Monday, June 21, 2010

Time to set some projects aside.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I'm considering that it's time to stop writing code.  Now I know I'll never be away from it 100% but I do need a rest away from it for a while.  Whether or not I will stay with writing in AutoIt is also up in the air.  I will continue to update and patch current released software, however I am retiring several projects that were on the drawing board, even a couple that were near release.

If I start any new projects they will be very small  and in all likelihood will not be written in AutoIt3.  I think the future of AutoIt is up in the air and it may have already reached it's maximum stage of development using the current core.  I can't get the feeling out of my mind that we may have seen the last release of AI with version 3.3.6.1.  In my mind, that's a shame but sooner or later any software will reach a dead-end after which all that's left is simple eye-candy and not more functionality.

I have an offer of help to add some functionality to that I've wanted to the PCRE Toolkit and I am going to take that person up on his kind offer.  If I don't get those additions done then I will never be satisfied with that app and several people know what those additions are and have been looking forward to them.  I would hate to disappint them and myself so that is one project that will stay active.

I also don't think I'm going to be dedicating as much time to the forums, although I will still at least be checking for messages on a daily basis.

To all those that I've been "over the river" with for the last few yers, it's been a slice and keep at it as long as you can or until the fun goes out of it.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Next on the horizon

The release of the PCRE Toolkit now puts that project into maintenance mode until it's time for a major update.  That means it's now time to get on to another project  Which at this point I think will be another Toolkit but this time for SQLite.  Before I get started on that I want to finish up a personal SVN / Bug Tracking project I've been working at.  And of course there is always more work to get done on my latest version of Project Express.

Maybe I'll just take a couple of days off and rethink all this.  As a matter of fact I might just take a few days and rethink AutoIt , after all these years using it, maybe it's time to move on.

Friday, June 11, 2010

PCRE Toolkit for AutoIt RELEASED

At long last the first release version of the PCRE Toolkit for AutoIt is available for public download.

If you are planning on working with regular expressions then this may be the only tool you need.

Download it now.

The help file is not yet ready but since you are a developer you should be able to figure it out.
Please post any comments you may have or suggestions for improvement.  I'm also looking for comments about whether the help file should be included with the install or a separate download.

I hope you enjoy using it more than I've enjoyed creating it.

Update:  Gone now are most of the control tool tips in favor of displaying the information in the status bar.

PCRE Toolkit updated again

See this post
This is mainly a cosmetic update but a couple of minor bugs were also fixed.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Notice to Fennek

You must be joking when you say that you are going to flood members of the AutoIt forums with spam.  That isn't even good for a laugh and I'm really getting sick and tired of idiots like you, with an IQ smaller than their shoe size, starting this kind of crap.

You're a 16 year old punk who seems to forget thet the people who taught you to write AutoIt code certainly didn't teach you everything they know or even anywhere near what they know.  That list is only a very small percentage of the total members of the forum.  Of those on the list there are several who have been writing code and hacking longer than you have been breathing, and do you think for a second , when you start flooding them with spam, that they won't retaliate?  It would take very few lines of code to write a script capable of messing up your site to the point of it being totally un-usable.  Script kiddies like you annoy us at the best of times so don't push your luck with this kind of nonsense.  On top of that I already have good mail protection but if I so desired I could let yours through long enough to not only get your ip but to get the address where we should report it and then that address gets flooded with abuse reports.  Do yourself a favor and pull it now before some fool actually follows up on what you started.  When that happens, it won't matter who actually sent the spam, it will be you that takes the fall for it.

You might not care about the reputaion that AutoIt gets from garbage coders like yourself but we do and we will put a stop to it.

Malicious code

There is a trend that seems to come and go in waves and right now it's at a high point again.  That is people asking for help with code which is meant to be used for either malicious reasons or to bypass some security feature like a Captcha or the biggie, cheating at a multi-player game when the TOS explicitly states it is against the rules.

Just a note for those people.  Stay away from the AutoIt forums, we don't need you nor do we want you there and you must be wise enough to know you shouldn't go where you are not wanted.  That would just make you subject to a lot of abuse.

We are also aware that such abuse will (in your mind) be our fault but we are all willing to live with that as long as you just go away.