Learning Qt

I’ve always admired the KDE and Qt developers.  They make some of the most innovative and interesting technology in the consumer-desktop-mobile land.  I’ve decided to pick up learning Qt and C++.  So far I’ve read the beginning of C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 (1st ed).  I need to play around with C++, which I plan on doing it while using Qt Creator.  One of my first major Qt experiments might be getting the TEA text editor working on my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.  I know that Nokia just released the tech preview  of Qt 4 for S60 devices.  But I’ll give it a shot.  Hopefully the GUI will port over nicely.

Completing justCheckers

Yes, the project that I left for dead still lives.  I want to work on it, as portfolio material.  I first plan on building a website in PHP (or maybe JSP?) that renders beautiful CSS and XHTML.  And then I need to give the project much love.  But I owe it to myself to finish this application.  I won’t build any crazy game servers.  But I want to make something totally configurable and fun.  And in the process I want to create something that proves that I am a strong Java developer.

Writing A Collection of Shards

I am going back to writing.  Unfortunately I need to start almost from scratch, since many of my written sections simply will not work.  The ideas are there.  I just need to get them down on paper.

Driving License

This one is the ultimate in the tire kicking sense.  I plan on getting my driver’s license really soon.  Aside from parking, I feel comfortable driving.  Once I figure out all this parking stuff, then I’ll be ready.  I’m exciting since this will give me a lot more mobility and flexiblity.  I’ll be able to solve a lot of problems and have even more time to do things in the day.  And I’ll be able to sleep and live in normal time periods.

I should pick a better time to write this.  But I need a creative outlet.  Fighting with Perl and web applications, and reading reams of documentation can wear a person out.  I look forward to taking a change from Java.  But Perl is not a pretty language.  You can easily write code that you can’t maintain.  At least not easily.  The same could be said about Python, C or C++.  Still Perl can easily win a code obfuscation contest.  And my Perl skills need work.  Still I welcome to the shift from Java and JSP to mixture of Perl and my firm’s in-house RAD tools.  Even if it means wading through tons and tons of documentation.

Another shift is writing I guess.  I’m doing more of it, and enjoying it.  The effort of writing novel still drags on.  I blame my compulsive reading of RSS feeds, and magazines.  Still I like to stay in touch with the parts of the tech world that I enjoy and see future promise.  Also other tasks hang over my head, so it can be difficult to concentrate at times.  Writing and coding projects seem to move at a glacial pace nowadays.  Still they move forward.  I need to shift in Qt, C++ and Python coding again.

Lastly I have a trip to plan and random life tasks to do.  I’m excited about the results obviously.  But such tasks often involve decisions that take time and some can be life-altering.  I’d prefer that the tasks would do themselves.  But unfortunately my not doing them, is just procrastination.  That is what I’m doing right now, procrastination by writing.  I should get back to work now.

For an embedded device, the maemo platform is neither the easiest nor the hardest device to start hacking. Setting up the SDK on Ubuntu takes only a few minutes. In fact I also managed to setup Eclipse to do maemo development too. But I didn’t try to compile any source code so far.

Developing on Maemo, requires knowledge in both Linux and C programming. The N810 itself uses a heavily modified version of the 2.6.27 Linux kernel, Gnome and GTK. GTK seems to handle the GUI side of things in much that the same that Java Swing does. And I like the fact that GObject brings some semblence of OO programming to C. I’d prefer to learn Qt instead of GTK, but I guess I have to start somewhere. Judging by blog posts from KDE developers that got N810s at Akademy 2008, the state of Qt and KDE on Maemo is in its infancy.

In a recent conversation with Dan D’Alimonte, he suggested that I should think about reviving the justCheckers project as a web application. Considering the state of the codebase I work on a daily basis, the justCheckers codebase is very much maintainable. As a web application, the releases can happen faster and casual users can play with the program. And I’d like to play around with some more advanced Java web technologies. Now whether or not I actually revive the project is another matter. It is a definite maybe for now.

Technorati Tags: Justcheckers, java, maemo, internet tablets, gtk,

• Java development.
• PHP and JSP scripting.
• Database (MySQL and SQL Server) programming.
• Technical, computer manual writing.
• Graphics: mostly Java AWT and SDL.
• Website development (XHTML, CSS and Javascript).

I am looking something that I can either do at home or commute to in Brampton, Mississauga or Toronto. So if anyone is interested please send me an email at:

dorian dot pula at gmail dot com.

Thanks in advance for all offers.

As I mentioned in my last post, I resumed working on the justCheckers project. More accurately I resumed planning the future of the justCheckers project. With my disappearance for months at a time, most of the other developers seem to have lost interest. I sometimes wonder if I did not loose interest myself. However I challenged myself to build an open source game.

The challenge now revolves around putting momentum back into the project. justCheckers never had a community clammering for its release. And my designs did not pan out, with the development team being able to work on the project independently of me. For this reason I am working on fleshing out the details of running the project. This means reviewing the style guide, and core component design. My knowledge of Java now spans the entire project, so I should be able to come up with a simpler, cleaner and more efficient design. The most crucial point of the design is get the development team back on-board, and pumping out more releases.

The only real sound (other than the typing of keys) is the sound of mental lemmings, walking around. That my friend, is the sound of writer’s block. Coming up with a main theme for an article, placed me into such a state. In an effort to shorten, and ease up on my articles, I had to cannibalize parts from three different articles, and plop them all together. I feel like a literary Dr. Frankenstein. And my article in its current form, plays the part of a half-zombie, half-robotic chicken monstrosity. Oh wait. That would be the robotic chicken… oops, wrong show. Anyways, with the current state of the article makes the lemmings inside my head want to throw themselves off a mental cliff. I mean walk off. Cause thats what lemmings do.

Lemmings aside, I resuscitated another of my projects yesterday. Yes justCheckers will return in all its Java-ish gory err… glory soon. On the topic of justCheckers, Chris Bellini, an important contributer to the project, just turned 30 yesterday. Happy birthday and I am glad you shrugged off the coming age. Is that a grey hair? *ducks*

The marathon of finals continues! Only 9 assignments, 3 exercises, 4 classes and 7 days to go. And the previous experiment seems to be paying off. Better run off now, and take care of my mental lemmings.

The new reality of me being in school, and the prospect of working during the same time is slowly starting to sink in. Still its this sitting in front of a computer doing either homework or chores… trying to catch up. I mean I am catching up. Already I have made progress in my Visual Computing assignment. Got multiple image support working for our mini-Paint program. So I am very pleased with the outcome. No luck with coming up with a project for the Requirements Engineering course. But Mr. D’Ettore, one of my best friend’s father is willing to look into. Of course in my bumbling way, I came across in the most awkward manner… but I hope he understood. I will write an email to him shortly about the subject, and maybe we will get a reply soon. We badly need this. Very badly. The sad thing is my group members are even more clueless than me at this stuff. I still consider myself a messy person but apparently some of my new found habits are turning me into a neat freak, and ultra-organized. I can not stop laughing at that thought.

Tomorrow’s logic test is hanging above my head today. Sigh… I need to sit down and come up with a schedule for the next weeks so that I can be prepared. Too many things happening at once.

From a lighter side, I have joined the GLUE (Gentoo Linux User Everywhere) folding@home group. I hope that my laptop and occasionally my brother’s machine can help with number crunching so that researchers can better understand the way proteins behave, their impact on diseases and pharmaceutical interactions. Maybe this mundane CPU work can one day save someone’s life. OK, this is not going on the lighter side.

OK. Now a definitely lighter side. I probably will be earning money this semester as a developer playing around with an intricate Java web and database system for courses. Also once I get caught up on my studies, I will work at releasing a new version of justCheckers. Up to version 0.1.1, I believe. Maybe I will get some writing done too.

I will be seeing you, fellow netizen. ]]> http://dorianpula.ca/2005/10/02/adjusting-to-the-new-universe/feed/ 0