event, it can make more sense for us to wait it out than to fully fail over/etc. As we like to say, the data is safe, the library is just temporarily closed.
re the advice in that post -- I completely agree but I would say that if you enjoy God Emperor (I do, deeply), between that and Heretics go read _The Dune Encyclopedia_, which is a hard-to-find paperback but an easy-to-find PDF written as an in-universe encyclopedia set after God Emperor. Yes, some things in it are contradicted by the remaining two books, but it adds such a powerful structure to the extant universe in a remarkably satisfying way.
I've read the Frank Herbert Dune books back-to-back several times and love them all, but I've never tried his son's additions to the series because I've read a few people saying they're not worth the time. Do you agree?
I'm not the parent, but I've also read all the original 6 books a great number of times, as well as about 7 or 8 of the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune books, and I'd say they aren't worth it.
They largely explain things that, as far as I'm concerned, didn't need explaining. As you probably know, they wrote a 2 book conclusion to the series. These 2 books largely tie the Frank Herbert Dune universe with the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune universe. And that seemed quite forced to me and, cynically, felt like an attempt to force you to read their Dune prequel trilogy (because otherwise, you'll be WTF is Erasmus?) I feel like Frank Herbert, being an immensely better writer, would have been able to conclude the series without forcing a prequel trilogy onto readers.
It wasn't until I read some of the more immediate books (universe time-wise) from the duo that I came to appreciate how effortless Frank Herbert's writing is. Gurney Halleck is loyal, he just is. And that loyalty is clearly based on respect for the Duke, being on the side of "good", and a hate for the Harkonnen. We don't need a justification for Halleck's devotion. It's pure and effortless character development. The duo doesn't have that seem ease of writing, so instead we get the back story, torture and rape (lazy themes) that tainted the character/original work.
I totally agree with this. One of the strengths of the original Dune series is how willing Frank Herbert is to leave things unsaid -- it's a complex universe that has lost a lot of knowledge, just like ours! It covers timespans that admit archaeology! The idea that there's an accessible succinct narrative arc that ties the story up in a neat little bow is antithetical to the strengths of the original series, in my opinion.
That may the difference between good world-building and what people think good world-building is.
People think that if the author doesn't know everything about the world, it's not "fleshed out". But if you look to some of the best fiction out there, the world is more suggested than built.
I think a good example of this is George Lucas. He went from good to bad by doing the thing people perceived as good. In the original Star Wars trilogy, things just are. The Clone Wars were a line. A throwaway to explain why Leia was seeking out Obi-Wan never having even seen the man. Han and all of his pre-trilogy relationships are given surface level explanations. You never go deep. What happens between A New Hope and Empire is suggested, alluded to, but never explained. And why should they be explained? All the characters know these things. There's no need to exposit these things again. You're given the impression that there exists a much larger world than the small window you've seen.
Then, in the prequel trilogy, everything is presented as backstory to some other element. Stormtroopers are the successors of the Clone Troopers who are cloned from Jango Fett who had a clone made of himself he named Boba. Of course, Jango is also a bounty hunter. Anakin is from Tatooine. Chewbacca rolled with Yoda back in the day. We know, biologically, exactly what allows people to access the Force. And on and on. Everything is given an explanation. And that, ironically, makes the world feel a lot smaller.
I loved Dune, and while I don't think all the original sequels were as strong, I enjoyed them all and have reread them several times over the years.
I slogged my way through the first couple of his son's work, but I read the first page of Butlerian Jihad and, for the first time in my life, threw the book against the wall and tossed it in the garbage.
Inside his pyramid-shaped vessel, the cymek general
Agamemnon led the attack. Logical thinking machines
did not care about glory or revenge. But Agamemnon
certainly did. Fully alert inside his preservation
cannister, his human brain watched the plans unfold.
If you're a fan of Dune and made it all the way through this paragraph without feeling ill, then you're a stronger person than I.
Sounds like the hackneyed portrayal of Harkonnen as a super villain who has to refer to himself in the third person while exposition dumping his plan to a nephew who already knows who he is.
There are strong indicators that "Jihad" was used not in a sense of armed struggle there, but more akin to a social revolution; "thinking machines" were declared a problem not because they were a physical threat a la Saberhagen's Berserkers, but because their influence on society was deemed overly negative.
Given that, a book that would cover the Jihad would probably be another philosophical treatise in the vein of God-Emperor of Dune.
The Dune Encyclopedia had a couple of articles on the Butlerian Jihad. All of the material was invented for that work -- Frank Herbert's novels only had the barest shred of explanation of what it was -- but their theory was fairly reasonable, and were consistent with the spirit of his writing. (In summary, a hospital's "self-programming computer" terminated a Bene Gesserit woman's pregnancy; her protests ignited existing tensions against computers and high technology.)
This a really strong, and very good breakdown of the problems with the prequels. They essentially take the complex, developed characters of Frank Herbert and turn them into into trite caricatures of themselves.
> These 2 books largely tie the Frank Herbert Dune universe with the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune universe. And that seemed quite forced to me and, cynically, felt like an attempt to force you to read their Dune prequel trilogy
I really like the Frank Herbert books. They are on my favorites shelf. The sequel/prequel books were just ok, and felt like they were trying to fill in details that were left to the reader by Frank Herbert. By filling in the details, I'm sure the thought was we are completing the story... but that story was already told.
It's interesting (and perhaps accurate) that you critique the use of lazy themes in backstory, but praise the effortlessness of leaving the backstory out. (I've not read the new stuff myself)
IMHO the Dune Encyclopedia (written in collaboration with Frank Herbert) does a much better job elucidating aspects of the Dune Universe in an interesting way than Brian's books do -- there's a narrative thread that weaves through the last three of Frank's books that is really, really present and which Brian's books set aside for an alternative -- and to my view, much less satisfying -- interpretation of late-stage events in the series.
They're quite bad, and I doubt very much they are based on Frank Herbert's "found notes" in any way. If they are, Brian Herbert should publish those notes, like Christopher Tolkien did.
Lower quality writing, and not thoughtful, and the story arc they take things in seems much cruder than what Frank Herbert would have had in mind.
> So I went home, and received a copy of Robert’s outline and notes, and loved them, and wrote two sample chapters and a proposal and a title (Robert had put down seven possible titles, but even he didn’t like any of them much), and they were all approved by Art Dula, and in the fullness of time the book, to be known as “ROBERT A. HEINLEIN’S VARIABLE STAR by Spider Robinson,” sold to Tor for the proverbial six figures.
> Since then, little dividends of joy keep coming in, like the receding ripples of pleasure that accompany a truly great orgasm--and sometimes, if you’re lucky, signal that it’s about to become a multiple. For example, Art Dula moved me to tears by sending me, out of the blue, Robert’s desk dictionary, heavily used and carefully repaired--Robert Heinlein’s personal box of words. He filled out the package with a pound of authentic Jamaica Blue Mountain. Similarly, sweet Amy sent me a set of her grandfather’s cufflinks to wear as I type VARIABLE STAR, and Jeanne a few pieces of her grandmother’s jewelry to wear for me when I stumble from the typewriter. I feel supported and encouraged by the whole Heinlein family and legacy. That makes me the luckiest writer alive. And one of the luckiest readers.
When writing it, he had the same "these are the words that you are to use while writing as Heinlein."
> This novel should be the example held forth when writers collaborate. Spider has perfectly captured the pacing, feel and stature of a Robert Heinlein story while retaining his own identity. It doesn’t feel like someone trying to “write like Heinlein”, but like someone who’s read every book the man’s written so many times it’s second nature.
> "Completing a book from notes by a dead author is almost always a mistake. But Robert A. Heinlein apparently isn't really dead. He was obviously standing at the side of Spider Robinson as he wrote this book, guiding his hand. Variable Star will delight the fans of the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, and at the same time, stays true to Spider's passionate themes of optimism, kindness, and humanity's future among the stars." --John Varley, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Persistence of Vision and Steel Beach
This is the way to do continuations - not fan fiction but, for lack of a better word, channeling the spirit of the original author so that you can become them and use the same style rather than imposing your own style on top of their world.
I think Christopher Tolkien pretty much did this. And what was great was the way he edited (with his father's blessing), did a small amount of continuation, as well as published the original notes, so we could all see the authorial process.
However in Tolkien's case, there was an explicit father son work relationship that was grounded in their mutual love and family life, and the fact that both had similar education, etc.
My understanding is Brian Herbert was estranged from his father and they had a bad relationship.
And Brian Herbert brought in an outside writer (Kevin J Anderson) to do a lot (most?) of the actual writing.
The world of Dune fans would have been better served if Herbert had simply published his father's notes, maybe with some annotations or reflections.
Given the above, and as hasn't provided those notes and documents he apparently found, and as the plot veers quite a bit in tone from what Frank Herbert seemed to me to have in mind, I actually have a hard time believing the notes he is apparently working from actually exist.
Further, the published works he has created are really not good.
It’s not that they’re not worth the time, but they’re clearly written by someone else, and try to attach onto a cohesive whole in a way that doesn’t quite feel right.
Wow, that takes me back. My local library also had a copy of "Visual Basic How-To: The Definitive Vb3 Problem Solver" and at some point I'd renewed my loan of it so many times they told me I couldn't anymore. I remember building a working interface based on the "Peanut Computer" interface from the beginning of _Out of this World_.