Re: [Libbt-devel] News on the Mac front - LibBT 1.03

[Dakidd <da...@so...>]

>Wow, long mail. :)

Heck, for me, that's just barely a baby email :)

>
>On Wed, May 11, 2005 at 06:50:56AM -0700, Dakidd wrote:
>> As of about an hour ago ago, I've got an error and warning free
>> compile, and functionality of both btcheck.c and btlist.c on a
>> PowerMac 7500 hopped up to a G4@350 running MacOS 9.1.
>
>Congratualtions.

I'm lovin' every minute of it :)

It wasn't all that long ago I was getting ready to throw up my hands in
despair at ever getting it running, but after a couple "scrap practically
everything and start over" operations, I've finally made useful progress.
Hanging back there with 0.03 for a long as I did was a good thing - It got
me familiar with the "guts" so that I was comfortable with the idea of
wholesale slash-and-burn alteration where needed, but still able to
preserve (I think) the Windows/Unix compilability/functionality. (I'm
making *NO* claims for any new Windows/Unix code - I'm a Mac geek, so it's
entirely possible I inadvertently screwed something up "on the other side
of the fence" with my Mac-centric hacking.)
>
>
>> Next step:
>> Hacking the bejeezus out of the stuff that tries to talk to the
>> 'net. CURL - FLUSH! Gonna use Apple URLAccess instead.
>
>Why? Doesn't curl do OpenTransport? If not, are they interested in
>having support for it? That's where it belongs anyway.

If it DOES do OT, I haven't heard about it. But to be honest, I haven't
been listening for such news.

In an earlier iteration of "Figure out what works and what needs to be
built as a substitute for Macs", I had operational UrlAccess code for
talking to the tracker. I'll probably dig that out of the code compost
heap, brush the coffee grounds and banana peels off it, and put it back to
work now that I'm playing in the 1.03 codebase. Operation was great, but I
broke something else, and ended up abandoning that branch of the code.

>
>
>> I *THINK* I've managed to conditionalize my changes in such a way
>> that Windows/*nix folks can compile my changed code by simply
>
>
>
>
>> I don't grok Python (and to be blunt, I don't WANT to grok Python -
>> it makes my brain itch)
>
>I think Python is a really nice language and if you ever feel like
>learning a new scripting language I recommend it wholeheartedly.

I've always been uncomfortable - "lost", might be the best way to put it -
in object-oriented languages. For me, a purely procedural language like
plain old C is a better fit for the way my mind works. Sometimes, certain
OOP concepts come through, and make good sense, so they get used (Like the
way that Kevin deals with the "bts" data type, r the various "Python" types
- It only makes sense to work them that way)  Get to going too
object-oriented on me, though, and I start getting confused, and it's not
too long before I throw up my hands in defeat and say "You're the expert,
you do it".

>
>( My very first Python program was something similar to a monochrome
>icon editor and it took me 20 minutes to make from start to finish,
>GUI and all. :) I also taught Python in a high school programming
>class last year and used some material from the OBP:
>http://ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCS/python.php )
>
>That said, I agree with you that Python isn't the best language to
>use for IO- and CPU-intensive software. I'm on this list for that
>particular reason.

I've gotta agree completely with that... Python may be godlike in certain
ways, but for compute and IO intensive software like what we've got with
BT, it's way in the dust behind something like C or even pascal.

>
>
>> To make things worse, the interpreter has its own bugs and
>> glitches, so that about half the time, I wonder whether the most
>> recent problem I've encountered has been with BitTorrent or a
>> problem with Python.
>
>Is that MacPython-OS9?

Yeah...

>http://homepages.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython/macpython-older.html
>
>I'm sure the maintainer would love to hear about any problems you
>encounter, especially since most Mac users probably switched over to
>OS X and of the few that are still at OS 9, not very many are able or
>willing to help fix open source software.

My understanding is that work on the 9 version is officially dead, so I
haven't bothered. I have it installed for *EXACTLY* one purpose: Running
the BitTorrent "Official" code. Sentiment amongst the Python folk I've
talked to is basically "You should be running MacOS X - That's where all
the Python support work is nowdays. Get with the times." To which my reply
is a standard "If you're buying me the hardware to run X on, I'll start
running X. Until then, shuddup yer face about getting with the times."

If it weren't for wanting to run BitTorrent, I wouldn't have Python on my
system at all. (And if/when I get a "real" client coded, believe that I'll
reclaim the disk space wasted on Python and the official BT implementation
quicker than you can say "Are you sure you want to empty the trash?")
>
>
>> (I think we're officially up to Tiger now - Or does that release
>> next week? It's either just released, or releasing very soon)
>
>Released about two weeks ago.

See how enthused about X I am? :)

I've got a full retail install set of 10.3 (not sure which exact version,
but it's labeled as being version 10.3, which makes it "Panther.something")
sitting here on the desk, and the downloaded .dmg file that contains the
"10.3 combination updater". Trouble is, my 7500 won't install it (even with
the help of X-Post Facto - CD-ROM drive hiccups - Sometimes, it isn't a
bootable device, and the install is hosed before I even get a chance to
tell it to happen, other times, it's a bootable device, but then it hangs
early in the install with a repeating "waiting for device" error that's
been diagnosed as meaning "Your CD-ROM drive is too old for Panther's
liking."

>> MacOS X is based on *nix - a sub-flavor of NetBSD, if I recall
>> rightly -
>
>The Unix behind the Finder is called Darwin and can be downloaded
>from Apple after registering online, but I don't recall which BSD it
>is derived from.

I keep getting the impression that Darwin is a NetBSD derivative.

Don Bruder -  da...@so...      <--- Preferred Email - unmunged
I will choose a path that's clear: I will choose Free Will! - N. Peart