Guillaume “Zifro” Desrat’s former blog

$LOAD_PATH problem (and solution) with Ruby under OpenBSD

Filed under: *BSD, Ruby — Zifro September 7, 2006 @ 1:57 pm

I first wanted to include the previous post in this one, explaining how I went to reinstall Ruby and have all those troubles, but I splitted it in two parts, as it was two different (but linked) stories.

After reinstalling everything I need on my box, I grabbed the latest release of Ruby (1.8.5), su to the root account, and typed the magical ./configure ; make ; make install
Then I downloaded the gems (0.9.0), ruby setup.rb it and rand the gem command.

ruby: No such file to load -- rubygems (LoadError)

I browsed and found that my Ruby installation was probably broken at some point, because I had to be in the gem directory to run the command successfully.
Asking irb (and checking Ruby on anamorph’s box) confirmed what I feared : site_ruby/ wasn’t in the default $LOAD_PATH.
So I set it manually in order to install Rails and its dependencies, but still looked for a way to fix it.

Yesterday evening, after hours of searching, trying, looking at the configure, and Ruby and gems documentation, I asked on #ruby-lang on FreeNode.
drbrain helped me explaining it should be the shell that the ./configure run in to be the problem. As export CONFIGURE_SHELL didn’t helped, I ran ksh (which was previously the root shell) to configure and compile the latest snapshot.

Yeah ! Finally it works ! Thanks a lot drbrain :) This post coul have been titled “Last night a chatter saved my life” ;-) The $LOAD_PATH was fine, I reinstalled the gems, then Rails.
Perfect.
Tricky heh ?

So, to conclude, I gonna change the root shell from bash to ksh. I don’t know yet what’s wrong with bash and configure, but I learnt that even the shell can turn a simple installation into a nightmare.

% tar xzvvf src.tar.gz -C /

Filed under: *BSD — Zifro @ 1:31 pm

Not only I had a weird week-end, but I also crashed my OpenBSD box.

I had about ten computers at home for a while, but living in a 310 squared feets flat, I had to get rid of some (even if most of them were Pentiums II, and I *love* Pentiums II).
Now I have one box, with a cute three screens display, running OpenBSD, which I work on daily, a silent PII box waiting for an OS to be my dedicated test server, an old Power MacIntosh 4400/160, waiting for better days to recover from its NetBSD experience, and I brought home three PIIIs my company was about to throw away.
So, it’s like if I had only one computer.

On Sunday, 2am, I wanted to extract the source to patch my operating system ; I mistook and ran the following command :

% tar xzvvf src.tar.gz -C /

which extracted the sources from the root directory, replacing /bin/ls (for example) by its source directory /bin/ls/. The computer was still running, but I knew it wouldn’t boot. I went to bed, wondering how to quickly make my system usable.

I installed the latest release the day after, experienced a funny problem with xorg (my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file was replaced by a snippet of a game C sources), to finally go back to the version I ran.

I spent the whole Sunday compiling Java (to run Eclipse) and KDE SDK (to get Umbrello).

It wasn’t a good week-end at all :-\

Drink. Smoke. Talk. Ahaha :-) WTF ?

Filed under: work — Zifro September 6, 2006 @ 9:07 am

Okay, I want to warn you, the following events are as real as stupid. Keyword : “stupid” (maybe not in fact…).
So, after we lunched and worked all the afternoon (no, wait, not all the afternoon, I spent half an hour talking to a colleague I haven’t seen for weeks, as she was in holidays), we planned to go to my project manager’s. We were alone, drinking (he had three Hogaarden, I preferred Ballantine’s).

And we discussed the current projects and the conversation went to the point I wanted to : what the boss thinks about me.

Ready ?

You do not invest yourself in your tasks.
Fairly true, it’s far most interesting to spend all day long answering Ruby questions on the French mailing lists, reading Rails related blogs or even jokes on the Internet.

You keep on repeating WinDEV is pure shit.
Yep, true, sadly true. I would have keep on telling people to open their eyes if he didn’t tell me to stop. Okay, I’ll stop. I swear ! :) But, sorry man… WinDEV is the worst thing.

You keep on saying our software suck. I know it, everybody know it.
Really ? Ok, I won’t say anything about the lack of documentation and code comments and analysis and… and… and…

You’re too self-confident and a bit arrogant.
True, absolutely true. Having worked on Access/VBA bad designed code, I thought I was able to face anything. I was wrong ; oh dear, so wrong. Maybe having coded some stuff in Perl and Ruby (like an applicative micro-kernel) turned me into a too self-confident developer. But on this point I must admit I’m arrogant. Remember the three virtues of a programmer, according to Larry WALL (nobody knows him at work, of course) ? Laziness, Impatience and Hubries. Nothing to add, your honor.
To be honest, I imagined it would be easier than it is actually. I thought there were documentation, well-established todo lists and all that. Sorry to have learned to work the right way.

Your experience here will be valued here anyway. You’ll show your next employers you can adapt to various environments

Oh, sorry, you mean I’ll show I can work bad, write crappy code, unmaintainable software and stuff ?
And, by the way, the question is not “will this experience be valued” but “won’t another experience be better valued”. Sorry to care about my resume. And personal interest. I’m a bad guy, yeah, I admit.

So, I told him I wouldn’t have stayed at this position if I hadn’t known the team before, if I had been hired at this position at first, and, then, I told him about the Monday affair (see two posts below).
Yes, I did. Of course, I made him swear not to repeat it. So I know it will change his way to deal with me, to speak of me with the boss. He’s my friend but… you know… plans within plans :-)

I feel better. Damn, I’m not in the right place. Let’s make my way through it for the time I find something much better. Let’s fake I’m happy to come everyday. There may be an opportunity to go back to my previous position for the time I look for another job, but nothing clear for the moment. On the pros, it would be overall better paid (lesser, but lesser charges too) ; on the cons, I would be on the roads to visit clients half the month. But, “nothing clear for the moment”.

Ok, for laughing sake only, some words my big boss (who was first a developer in the company) had :
Acutal developers need no comments.
Yes, it’s crappy, but you know, we never had time to make it usable.
Make it work first ; make it beautiful [maintainable] after, if you have time.
It *MUST* work on Friday. [when helping me on a project]
Good morning ! [10 am]
See ya tomorrow [15 pm, not the same day].
It’s worrying hu
I leave, you call me if you need [early, too early to be reported here)
What ? You need the second company car to visit a client ? No, sorry, I need it now I have a baby.
Thank you [once].
And much more I can’t write it, especially one related to a fine the police sent us I had to pay, meanwhile some of the upper management dodged the same one. :)

Life’s cool, life’s sweet, don’t waste it working where you don’t feel comfortable ! Well, smoking was stupid, even if I enjoy a cigarette with a drink.

Stupid Jedi^W life mind trick

Filed under: f*cking life — Zifro September 5, 2006 @ 2:03 pm

I’m like that. When I have much things in mind, like my studies, my job, my future, my other activities (for which people rely on me), and… someone I care for, I make strange dreams, and if I’m more stressed, they turn into nightmares ; I had one recently.

The one was fucked up my mind, to the point I spent 54 hours without eating, not being able to, hardly working, a lot wondering why all those things mean. I was given a book to interprete dreams, maybe I’ll look into it what it means.
I suppose I already know what’s wrong : stress, and too much thinking about this girl.

Like everybody, I wonder what my future will be, I’d like to love, to be loved, to have a nice job, a nice home, good friends and so on.
Not like everybody, this girl I only know via Internet chats seems to be wonderful, worth knowning. Too bad I’m not on the same side of the Ocean.

My friend, and, for a while now, my project manager, has invited me to lunch at the kebab place to talk a bit.I told him everything, except for the job offer I refused, just saying I had “a big decision to take on Monday”.

We discussed the eventuality of arranging my shifts to keep on studying (the only courses left are weekwhile, most start at 6:30 pm, but some are half an hour or an hour earlier) ; as I figured, work is more important for him than my personal development and my studies.

I also asked him if the experience I gain working here will be an asset for me.
In his opinion, yes, it will be valued as a developer experience, even if our company deals with very specific clients and a technology (WinDEV ! Do I really have to repeat it ?!) I dislike hate.
In my opinion, it won’t be valued as a Ruby or Rails developer experience… if I had (and that’s what I’m looking for). What do you think about it ? Do you have any feedbacks having an experience or an internship undervalued because you weren’t using the same technology ?

Anyway, I think now he knows I’m considering leaving the company for another job. I didn’t say it, he probably understood. Great.

Now, as I have to clean my mind out of all those things, I left the IRC channels I used to come in, Google Talk as well.
I’m going to concentrate on Ruby and Rails code ; thinking about something else by coding is better (and healthier !) than start drinking heh ? ;-)

Will it appear to be a *big* mistake ?

Filed under: work — Zifro @ 9:33 am

Well, here it goes. A new week.

Starting on Tuesday because it took a day off yesterday. And it was worth it (I’ll post something about that later today).

I was phoned Friday morning by NTsys, a company where Fraifrai, someone I get in touch regularly on IRC (and, btw, an Open Source defenser, he worked for the ADDULACT), works.
He told me back in early July that his company was looking for new teammates, so I applied.
First, my profile was said to be interesting, but it didn’t go far, mainly because they wanted someone with a bigger JAVA experience.

And, now, as one of their customer needs a three months work with WebDEV to be done, they offered me to start with this mission, to join their team (mainly because I have PC SOFT’s W*DEV skills.
Unfortunately, WebDEV seems to suck as much as WinDEV (refer to previous posts, there are many about how much WinDEV is pure shit).
I was very interested Friday, but thinking of it all week-end long (I was to give them a yes or a no on Monday), I decided to drop this opportunity.

Why ? To be sue to get exactly the job I want, the job I’ll like to have, the one that will make me happy. A Perl, Ruby or Ruby on Rails developper position.

Of course, it was better paid than my current job ; salary is not all for me.
Should I have accepted it anyway, to escape from here ? Even if it would lead me to work for three months on someone I don’t want to handle again ?
Wait & see…

0xfeed

Filed under: misc — Zifro September 1, 2006 @ 1:31 pm

Someone has asked me what my blog feeds were. Here they are :
Atom : http://hazzard.free.fr/zifro/?feed=atom

RSS : http://hazzard.free.fr/zifro/?feed=rss

RSS 2 : http://hazzard.free.fr/zifro/?feed=rss2

RDF : http://hazzard.free.fr/zifro/?feed=rdf

Report problems here.

Are you trying to communicate ?

Filed under: work, geek — Zifro @ 1:28 pm

One of the bosses of the main company I work for came in the office this morning to greet us ; he noticed my Slackware tee-shirt.

him : oh, you’ve got a pingoo !
me : no, it’s a Tux…
him : a Tux ?
me : a Tux !
him : ???
me : Tux is the name of the pingouin that symbolizes the Linux operating system
it’s a free, both as in free of charge and freedom, operating system
When it smokes Bob’s pipe, it’s the Slackware Tux. They all have a different way to
draw it
him : I know what Linux is, do you use Linux at home ?
me : I used to, but I’ve switched to OpenBSD… it’s for people with a bigger beard !

(he publicly made fun of me the first time I had let my hair and beard grow)

Next time I’ll bring chunky bacon or a gorilla at the office…

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