Just a few more random thoughts about life, software, and KDE.

* So I finally submitted my application for UPOU two weeks ago and got their “received your application” e-mail the other day. Now comes the agonizing wait for news whether I get accepted or not. They said they’ll probably have the partial list in the website by the end of March or in April, but I still have to wait for an official parcel before I can enroll.

* My writeup about Dispel, the spell remover part of Sorcery, Source Mage’s powerful BASH-based package manager, is up. With fancy charts!

* Last year I had this plan to write about some of my favorite KDE 3 apps, focusing on how to use them and/or special features that make them wonderful. Procrastinator that I am, I let the idea sleep for a while. And now KDE 4 is here with a brand new set of amazing apps. Aaron has started his own series about falling in love all over again with these apps. So I’m kinda indecisive (no surprise there) whether such writeups about KDE 3 apps are still worthwhile.

* I’m currently in the middle of *trying* (and probably failing miserably) implementing a feature request for Konversation, under the watchful guidance of Eike. It’s my first real attempt at creating (not just copying) a feature in a real-world application. This is me, straight from the pampered world of C++ in books (more on that some other time). The process of trying to figure out how things work, (which, in my work process, is an essential part of figuring out where and how to insert a new feature) is exhilarating, adrenaline-pumping, and frustrating all at once. It’s fun *and* annoying. And I like it! Yeah, I’m crazy that way.

* I was able to buy a book on user interface design, “About Face” (first edition) by Alan Cooper. I think it was a pioneer book in the field of UI Design, dating back 1995. I didn’t expect much from the book at first being old and from “the father of Visual Basic”, but it actually turns out to be very nice and not so Windows-glorifying as I thought it would be. I also learned later that he’s one of the big names in the field of usability. I guess what really made me happy about the book (so far) is that it’s probably the first book I’ve seen where someone is advocating User Interface Design as a discipline/field, a subset of Software Design and distinct from Usability. I’m not sure if that ever came about or whether it is really distinct from Usability as a field. And I think Alan Cooper moved from emphasis on “User Interface Design” to “Interaction Design” in the most recent edition of About Face. As a side note, it’s quite amusing to see how some of his suggestions have been or are being implemented in KDE (or almost everywhere) today.

A very busy week has passed. Didn’t give much time to sit down and look back. Luckily tomorrow’s a non-working holiday (as if I have a job), so that gives me some extra time to share some random personal junk I’ve accumulated.

School!

Finally, I’m going to school again! If all goes well, that is. I actually already finished my college course 4 years ago (Bachelor of Arts Classical major in Philosophy), so this is like a second degree, but not equivalent to a baccalaureate (since it actually requires that). I’m taking up Diploma in Computer Science, something I’ve wanted to take up years ago. Now I will, and fortunately for me, I would be able to take it mostly at home. It’s a distance education/home learning program, so I can stay at home, and only go to the campus for exams. I still have to apply, though. Then comes the excruciating waiting for news whether I’m accepted or not. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Essays…

As part of the requirements for the application to school, I’m supposed to write a 500-word essay. The topic is “what is your purpose in applying to the program and what are your plans after finishing the program?” These types of questions always smell like beauty pageant questions, and I almost can’t resist ending my answer with “and world peace.” Somehow I was hoping that the topic would be a bit more thought-provoking. But at the same time, I literally took me a week finish writing the essay, partly because of boredom, and party because of being unable to think up of ways to make my essay not look like a grade school’s answer. I somehow miss my philosophy days because of it.

Fun & FOSS

Two weeks ago I started reading (again, from the beginning, for the nth time), Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. When I came across his discussion on centers, particularly the “Pleasure center”, I was reminded of how often I (and probably many other people) used “fun” as the reason for starting, staying, and even leaving their areas of FOSS contribution. I can’t remember how many times I’ve heard “I do this because it’s fun/I like doing it” or “I’m leaving/stopping because it’s no longer fun”. I’ve even said it myself. A lot. Like for example, my “zeal” in helping out in Kubuntu is slowly starting to disappear, due to some circumstances. But mostly because I don’t seem to be enjoying it anymore. This is not an attempt to strike at those people who use “fun” as their raison d’être, specially since I’m guilty of the same thing. I’ve just been reflecting on whether we should rely on something as flimsy as “fun” as the driving force for contributing. Human as we are, and as volunteers who mostly don’t get paid to work on projects, we, of course, are inclined to do what we like more. But what if, as I’ve experienced a lot, the “fun” runs out? What do we do? Somehow I feel that I myself should have some deeper, more substantial motivation. Does world konquest count?

I went to my high school’s “Global Alumni Homecoming” yesterday, global since alumni from other parts of the world (read: US of A), came home just for the occasion, which was held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the school. I only got the info the day before, so I was very excited about it, which someone found weird, given that most people don’t like going to HS reunions. I was about to find out why soon enough.

Anyway, I didn’t really intend on staying that long. Just wanted to see a buddy of mine, get in touch with former classmates and old friends, the usual pleasantries, reminiscing most of the fun-filled days, etc. That part was enjoyable and went well as planned. One particular thing I didn’t anticipate (silly me) was answering the question “What are you doing now?”.

For almost four years now since I graduated, I’ve been jobless, both by reason of circumstances and by choice. By circumstances, because I was the only one in the family that didn’t have a chance at getting a good job ASAP, I agreed to stay at home to look after my grandmother. By choice, because my major, Philosophy, doesn’t really have that many “related” jobs other than teaching, which I don’t like because I suck at it (I tried). And no, working brainlessly in a call center, is not an option either. So when asked what I’m doing now, I couldn’t really give a straight answer, unlike some of my peers. Seeing their reactions of disappointment or shock only made things worse, considering how well I did in school and how it was expected that I’d be the successful one (yeah.. right…).

I really have only myself to blame. Thanks to procrastination, I’ve been delayed in achieving that title I’ve been planning to get more than a year ago: “software developer”. Fortunately, that’s about to change a lot. I’m going back to school! And this time, for a course that I actually love. So while the homecoming was a mixed bowl of emotions, I guess something good did come out of it. The experience was like a shocking jolt waking me up from some dreamy state to a bitter reality. Now, at least, I have another reason to get off my ass, although an unpleasant one. Good luck to me!

P.S. I don’t dislike Philosophy as a major. In fact, I enjoyed most of it, although I can barely recall most of my lessons after 4 years of stagnation. It’s just that I don’t really find it to be a fulfilling career personally. My true love seems to lie in the realm of 1’s and 0’s.

P.P.S. I wished I came up with a “professional-sounding” title/term that basically says “I’m doing voluntary work as a contributor to FOSS projects, such as doing user support”. That would have probably sounded more impressive. Of course, then I’d be going into a discussion of free and open source software. But then I’d like that, since it’s an opportunity to pimp my stuff.

Finally! After half year since I bought my C++ book), I’m ready to “graduate” from that section of my roadmap and proceed to the next. I actually finished reading the book a few weeks back, but due to the hustle and bustle of January festivities, I really didn’t have the chance to get some closure, so to speak. And I thought of doing a C++ project as the perfect closure. I wanted something not overly complicated, yet complex enough to showcase and test what I’ve learned, as well as pick up a few things about the software development process. In the end, I just decided to do a very simple addressbook program named Rolodeks. My code is in here along with my first manually-made Makefile and a tarball version of the whole thing. (Please be kind, it’s my first ever serious app project ) Along the way, I noticed/realized a few things:

1. I suck at OOAD. (Object-oriented Analysis and Design). While I know the technical aspects of creating a class, I didn’t really know how to design one. I kept on asking myself again and again, should this be private, public, or protected, should I provide a setter/getter for this, etc. I guess one of the things lacking in my book is the integration of problem analysis and design into some of the example problems. I had this old C book (Hands-on Turbo C by Larry Joel Goldstein and Larry Gritz) that did just that. Even just the basics of designing classes would probably do a lot for a beginner to C++. In fairness, my book does have a sort of discussion about OOAD, but presented as a sort of add-on, rather than an important part of the process.

2. Nothing beats experience. Even if a book contained all the information and theory on software development, it still wouldn’t compare to the actual experience of writing code. Unfortunately, for months I leaned more towards the “I need theory first” excuse for procrastination, thinking that theory will properly equip me with the necessary arsenal to tackle any problem. Fortunately for me, Sho has always been there to knock some sense into me (I owe so much in that area that I should probably dub him as my Vox Rationis). Thing is, you need theory too, but it’s only half the story. Theory is nothing without practice, as they say. You can’t possibly learn everything through just reading programming books. At some point, you’ll need to apply that by actually writing code. Then, along the way, you’ll realize stuff that you haven’t really learned well enough or not learned at all. Then it’s time to learn about those. It’s a cycle. It’s a process. Either way, it needs to get started first.

3. KDevelop is… I really don’t know what to say about it. Touted as one of the best C++ IDE’s on Linux, I was really eager to give it a try. I didn’t use it while I was still learning because I thought it would overkill at that time, when my exercise programs spanned 3 files at most (main.cpp, Class.h, Class.cpp for example). But when Rolodeks grew to around 3 classes, I thought it was time to try it out. KDevelop is overwhelming, was my first and instant reaction. Unfortunately, it didn’t get better for me. For one, it’s Project system forced me to create C++ projects that used Autotools or CMake. I couldn’t just create a project with all files grouped together or let me use my own Makefile. In fact, KDevelop doesn’t even let you compile a single file C++ program at all. I might have missed some things though, since I haven’t read the KDevelop docs, but suffice it to say, I was pretty disappointed. Luckily, Kate is wonderful for what it is, and advanced text editor. With a few plugins, I was able to convert it to a mini-IDE, complete with a Makefile plugin. Although it’s still missing debugger plugins. Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.

Up next: Qt! And hopefully more exciting and worthwile software project.

While I have been busy these past weeks, I was able to two things that really made me happy.

miau

I’ve always been sort of jealous of irssi + screen users, specially with their ability to stay connected to IRC and attach to/detach from that session anywhere. This is one of the only two reasons for me to prefer using irssi over Konversation (the other is having an IRC client even without a GUI). Not that I don’t like CLI apps, but I usually prefer to use GUI, particularly KDE, solutions whenever possible. Then I heard about Quassel, a Qt IRC application that uses a client/server setup, where in you can run the Quassel daemon in a central location, and connect to that from various clients. Since it’s a Qt app, it’s the next best thing to a KDE app. But since there were no public releases (even development versions) yet, I had to wait. Fortunately for me, Sho had an alternative: IRC bouncers/proxies. I’m currently using miau (pronounced as “meow”, which I initially chose because of its affinity to cats ) and so far I’m loving it. It allows me to stay connected on IRC even when no client is running (usually because Konvi or X crashed, or I logged out), allows me to connect multiple clients to a single daemon which shows me as a single entity, replays messages I missed when no clients are connected, etc. And best of all, I can use any IRC client that’s available, whether Konversation, irssi, or Opera’s IRC client (on Windows). All I need is to connect to my desktop, and voila!

Ordering books

I’ve always had a problem with the lack of quality computer/programming books here in the Philippines. Most of the books here are either “for Dummies” types, 21 Days/24 hours types, very Microsoft-specific, or just plain old (but are still sold as if they were brand new). Ordering through Amazon or directly from the publisher is sort of out of the question, as I don’t have my own credit card/bank account, and my mom totally doesn’t trust online transactions. After months of trying to figure out the easiest way to acquire books, I came across a Special Order Service from the biggest bookstore chain in the country. Of course the price is a bit higher than the original retail price (around US$ 15 higher), but that’s the price I’m willing to pay in exchange for convenience. Of course, it’s not 100% sure that the books I want will be available for the service and I have to check with them everytime I want to make an order. Luckily for me, two of the books that I want are available. These are “Inside the Machine: An Illustrated Introduction to Microprocessors and Computer Architecture” and danimo’s “The Book of Qt 4: The Art of Building Qt Applications”. The latter is not a priority yet since I already have the Trolltech Qt 4 book, although, looking at the detailed table of contents, it seems that danimo’s coverage is a bit more in-depth compared to what I’ve read in my Qt book so far.

At the same time, though, I’m a bit hesitant to immediately order a book, since I’m quite low on funds and I’m stilling planning to buy a Nokia N810 ASAP. Now if only I had good news about that…

And hopefully some Source Mage and Kubuntu time, too.

January was as busy as December was, which didn’t give me much time to settle down after the holidays and do anything substantial, at least by my standards. I didn’t even get the chance to really digest the KDE 4.0 release and subsequent events, such as the KDE 4 release party. I’ve used KDE 4.0 for a few days now, but I’ve returned to 3.5.8 since I’m not sure what use I have for KDE 4.0 right now, or what I can do to help. So in the meantime, I have returned to a relatively problem-free setup.

The last 2-3 weeks have been pretty gruelling, more psychologically/emotionally than physically (but you’d notice that your body sort of “catches up” to your state of mind) and I’ve been treated to a few real-life lessons in dealing with people. I also had my first encounter with MS Office 2007 as well as meeting MS Publisher once more. I’d say that working with Publisher was quite easy, specially for simple purposes. The new ribbon interface in MS Office 2007 was a bit daunting at first though. Luckily, Publisher didn’t have that new UI. The most interesting (and frustrating) experience I had was that a publishing/printing house could get by with just having MS Word and Excel installed on their computers. Not even Adobe Photoshop. Quite intriguing.

In the meantime, I’ve been able to finish my C++ How to Program (Deitel & Deitel) book, although I just sort of skimmed on the last few chapters, unlike my intensive focus on the first ten chapters. I was pretty much disappointed by the quality of the material near the end. There were very obvious errata and it felt as if the last 10 or so chapters were written a bit hurriedly or, in this case, probably not fully revised (since this is the 5th edition). For a book that aims to be a classroom textbook, that’s a bit unfortunate. Anyway, I think I’ve gotten enough C++ to be able comfortably start learning Qt. This puts me one step closer to KDE and world konquest.

Hopefully the coming days will be better.

It’s almost one week since KDE 4.0 was released, so again, I’m a bit late. But I didn’t really want to blog a “Hooray!” post immediately, until I’ve done somethings. The first one was that I managed to clean up some of the KDE 4 spells (a.k.a. recipes/ebuilds) in Source Mage, updating them with the latest dependencies or removing some leftovers from KDE 3.

The second is my third (lame?) attempt at some “seasonal” KDE artwork:

(Note: “Lumaya” means “Be Free”; “Atin ito” means “This is ours”)

Congratulations to the KDE community, developers, translators, volunteers, contributors! KDE 4.0 is finally out the door. The foundations have been laid, and now everyone can put their efforts in building the vision of KDE 4 on it (as well as partly cleaning up that other, well-built building, KDE 3.5). The road to KDE 4 was a bit rough, and the road ahead might still be, but it stretch far and wide. So good luck to everyone involved!

Maybe this year, I’ll earn my KDE wings and fly!

(KDE 4 Packages available in Kubuntu and Source Mage)

January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, more popularly known as “Three Kings Sunday”, marked the end of the Christmas season. As the hustle and bustle of the holidays finally settles down and as regular life settles back in, it’s kinda nice to sit back, relax, and take a look at how the past year went, the highlights and low points, lessons to be learned and things to be forgotten. Luckily, I have a blog to remember the important points. (Warning: longish post. Still I hope you find it interesting to some degree.)

January 7, 2008 was supposed to be my second Linux birthday, if I had remembered it… I did nothing special to celebrate it, not even something like a bug triaging session of last year. Although last week I did manage to switch my Source Mage system from stable to the test grimoire (a.k.a. testing branch). I’d probably consider that a major change. I also noticed that January last year was the first time I’ve ever mentioned Source Mage, which happens to be the main distro on my desktop for quite some time now (Kubuntu still exists in some places and some forms, as Hardy). More on that some other time.

Come February, I applied for Kubuntu Membership. This membership basically means “contributor” in many ways, developing, packaging, community, advocacy, etc. At that time, my main area of contribution was user support, mostly IRC and then some in the forums. I also became a channel operator in #kubuntu (and much much later on in #kde) @ irc.freenode.net. Lately though, I’ve been slacking even in that area, due to my decision to lessen my IRC activities at times (to preserve sanity and what little productivity I have left). But I’ve still been silently monitoring how the community grows quite beautifully. New names, new contributors, fresh blood. It’s been interesting and fun to watch community dynamics such as this.

I did try later on to try out Debian/Kubuntu packaging, even tried to start a sort of journal. Unfortunately, I never really got the hang of it. It’s not really that difficult, but it can be overwhelming during your first attempts. With practice, you’ll improve. But I lacked that consistency, so almost everytime I have an urge to fix something, which happens almost every 6 months, I have to relearn the basics. During the course of getting intensely involved with Kubuntu development, I learned some lessons to keep in mind. One of that is that, whether you’re just a programmer trying to fix or add a feature, you will have to learn how to package. I guess this applies to any distribution. I believe that DEB is an excellent binary package format and it has excellent package management and creation tools. But the price of its quality is a bit of complexity (IMHO), so it can be daunting at first glance. But it’s not impossible. All you need is a bit of patience and perseverance, two traits I seem to lack.

This year I was also treated to my first two “geeky” (a.k.a. software/technology-related) events. One was a two-day seminar on FOSS and e-Governance, and another was the worldwide celebration of Software Freedom Day 2007. They were not as geeky as I hoped they’d be, and probably rightly so, since neither were really developer or hackfest events, but more advocacy-oriented. Still, it was fun to finally meet some of the people behind the IRC nicks, and to get to know other people involved with FOSS in the country. I was also treated to a different face of FOSS from what I’ve been used to in my limited world of the Internet. FOSS in the Philippines, and generally in South/East/Southeast Asia, takes on a more “social” face than what is common in the U.S. or in Europe. Here, the concerns are more on human development, empowering local government units and small enterprises, education, social awareness, and all that.

I’ve also been lucky enough to have made a small presence on the blogosphere, being added to Planet Ubuntu (perks of being a member) and Planet KDE. It has, of course, given a boost to my previously non-existent readership, but has also given me a chance to express some concerns or issues, learn new things from other people, and hopefully get to help others as well. I was also able to write my first (and so far only) “marketing” article about KDE, which found its way to dig, probably generating the most traffic on my site. I wanted to follow it up with a poster as suggested by one comment, but never got around to actually doing it (besides the fact that I seem to lack some decent amount of artistic talent). Still, I was glad that I wrote it and that it reached a lot of people, even those not reading my blogs and the Planets, since there seem to be some people who have only discovered or re-discovered those wonders of KDE.

Life in 2007 was not always this rosy for me though. Unlike 2006, which was exciting and uplifting, 2007 was stormy and stressful. I guess everyone reaches a sort of “burnout phase” in their involvement with FOSS projects. I guess I reached mine a bit early, just less than 2 years into it. First burnout happened around August, when I decided to take a sort of retreat for a while. I came back, but it has been a recurring problem. These periods of “depression” (for lack of a better word) has also brought into light certain personality problems that I didn’t know I had, or I did know I had them but didn’t bother. I’ll have to face my dark side sooner or later, and the sooner, the better.

One side-effect of this low periods is that I seem to have developed a talent for ranting during the last months of the year. So much that I’ve turned it into an art, called “blonting”, blog ranting (credit goes to Sho for the term, of course). I had a lot to rant about, and boy did I rant. Ranging from Kubuntu-KDE relation, to Kubuntu identity crisis, to No LTS for Kubuntu, any issue that was worth scrutinizing, I was there. The positive side to these blonts were that it created some discussion and some awareness about certain issues. On the down side, I kinda slowly distanced myself from Kubuntu a bit, probably contributing to even less presence in my usual areas of support. I haven’t left Kubuntu, of course. But suffice it to say that the honeymoon phase is a bit over. I’ve also learned to widen my horizon, perspectives, and experience. As usual, balance is the key. Let’s hope I can do that.

2007 hasn’t been adventurous only for me. It has equally been exciting and at the same time tumultuous for KDE and Kubuntu. With the release of Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), Kubuntu has been scrutinized more for some of its differences with its older sibling, Ubuntu. With the release of KDE 4.0 delayed, and a few bumps on the road to getting there, KDE has also been put on the spotlight. But lo and behold, KDE 4.0 will be released in a few days, and the next version of Kubuntu will have two KDE offerings, as well as other new features that will (hopefully) keep it on par with Ubuntu.

2007 has indeed been exciting, adventurous, and eventful. Goals were set. Some were met, and some were not. Some things changed, some remained the same. New horizons were opened, other roads were closed. Do I have some regrets? Do I wish I could have done some things differently? Of course. But I’m also looking forward to a fresh and refreshing start for 2008. Many new things, new opportunities, and new endeavors lie ahead. So here’s to hoping for the best, and doing what it takes to make that come true.

I have sort of purposely avoided replying to my previous post about my thoughts on Kubuntu, partly to let it die a slow and silent death, and partly because I’ve been thinking of more concrete ways to help Kubuntu, as well as some needed changes.

Updates

I made a list of my ideas for Kubuntu Hardy, which I’m hoping to bring up in the next Kubuntu Team Meeting. To put it briefly, the items include:

• Stability - bug fixing and polishing our upgrade paths and tools
• Testing - we really need more testers to make sure we cover as much use cases as possible, and we also need a structure for those testers
• Community involvement - leveraging the strength of the community (more later)
• Kubuntu’s package selection - reviewing what works and what doesn’t, what users want. KubuntuExtras comes to mind, as well as reviewing what we need to do with D3lphin and Strigi
• WinFOSS - based on nixternal’s thoughts on the matter
• Some other ideas, like a post-installation, new user “kit”

Most of my thoughts the past days have been on the involvement of the community in Kubuntu development. There have already been many posts, discussions and wikis dedicated to how users can start contributing, but there’s one idea that I think hasn’t been emphasized enough. The community *needs* to be involved. We all have a stake and a responsibility in making this work. This is not like usual commercial product models, where users are just static, helpless, passive recipients of a product. Instead, in most FOSS project, and specially in Linux distributions, every user is a potential contributor. So the next time you say “This sucks”, ask yourself what you’ve done lately to make it suck less.

Another part of my “user empowerment” drive is to help establish structures that will make it more convenient for users to make the transition from “user” to “contributor”. I’ve observed that most users remain within the community or medium that they’re most comfortable with. Users in the forums give their input in the forums, IRC users leave them in IRC, and so on. These people have good ideas, use cases, bugs, etc. But most of the time, they don’t make use of the established resources/areas for these, like the bugtracker, Launchpad, wikis, etc. Most of them are uncomfortable using these facilities, specially when they’re new. But I’ve also observed that, given enough time, motivation, and reinforcement, they do make that transition on their own. My idea is to make them comfortable in contributing within their own environment first, and eventually helping them move over to the more proper facilities. But at the same time, this should also be convenient for developers to monitor or observe, otherwise a lot of these information will fall on deaf ears. This is why I’ve proposed a few changes and processes in KubuntuForums.Net. I’m hoping this will, in some way, improve the situation a bit. I’m not expecting earth-shattering improvement, though. The constant river will wear down the mightiest rock, eventually.

My point in all these is that Kubuntu (and any other other FOSS project, like KDE) needs to leverage the power of their communities. Developers and users need to be able to interact and communicate well in order to make things work well. It’s a community endeavor, and everyone needs to get involved, from the commercial/corporate heads, to the core/main developers, to the everyday users.

Changes

Honesty time. I haven’t been really using Kubuntu full time ever since Gutsy was released. Ever since my brief stint with Gentoo earlier this year, I’ve been keeping an eye on a distro that has raised my curiosity. Gutsy was a sort of tipping point for a change. So for more than a month now, I’ve been using Source Mage GNU/Linux, a source-based distro based on a metaphor of “casting”, spells, and sorcery, which has been the primary focus of my curiosity (I’m a fantasy RPG fan). It also uses BASH for it’s package management system, a second point of curiosity. I’ll blog more about the details soon. And, I’m enjoying it. It definitely takes a lot more work than Kubuntu, but there are perks as well.

Am I leaving Kubuntu for good? Hell no! Not unless they drive me out with pitchforks and torches. I’m currently running Kubuntu in Virtualbox, which is great for testing and reverting when krap happens. I’m also leaving Kubuntu on the laptop, when I’m through doing quick test runs of some major binary distros. That will most probably be my Kubuntu development machine. I still believe in the magic of Ubuntu + KDE, and I’m still hoping for the best. But…

Plans

My involvement in Kubuntu needs to step down a notch. My original plan is to get involved in KDE development (hopefully the first, if not the most active, hardcore KDE developer from my country… yeah quite ambitious), and it still is my goal. But along the way, I fell in love with Kubuntu so much that I sort of lost sight of that goal. I tried hard to get involved in Kubuntu (although I still haven’t gotten myself to learn packaging through and through) but I have to accept I can’t really be a jack of all trades and expect to be extremely good at them, specially if I haven’t even progresses substantially in one of them. So again I have to re-prioritize and realign my goals. And focus, focus, focus. I’ll still be involved in Kubuntu, but, as my thoughts above imply, I’m just going to focus on the community aspects of Kubuntu. (So if ever I don’t show up everyday or 16 hours a day in #kubuntu, I haven’t really dropped off entirely. I’m just probably hiding to be able to focus. IRC is sooo addictive…).

So I’m going to focus a lot on programming for the next days, months, and maybe years. I have a lot of C++ catching up to do in order to comfortably move forward to GUI programming with Qt. I still need to touch on overloading, polymorphism, inheritance, templates, containers, and iterators before I can be comfortable with a lot of the Qt stuff I’ve read so far. I’m still hoping to finish at least reading those by the end of the year, which is just 5 weeks away…

Other plans also include a lot of writing (stuff about Source Mage, about programming, KDE, etc.), updating my web site’s layout as well as content, saving up for a Nokia N810, and a lot of other software projects/ideas. It feels kind of refreshing now that I’ve sorted out things (again). All that’s left is to put those plans into action.

I think I’ve somewhat gotten over my “downtime”. I’m still not jumping up and down, trying to scratch every little itch I have. But at least I’m not so apathetic anymore. I’m moving. The bad news is that I’ve swung to the other end of the pendulum. Now I’m too driven by emotions, high and low. I was told by a good friend tonight that I’m too emotion-driven. (Only good friends tell you what’s wrong with you *and* help you with your problems). And he’s completely right. And being emotion-driven sucks, big time. Your work, your outlook, you whole life is so dependent on mood swings, on events, and on others. It’s not an eye opener for me, though. I’ve always known this fact about me. But I guess it takes someone to tell it to you point blank to really make an impact. A purpose-driven life… Maybe I should read that. Last week, I asked myself what drives me. Well it turns out, my emotions. What makes me passionate is the “high” of the moment. And that shouldn’t be. At least not for me. I need principles I can stick to, high or low. I need a purpose.

I’m not the only one that needs a purpose. I personally think Kubuntu is at a crossroads. I’ve said more than once before that this period is the perfect time for the Kubuntu community to think hard about a few non-technical details. The timing is perfect. The next release, Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, will be a Long Term Support release, supported for 3 years on desktops and 5 years on servers. It has to be extra polished. It is also the last Kubuntu release that has KDE 3 by default. The release after that, Kubuntu 8.10 (no name yet) will have KDE 4 by default (whatever KDE 4 version is available at that time, 4.0 or 4.1). This will be a first for Kubuntu, who’s a bit young compared to older KDE distros who have seen the journey from KDE 2 to KDE 3. It’s a perfect time. For what? Stay tuned. I’ll get around to blogging about it.

I’ve also been playing around with other distros lately after Gutsy was released. While waiting for my pressed Kubuntu CD’s to arrive (yeah I’m crazy), I’ve installed openSUSE 10.3 on my laptop. I haven’t gotten around to needing to use the laptop though. I’m planning to test out Mandriva 2008 and PC-BSD 1.4 too. We’ll see how that pans out.

Am I leaving Kubuntu for good? Not at all (until/if they kick me out of course). I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Kubuntu has a special place in my life. Whatever happens and wherever I go, I’ll always be there to lend a helping hand. I have to admit that being emotion-driven has made me a bit touchy lately, but the commitment to help is still there and has not wavered at all. If I’m not making any sense, wait for my next post and you might understand.