Robots, Snakes, and A Cup Of Coffee -- On The Go

Well, it's been quite some time since I've made a post, almost 3 weeks, and quite a bit has happened. First up, Ubuntu Linux 9.10 Karmic Koala was released and it is GREAT. I had some problems with a crashing desktop environment (GNOME) but that was caused by a third-party program. I also became more accustomed to Windows 7 but getting back to Karmic... The version of Flash released with Karmic has amazed me. Although this probably wasn't admitted to often, due to Adobe's history of taking a long time to get things stable, Ubuntu's previous versions of Flash had instabilities and situations where it just wouldn't work. I'm proud to say that the new version of Flash has not only fixed instabilities but they've got flash games working amazingly and you can't even tell the difference between it and the Windows version. Karmic is also a bit nicer looking and includes a kernel update. Onto the snakes, I decided to learn Python since Perl was just too much like C++ and Lua is almost entirely an extension language. I must say, Python is quite amazing. Not only is it powerful but it's capable of running on the web,  it's widely used and extremely well documented. My first Python project has been released however I can't pin a version number on it since it's a Web Application. Feel free to check it out here. Although there is still the matter of the non-Facebook version still having the publish button even though it will not work, I'll be fixing that eventually. Off to the robots! I recently (a few days ago to be exact) purchased a new phone and if you've been hearing about new phones lately, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about from the title of this post. The Motorola DROID! Looks like after a few years of falling behind and stumbling along trying to keep up with Samsung and LG, Motorola took a bite into the apple that is the future. Motorola made a deal with Google to create a phone running the latest version of their mobile OS, Android OS. Android OS, although commonly compared to iPhone OS, is really nothing of that sort. Android OS and iPhone OS appear similar in the sense that they both have home screens (springboard on iPhone OS) and they both have the same type of application launchers but when it comes down to it, Android 2.0 blows iPhone OS out of the water. Deep deep down, they're both running that good ole Unix kernel but there's a comparable difference. iPhone OS is basically just OS X watered down with a new Desktop environment. This is fine for some people, but I'd prefer some REAL work go into my phone's OS. Android 2.0 can run widgets, background apps, and do pretty much everything a Jailbroken iPhone can do. Oh right, and it doesn't require extra work. However, I dislike Android 2.0 at the moment for the sole reason of : The API is in Java. As you may or may not know, I hate java. I know a bit of it, and I don't have a problem with people who use it, but I just don't like it. Might be that Java was my first real experience with coding aside from batch files and shell files and I didn't really get into learning it properly but I learned how to make use of a library and some of the syntax rules by trial and error. I'm still considering that C++ blog but being as this blog doesn't really have any frequents I don't see a point in making another one. Now, you're probably wondering why I'm talking Android up if I hate the API/SDK and as a programmer that should be important but there's a great reason. Google's releasing a new little toy for programmers around this Christmas to run as a cross-platform C-esque language. It's called Go and it combines aspects from both Python and C which pleases me as I'm experienced in both. Also, for those who wonder why I use experienced rather than mastered it's because my philosophy about programming is that there's no way to master a language, programming is not only infinitely expanding but there's always gonna be multiple ways to conquer one problem. Thus, there isn't a way to truly master any given programming language. the coolest part about Go is that it's been stated [un]officially that Go will run on mobile devices which means that Go will run Android 2.0 and I as well as many others suspect that Go will be integrated into the SDK and will become a major part of Android 2.0 programming. Since Go will be brand new, everyone will be at around the same level although programmers with experience in C[++] and Python will have a bit easier of a time. All together, the past few weeks have been pretty eventful especially since this post didn't cover all of it. Anyway, thanks for reading!