Thursday, February 28, 2008

Zero G

Wow. It has been quite a while since my last post. In my defense I can claim that I have been hugely busy, both at my day job and with Zero.

I fixed a few crashes (thanks to all of you who took the time to submit bug reports) and added a new layout for organizing the debugger window. The user could choose between a "classic" and a "tabbed" view, now there is a third option that allows local variables and stack traces to be viewed at the same time.

Another cool, new feature consists of displaying a description of the current errno value in a tool-tip (as shown in the screen shot).


When I do not work on software I spend time with my family. And when I manage to escape their love I read science news magazines (or at least that's what they label themselves) just to see how deep the conspiracy runs. What conspiracy? You are kidding, right?

In the last issue of Seed, Will Self and Spencer Wells agree that
"we'll probably fast forward by changing our own DNA"
The human race will leap forward using technology to pick up where evolution left... Wait. Isn't this what Ray Kurzweil was saying all along? That we will transcend our biology?

The ultimate goal of evolution be as it may for God's Debris to put itself back together, I believe that the purpose of spreading "news" like these is to get more people to watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Okay, maybe I am kidding. Or maybe someone sits up there in the control room as we very speak, and fabricates more news on, say Global Warming (be afraid, vewy vewy afraid), or on Emmanuelle finding the G spot! No seriously, what kind of news is this? (Even the New Scientist covered it at length). Sorry to break it to you guys, Emmanuelle found the G spot in the seventies, this is old news.

Oh, oops. Just in: Doctor Emmanuelle is a man.

Monday, February 04, 2008

The New ZeroBUGS Python Console


This is the latest feature that I have been working on: the Python Console, which allows users to interactively script the debugger.

The scripting part is not new, but I always felt that it was largely underutilized. It seems that no matter how cool, a feature that is not obvious to the user is simply wasted. Hopefully this new UI element will remedy the situation.