Verity is the pseudonym of a programmer based in the UK. She can be contacted at [email protected].
BizAarA! Number of developers: 8. Activity Percentile: 87.46323297%. Stable V3.2. BizAarA! is a peer-to-peer Internet file-sharing protocol for Windows. This avoids all the pitfalls and shortcomings of other peer-to-peer sharing systems: An ultra-efficient bandwidth-sipping transmission and location system makes the most of even modem-based Internet links, there's no centralised catalogue at some company's server vulnerable to legal assault, and, best of all, none of that tedious mucking about choosing disappointingly distorted music tracks from unbelievably remote servers apparently attached to the Internet via a few hundred feet of limp, wet string. This is because BizAarA! dispenses with the MP3 and similar formats for analogue signal compression and, instead, exchanges just the raw viruses. Once you have hooked into BizAarA!'s malware-rich datastream you, too, can exchange SQL-Server penetrating worms with everybody in your address book, have your machine converted into an ftp cache for illegal pr0n, or maybe take part in fully fledged DDOS attacks on big commercial web sites. New feature with Version 3: It now transmits and installs spyware, too, and also causes those unpleasant popup browser windows all over the place.
(What? What? What are you looking at me like that for? Well yes, as it happens, that item was sponsored by the Worldwide Phonographic, Gramaphonic, and Midisytemonic Society. I don't see that that is any of your business. Their money is as good as yours. In fact, it is better than yours because they have rather more of it, which is the only generally acknowledged metric. This is how it is with the money thing.)
Cleverness. Number of developers: 73. Activity Percentile: 99.87453216%. Stable V1.3. A large, C++ template library comprising exclusively algorithms and data structures that they did in Computer Science on those rare days that you pulled a sicky and spent the R&R time thus gained playing pinny in the Union, necking through a matinee at the local flicks palace, or just watching daytime TV. A brief glance at the associated support message board shows that it is quite unlike any other. Instead of the usual whines, flames, and near-English appeals for assistance ("pleas to send to me code for making this work pleas not to post hear for i never reading this place"), there are brief, tempered discussions concerning, for example, whether they should muddle on with the O(N) implementation of the class when a recent paper out of Imperial College had proved that a O(log N) version must theoretically be possible. The project also eschews simple-minded make-ish building tools in favour of something of its own design requiring config files written in Haskell. The documentation wiki is a model of simplicity containing just one page with just one lowercase sentence: "if you need more documentation than this, then cleverness hasn't found you".
MoldiDisk. Number of developers: 2. Activity Percentile: 62.7245018% Alpha V0.23 Platforms: Linux (KDE front end), Windows. Why waste money on commercial disk tools? MoldiDisk is just as versatile as any expensive package; it allows you to resize partitions, copy them between machines across the LAN, burn them into CDs, and generally fool around. MoldiDisk knows all about today's disk formats, such as ext3 and NTFS. It can even cope with that resource fork thing on Macs, although as the writers don't have access to any Macs or Mac data, they can't be sure. MoldiDisk is written in "God's Own C" and features "lots of optimised raw assembly routines, red and bleeding as nature intended," joke joint authors Jed and Dennis Wadsworth in their readme file. "We think we have nearly overcome the writeback corruption—we've got it down to less than one-in-ten passes. We are pretty sure it is a timing issue. Or maybe we need to lock out interrupts." Detailed statistics: Project homepage accesses: 9417; binary downloads: 6212; known program runs on actual punters' disks: 0; bugs reported: 0.
Nu-CP/M. Number of developers: 1. Activity Percentile: 20.01225421%. Beta V0.8. BDOS Error on Palm! Nu-CP/M is a project to port the CP/M operating system to the Palm-compatible range of machines. "This is the only alternative OS for the Palm platform that guarantees support for 8-inch diskette drives," explained lead developer Jog Dial. "Up until now, Palm users have had no real way of reading WordStar 2 documents. Even though most such files are articles by nontechnical journalists of that era entitled 'Why I won't be throwing away my typewriter just yet,' I feel that these are just as important and meaningful to mobile users as they are to stationary ones." The project seeks volunteers for someone to port Nu-CP/M to the Sony Clie and the Handspring Treo. Or to help beta testing and documentation. Or anything. Please.
VanessEdit. Number of developers: 1. Activity Percentile: 1.846627301% Alpha V0.23 Platforms: JVM. The primeval urge of smitten young male programmers to write new text editors named for a girl with whom they hope to make it has dissipated somewhat in recent times. These days, ForgeAhead sees no more than 20 to 30 new editor projects per week; this compares with 80 to 100 Bayesian spam filters written in PHP, for example. Nonetheless, we couldn't let the setting up of the 10,000th such project pass without honouring the genre. Ed Mortimer, the 22-year-old lead programmer on VanessEdit, explained his thinking: "I've always felt there's something missing with conventional editors. I've always felt it should be possible to get much nearer to the thought process of the user. If you are writing a Java program, each time you have to stop and backtrack to check an identifier or parameter, you lose your flow. A well-designed editor wouldn't make you do that. A well-designed editor would be able to provide this information when you need it without having to ask. Do you think Vanessa would come to Apollo's on Saturday? Would it be OK if I texted her? I mean, I've known her for two months now. We're pretty good friends, and I really respect her. Isn't it great the way she rests her weight on one hip like that? When I'm done with this editor, I'm going to make a new generic object-oriented language that will get around the obvious shortcomings of C++ and Java. I'm going to call it 'V.'"
DDJ
