1
A month ago the project started. Now it's a part of my life.
Trial upload to SourceForge.net file release server was OK.
Formally the project is in beta stage, because the documentation isn't checked yet.
2
The weak ring in the auto-tools chain is autoreconf.
The version 2.13 doesn't call autoheader.
I finally found the magic sequence working for me:
autoscan
Edit manually configure.scan and save it as configure.in
aclocal
autoheader
Write manually Makefile.am
automake --add-missing
autoconf
./configure
make dist
The directory must not contain subdirectories, or else auto-tools abort by various reasons. Dirty tricks used by our main competitor to compile 'hello world' require newest auto-tools.
3
Holiday.
4
How to release GNU edition? Prototypes don't work.
I need an alternative plan of GNU-compliant solution.
According to coding standards, it is enough to have Makefile for (every) target platform.
5
Reading "Linux/Unix Shell Programming" by David Tansley, edition AWL.
There is a lot of mistakes in script examples.
Do they reading what they are printing?
6
Generating makefiles for target platforms using the utility qmake.
It's a helper program for the cross-platform GUI library named Qt from Trolltech.
qmake can produce makefiles for 50 combinations "platform-compiler".
Cool!
7
Updating source packages. Packed files have time-stamps of October, 10. They're from the future :) .
8
Compiling binaries for platforms available on the compile farm.
On Red Hat 7.3 getmyip occupies 13.6 K, and only 5.1 K on Debian 2.2.
Both versions work on my Mandrake 8.0.
However, my favorites are StrongArm-Linux (4.7 K) and x86-FreeBSD4.7rc (4.6 K).
Microsoft, as always, **cks (2.5 K).
9
Changing the structure of AleAnt site.
Now essential getmyip information resides on the separate page.
Home page is using for background information and news.
10
Release of getmyip 1.0 !
"Ship mode" is a good test for connection between development, logistics, web site, and administration.
In my case I do all those jobs, so all conflicts of interests are resolved successfully.
11
Obtaining Mandrake 9.0 distributive.
12
Installing Mandrake 9.0.
The driver for Netscroll+ mouse still freezes the computer (in 2002!).
Administrator's work made as inconvenient as possible.
All quick access buttons and desktop icons are removed from root desktop.
Even the "clock" applet disappears after rebooting.
13
Attempt to use SSH in the communication with SourceForge servers. Success!
14
Using auto-tools to build getmyip GNU Edition.
The distributive package generated from flat source directory.
I used duplicate parameters in macros
AC_INIT(getmyip, 1.1, bug@aleant.com)
and
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(getmyip, 1.1)
in order to suppress warnings about Gnits style incompatibility.
"Automake by default doesn't check Gnits style", eh?
15
It seems like there is no gcc manual in the Mandrake 9.0 distributive.
A year ago there was gcc 2.95 manual in the single html file on gnu.org.
Today the manual is still here, but it is splitted to small pieces a la Microsoft MSDN.
I downloaded the chapter about command line options.
Now the spell-checker in Quanta+ does work,
so I use Mandrake environment for both program development and web page preparation.
16
Nothing.
17
Reading W3C CSS Level 1 Recommendation.
I need update AleAnt home page when new deliverables will ready.
18
Reading HTML 4.01 Recommendation.
19
Updating pages on AleAnt site.
All pages absolutely conform to CSS1 and HTML 4.0 recommendations.
Also they are 99.9% HTML 4.01 - compliant.
20
Updating texinfo documentation for getmyip GNU Edition.
21
Review the list of books to be read for getmyip projects family.
22
Writing the draft of the article about the use of AleAnt software on DHCP Linux clients.
23
Updating the article written yesterday. Writing the roadmap page.
24
Almost every time I reboot Mandrake, the basic font size changes.
Respectively all menus, list items, and text editors look differently.
You may call it a feature, I call it a bug.
Today the command-line stuff added to GNU Edition.
I borrowed the part of open source code from GNU Hello.
Of course, I edited everything I copied.
In original code, there was a wild mess of puts, fputs, printf and fprintf.
The order of help descriptions doesn't correspond to many GNU utilities (for example, emacs).
Also, just for fun, compare the format of the hello copyright notice and GNU standards.
My favorite is the file version.c (in heavy use from 1995). That's its contents:
/* version.c
Copyright (C) 1995 Free Software Foundation, Inc. */
#include "config.h"
char version[] = VERSION;
/* eof version.c */
int main (...)exit (0); ?
25
Final version of the DHCP clients article became the case study.
26
Writing getmyip online manuals.
Converters like makeinfo and texi2html are good tools for creating initial HTML version from texinfo original.
Unfortunately, those converters don't produce standard-compliant HTML output,
and boring manual correction is unavoidable.
27
I do "configure-make-run" cycle on target platforms.
Success on all platforms except FreeBSD (unable to log in),
and Solaris (gethostbyname and inet_ntoa not found by configure).
Both exceptions are strange.
I successfully compiled Portable Edition on all platforms three weeks ago...
28
An attempt to compile GNU Edition by Windows compilers (Microsoft and Borland) failed.
I have no time to make getopts "right", so I merely trimmed all WIN32 stuff from the package.
Nobody uses GNU framework in the "native" Windows environment.
In order to force Solaris compilation, I wiped out several conditional directives
and added a parameter to ./configure.
29
Updating support documents and web pages. Sending report about FreeBSD server login failure to SourceForge.
30
RELEASE! getmyip GNU Edition 1.1 is on the Web!
31
Small web site corrections.
Particularly, I added FreeBSD getmyip binary to the product page.
Thanks to SourceForge guys (especially coax) for quick fix of the FreeBSD server login problem - they do it in several hours.