calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Posted by Nick & Eric on 10 February 2001, 08:41 GMT
In a surprising twist of fate for all those involved, calc.org (formerly Dimension-TI) decided to actually update today, according to sources close to the calc.org administrators. "When we actually realized that one could 'update,' or overwrite older files with newer, more complete versions, we went to work at trying to 'update' the site as much as possible," reports calc.org founder and editor-in-chief, Adam Berlinsky-Schinesteinbergiel. "We proceeded to 'update' all of the pages on our site, and finally we're all done. More or less, anyway. We're still trying to figure out how to 'update' that programs section of ours." Prior to this calc.org "updating," no current members of the site had done any work whatsoever, instead using calc.org as a springboard for other more interesting jobs (*cough*, see Eric's profile). Comments a current calc.org staff member: "There's still a Dim-TI? I thought it died in the last round of dot-com layoffs." Former ticalc.org editor Nick Disabato was unavailable for comment at the time, as he was reportedly last seen holding a half-empty glass bottle in a paper bag in an obscure alley on Lower Wacker Drive. When questioned, he threw the bottle at reporters, saying to "get off [his] porch." As usual, our Security Chief did absolutely nothing to mark the occasion. "Crazy Americans," reports the hardcore Swede.
|
|
|
The comments below are written by ticalc.org visitors. Their views are not necessarily those of ticalc.org, and ticalc.org takes no responsibility for their content.
|
|
Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
|
Donovan Smith
(Web Page)
|
Well I'll be damned, they really did update it. They did a nice job. And there's actually new news there too! I thought for a while they might be going the way of TI-Files...
|
|
10 February 2001, 08:52 GMT
|
|
Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
|
DWedit
(Web Page)
|
Seeing this red news at 2:44 AM almost gave me a heart attack!
But finally, ticalc.org has made a formerly useless account feature active once again!!!
|
|
10 February 2001, 09:44 GMT
|
|
Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
|
Shiar
(Web Page)
|
Wow, they (Adam) said they were gonna change their site "shortly" (that was october 2000.) But who would've though they actually would... :)
|
|
10 February 2001, 12:57 GMT
|
|
Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
|
barich
(Web Page)
|
I wouldn't be making fun of calc.org. Ever since Nick left you guys haven't exactly been updating much either. I used to check ticalc.org every day for updates, but now once a week is more than enough.
Hypocrites, anyone?
|
|
10 February 2001, 15:41 GMT
|
|
Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
|
Binky
(Web Page)
|
Wow I haven't seen fake news in a loong time.
=Sherman C.
http://www.cahaltech.com
http://soundoffnow.cjb.net
|
|
10 February 2001, 15:46 GMT
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
|
AuroraBoriales
|
I find that the prime time for people to drop in and join the TI community is between the ages of 12 and 20, or, in their late middle and high school years. As older members leave and pursue carreers or goto college, etc, they will be continusly be replaced almost two-fold by newer members due to the higher tech state of classrooms. I had never imagined there was such a large community of people supporting TI-calcs when I first saw a TI-82 graphing calc in sixth grade. But now I know, and I tell new graph calc onwers of the large supporting community.
What is particularly worring is that most people merely "leech" off of the developers. There are very few people that are developers. As older developers fade away, newer developers get less and less, always thinking that someone else will do it. I myself am sorta based on this thinking, and I have only submitted 3 or 4 files to Ticalc, all of them E-books. I encourage everyone to download TI-GCC or use the BASIC interpreter on their calculators not only to make programs for their own use, but to also submit their programs to Ticalc or Calc.org and let everyone else benefit from it.
|
|
10 February 2001, 21:35 GMT
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
|
Ted Burton
(Web Page)
|
--puts on kevlar-nomex underwear--
As one who is certainly guilty of adding to the bloat and probably redundancy of the basic archives for the 83, 85, 86, and 89, I will probably come off as hypocritical, but am trying to avoid that. I myself have, IIRC, uploaded about 40 programs (all basic) to the file archives for math and science. I would be programming in assembly, or at least C, but have not had the time to learn either language because of my demanding school workload. I'm a junior in high school taking 5 AP/IB classes and 1 honors class. I am in one of the most difficult school systems in the nation (as well as the fourth-largest). My high school is somewhere around fiftieth in the US. I'm not trying to brag or gloat, just merely explain why I have not had time to learn assembly or C. In case anyone cares, the courses I'm taking are: AP/IB US History, German 1 Honors, AP Physics B, AP/IB English Language, IB Theory of Knowledge (basically philosophy), and AP Calculus BC.
Anyways...to keep this more relevant than it wound up being, I think the previous comment's intent was to encourage people to learn how to use the most powerful (yes, I do know the restrictions of several forms of TI-basic all too well...) parts of their calculators: the basic editor and (on the newer calcs, at least) third-party assembly and C tools.
One thing that the read-only part of the TI community needs to realize is that the _worst_ thing one can do about a program is to flame the author of a program for a calculator crash or other {user,programming} errors. It is one thing to kindly or emotionlessly (neither happy nor angry) inform the author of a bug or other error that is most likely on their part, but it is another to mercilessly flame the author under the implication on the receiving end that the user thinks the author intentionally created or left in the bug. Granted, the author does have a responsibility to try to either debug the program or clearly state in either internal documentation or the readme (or, better yet, both) that the software may still contain bugs. Often however, the user did something that the author (or most of the people who read the boards here even once a month should pick up from the discussions) would never think of occurring, such as trying to run a program with THE ENTIRE MEMORY FILLED. I have not received flames yet, most likely due to my own perfectionism and the fact that my programs are certainly not the most popular ones out there.
One thing that needs to be done more often (particularly for the people like Patrick Davidson, Jimmy Mardell, and the TICT, to name a few of the most popular programmers in TI calculator history) is for users to send encouraging emails to the authors of programs they like and/or use often. I admit I need to do this more. Most read-only users of TI calculators do not understand the amount of work it takes to write and sufficiently debug an assembly program, even on processors whose assembly language is old enough to vote in the US. I have not experienced that, so my best guess is that it is immensely more difficult than TI-basic. These programmers are doing all of that work and receiving nothing in return. Many of them even release the source code with their assembly and C programs, thereby making the TI community one of the first places where open source was the norm, rather than the shocking exception, even as recent as 3-5 years ago.
/me hopes that didn't come off as a rant:)
|
|
11 February 2001, 02:50 GMT
|
|
1 2 3
You can change the number of comments per page in Account Preferences.
|