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Thursday, July 03, 2003

Reg Ex

Stardate 56070.3 (7-3-2003)

I put together the new format for the web site last week. I like it, although I want to do a bit more before I am satisfied. There is also some content messing. I am struggling with some regular expression parsing on the log files. This is not one of my fortes. To most people this would look like the stuff used in comics when characters use profanity. What I am working on looks like this:
/^([^\s]+)\s          # site
([\w-]+\s[\w-]+)\s     # users
\[([^\]]+)\]\s          # date
\"(\w+)\s               # protocol
(\/[^\s]*)\s          # file
([^"]+)\"\s          # HTTP version
(\d{3})\s               # return code
([\d-]+)
It doesn’t quite work yet, but I’ll get it.

A friend of mine forwarded an article to me about the Trusted Computing Initiative. As defined by a consortium of corporations, it means that future hardware may be designed to prevent unapproved software from running on a home computer. If you are curious and want to find out more, search for the terms “Trusted Computing” and “Darknet” on Google or another search engine. I was thinking this is a good topic for a soapbox entry. I suppose something like this will eventually happen, given how importance of the Internet is growing in business.

I mentioned in the last entry that this month’s regression testing was on the Fourth of July. It turns out I was looking at the old schedule, and it’s next week. This means the weekend is more open than I thought. The ship is participating in the Clearfield parade. I did walk in a St. Patrick’s Day parade when I was a teen. This will be the first parade with a float that I have been in. I hope to have some pictures on the OPS website after the event.

I finally got my performance review. I scored an excellent, with the only note that I need to share more of my knowledge with others. This comes up every year. And every year I throw out a bunch of documents on the processes that I follow, flowcharts for the operations of the applications, and ideas on changes. One of the things I can’t communicate is the problem solving I do. I know its frustrating for others when I walk up and say “There’s the problem”, but I don’t know how to describe the process. There is also the thing I call “The Cardboard Cutout Syndrome”. It happens when someone calls me over to look at a problem, and it disappears. I always say if they had a cutout of me to stand in front of the computer, it will always work. :)

I received an email from Chuck Allison. I worked with him for a short time a couple of years ago. He’s really bright, and a very nice guy. Anyway, it was a notice to everyone in his personal address book that he is changing his email address. I get these occasionally, so at first I did think much about it. I idly looked at how large the addressee list was, and then it clicked. Here were the names of the Who’s who of software development. Names companies pay thousands of dollars to send employees to hear them lecture. I could print this out, frame it, and put it above the shelf holding the books I have that were written by these people. I feel a little in awe, and the phrase “I’m not worthy!” pops in my head.

End of Entry

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