AngelaBrett

RobRix's friend, author of BrettRix (with RobRix's additions -- he says they're spartan, but I can't remember because it's been so long since I last found the time to do anything with it).

RobRix convinced me to visit this site often, and now I've decided to change the long rambling description into the brief one it was intended to be. The rambling version is available in the page history, if anyone prefers it they're free to put it back on this page. Here goes:

Me:

Graphical interface: http://macintosh.geek.nz Objective-C interface: http://NSCoder.com (It all works, but there are some bits which ought to be refactored)

My software:

Cocoa: http://cocoa.co.nz HyperCard: http://apronyms.com/software/index2.html

If you went to WWDC 2004, you might have seen me. I was the one with a key lime iBook and hair to match. If you're going to the Tiger Tech Talk in Sydney in 2005, I'll be the one with Tiger and hair to match. I only do crazy things with my hair when there's Macs involved. (It runs in families -- my sister once had a picture of Tux on the back of her head.)

I'll be at the Apple Expo in Paris 2005. Now I have a PowerBook, and my hair doesn't match it at all. I'll be the one with a WWDC 2004 backpack (I go to one incredibly cool event and I'll show it off for years.)

I have previously programmed in:

• BASIC
• HyperTalk
• FORTRAN
• AppleScript
• C for Windows (only because they paid me)
• VisualBasic? and VBScript? (also because they paid me)

• Objective-C/Cocoa
• PHPLang for the Apronyms website - I replaced several MB of static pages with a few KB of PHP without breaking a single link. It didn't take long. PHPLang is easy, and dynamic like HyperTalk because it's a scripting language. What I really like about Objective-C is that it still has a lot of that string-to-code type functionality which I like so much (NSSelectorFromString, NSKeyValueCoding? etc) even though it's compiled and thus runs faster.

• Ctrl -- it's usually described as being like an interpreted version of C with a few extras, but I consider it to be just another of the many languages with syntax similar to C's, but which otherwise has very little to do with C. It has dynamic strings, arrays and dictionaries, and something vaguely similar to KVC/KVO thrown in. But no objects, and no ability to have arrays of dictionaries or arrays of arrays of arrays. (Because there's a different type for every kind of array, even for arrays of arrays of things, and there are no array of arrays of arrays types. It's a bit weird.)
• SQL, PL/SQL
• JaVa, when I've run out of things to do with the other languages and the people who would give me more work are on holiday.

• French, because I moved to Geneva in April 2005, and that's what they speak here. I'm hoping that I can learn natural languages the same way I learn computer languages... read something to get an overview and then look things up as I need them.
• German -- I went to Germany to visit a friend in September 2004, so I learnt as much as I could before then. By the time I left I understood about every fifth word and the occasional full sentence, and I successfully managed to buy a CD about sausages without getting any sausages with it. I now spend five minutes or so per day translating my calendar of German grammar, which is meant for native German speakers so even the explanation of what's wrong with the grammar is in German. Apart from that I am actively trying not to learn German, because I really ought to be learning French. It's working... if I try to speak German I speak French.
• Everything in the 'at work...' list I had either not heard of or just not written more than about 100 lines of before April, so I guess I'm still leaning those.

• CPlusPlus
• IOLanguage

Other interests:

• Mathematics
• Elementary particle physics -- because particle physicists know it's the little things that [are] matter.
• Linguistics
• Creative Writing, including poetry, short stories, apronyms and version histories.
• HTML and web designy type stuff. I don't claim to have any sort of skill or good taste in that but it's fun to play with.
• Superheroes
• Almost anything else which is waved in front of my face for long enough, but not politics, bible codes [code bibles, maybe...], regular expressions, cosmetics, or team sport.

Previously, I said: My next mission, after recoding my website in PHP but before saving the world, is to become a hardware geek as well as a software geek. So far I've looked at the insides of a Yosemite G3 and watched while someone who is less of a wuss than I installed the AirPort card in my iBook. I'm going to take apart my PowerBook 145B when I get the right tools.

Well, now, I have sold my PowerBook 145B *sniff* because I could only take about 71kg with me to Geneva. But I have the right tools now! (A Swiss Army knife of course.) My next mission is to update my personal homepages, because they're horribly out-of-date and are not structured or presented the way I'd like them to be.

I have written some truly memorable software using my Lime iBook, before I sold it to a friend. Best damn color Apple ever made! I hope it serves you well. -- MikeTrent

As JoeOsborn might say, keyn ;) -- RobRix

Keyn? Keen, maybe? Twisting my words for a pun is one thing, but that there opens the door to a much less savory situation... I should really get some sleep, or something. Is the punning a result of reading 300+ pages of computer literature in one day? (If you're looking for a Squeak/Smalltalk primer, check out "Squeak: A Quick Trip to ObjectLand?" by Korienek, Wrensch, and Dechow.)--JoeOsborn

Was that 'opens the door to a much less savory situation' a play on words which I've only just noticed? Key opening a door and key limes not being savoury? This is further proof of the language section of my brain being on low power mode. -- AngelaBrett

Joe's bad for particularly tasteless plays ;) Perhaps he should be locked up. -- RobRix

I don't know about plays- I like Ionesco fine, but musicals I often find distasteful. I hope I'm not put under lock and keen though. They'd be keyping me hostage.--JoeOsborn

By the way, I suggest you learn assembler. Hours of fun. -- KritTer

I did some 2051 assembler at university. It was interesting, but I wouldn't want to bother with assembler unless it was for something simpler than a computer, the sort of thing where it doesn't matter that the extra effort is going to result in something less portable because there would be no point in any other gadget being able to do the same thing, and/or there is no compiler for it. Say if I were programming an automatic nose-hair trimmer, I wouldn't care that the nose-hair trimming program wouldn't also work in a device for balancing a pencil on its tip. -- AngelaBrett

what if managment decided pencil-balancing was an essential feature in the next generation of nose hair trimmers?

Then Angela, for all her pencil-balancing / nose-hair-trimming segregationist ideals, would face quite an unpleasant moral choice indeed!

I would hope that the pencil-balancing nose-trimmer would allow all the assembly instructions from each device, so that my nose-hair-trimming program would still work, then I'd get somebody else to program the pencil-balancing, since I've forgotten what a pencil is.

My sister programs too. Being female has its advantages... there were no queues for the ladies' toilets at WWDC 2004 (as I recall there was quite a queue for the men's at Infinite Loop), and somebody suggested giving all the spare Stump the Experts prizes to the ladies. I got a Stump cap and a low-quality speaker stuck with low-quality glue into a wallet which can hold an iPod in the other side. Girls on CocoaDev have conversations with wine? You mean the one that's not an emulator, or the one that claims to not be an emulator? -- AngelaBrett.

What I'm personally finding interesting is this guy apparently scans CocoaDevUsers looking for females ;) Don't say you've never been curious!

I wonder how many people went to computer science classes to meet girls, and were disappointed. It's difficult enough even to meet guys in computer science classes, since geeks don't have the best social skills.

The largest sexual organ is the brain! I have met some fascinating (and cute!) women at nerdy lectures (including comp-sci ones), but I have honestly never met a female programmer. Hi Angela!

Is that some kind of pickup attempt? The NeXTStep is obviously 'So... you wanna have cocoa with me some time?' Why were women who weren't programmers in comp-sci lectures? --AngelaBrett

There is more to comp-sci than programming. Besides, I never said they were not familiar with programming, just that they were not programmers (subtle but real difference). Hey Angela, has anyone ever told you that you have puns of steel?

I don't steal puns. Well, only sometimes. But I am faster than the speeding Pentium 3 850MHz with 128MB of RAM and (here comes the death blow) Windows XP on which I'm typing this, more powerful than a Cocoa-motif, and I can leap small bull-dungs in a single bound. Look, up in the sky... it's a nerd, it's insane, yes, it's just some girl in a pair of tights and a cape.