I liked Andrew’s talk btw. Clear. Easy to understand. He seemed to be interested in the questions asked. During the talk theere was a discussion on IDEs and according to Andrew there’s no need for an IDE when writing Go (which is the case (IMHO) when you’re programming for example Java). That sounded promising. Anyhow, let’s talk about Go. I am usually skeptical to new things (a clear sign of a geezer) and to some extent I’ll stay that way regarding Go. At least for a while more. Without any deeper knowledge I present my reflections on the language (as if anyone cares):

When it comes to memory management I feel pretty ok. As a developer it’s easier to let some one else do memory allocation for you (i.e not alloc and free), but at the same time when doing C/C++ I am in control and I can predict a bit better when things happen.

[In a previous version of this blog post I by mistake used the word concurrency to mean the distribution mechanism in Erlang. This is such a big mistake I've decided to rewrite history and edit my blog post - 2010-06-11]

Looking at “cross machine distribution mechanism” (think Erlang) I miss it. I asked Andrew about this and he said that there is none, but I interpreted him as if the door is not closed, but until then we will have to rely on a library (think pthreads in C).  However, if concurrency comes with a virtual machine or run time system (or what ever you want to call it) I am not sure I think it’s worth it. At least not when it comes to the kind of programs I normally write.

I asked Andrew about shared libraries and there is no such thing in Go. I surely understand why, but it would be neat to have. This could be done I guess with the C bindings mechanism in Go.

Enough of my complaints and ramblings. What do I think?…. what is my gut feeling. I am not a big fan of leaning on arguments such as “my inner feel says”, but that’s more or less what I will do.

Why Go?: It’s free software. It seems to be a language with which I can quickly get my things done.

Why not Go?: Not that many targets supported, no shared libs, non concurrency (why not use C instead of Go then?)

I guess I will give it a try…. and that’s not something I say that often. Perhaps write some Xnee bindings for Go.

Makes me wonder, should we invite some one to talk about Go at “the real” FSCONS 2010?

Do you have a cool software or  hardware you want to talk about, why not do it in Gothenburg (Sweden) at FSCONS? Instructions for submission can be found here: http://fscons.org/cfp

About FSCONS

The Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (FSCONS) is a meeting place for social change, focused on the future of free software and free society. The conference brings together people from a wide range of fields, and merges the technical with the social, seeking both to activate and challenge. Open discussion and brainstorming are as important as the talks given during the conference.

What is great is…

that I am embarking on a software project together with two other great humans (in Gothenburg). The software is based on an idea I got several years ago. When I met with these two, the idea really was turned into something really cool and we think it has a great potential.  More on this project an other day, we’ll stay low for a while

FSCONS is being planned. I will focus more on an embedded part this year. It’s gonna rock!

Furthermore, I am catching up on my todo list, which have been incredibly big (GNU Xnee is still on the list, and needs a lot of attention and is gonna get top prio).

But wait, there’s more…. Being a teacher and meeting great and inspiring students (friends) are totally awesome.

And finally my colleague and I just finalised the planning of a panel debate. During the planning I’ve met people who, with their insights and feedback, really made all the efforts worthwhile. More on the debate later..

So in short, this blog post is simply saying

I am on track again

……. ready to start putting things on top of other things

As for the presentations I will surely go and see:

• Sylvain Beucler talk about GNU Savannah: 100% free software mass-hosting

a topic I find interesting for many reasons, more on that later

• Daniel Stenberg talk about Rockbox: open source firmware replacement for music players

since I missed Daniel talk about this at FSCONS. As a FSCONS organiser I can’t just sit

• Mirko Lindner, Jon Phillips talk about Copyleft Hardware and the Ben Nanonote

I missed Mirko’s presentation at FSCONS as well …. always on the move at FSCONS

And, of course I hope I will be able to do some business (Sandklef GNU Labs) down there. During some breaks I will prepare some presentations at “my” University next week and also prepare a Free Software presentation for a company later on in February (more on that later).

This year I’ll be traveling with Andreas Nilsson and Jeremiah Foster.  Same procedure as last year…

see you there

… did you see how I managed to mention FSCONS 6 times (including that very last)

Hopefully the schedules will be published soon. Hmm, as co organiser of FSCONS I know it’s hard to come up with a schedule in the quagmire of planning. But as a guest I want to have it. Will Keith Packard come and enlighten us with Xorg news?

Anyhow, the GNU plans for FOSDEM can be found here: http://www.gnu.org/ghm/2010/fosdem/

List of nominated 2009

The award will be presented at FSCONS ]]> http://www.sandklef.com/hesa/index.php/2009/11/07/list-of-nominated-for-nordic-free-software-award-published/feed/ 0 http://www.sandklef.com/hesa/index.php/2009/11/07/gnu-hackers-meeting-and-fscons/ http://www.sandklef.com/hesa/index.php/2009/11/07/gnu-hackers-meeting-and-fscons/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:24:49 +0000 hesa http://www.sandklef.com/hesa/?p=508 I fell better this year then any of the two previous years. It’s not only that Jonas Öberg is in charge of FSCONS even though that fact surely adds to the feeling. Sooo many people (if I name one I risk forgetting someone so to all of you, love you!) have done an extreme amount of hard work previous years. The work have been awesome and we can now see the results, e. g we don’t need to spend as much energy on promoting the conference as before. We’ve learned a lot from our (mainly my) mistakes. So thanks to everyone ever involved.

I remember talking to one of the FOSDEM organiser on the Beer event at last year’s FOSDEM. He seemed to be very much OK, but a bit confused. I guess that’s where I am heading in a few days. Land of confusion (as if I ever left that land). He gave me some tickets to get me some beers. So all organisers of Free Software conferences if you’re coming to FSCONS, come over to me (skinny, bearded, tall look confused) and you’ll get beers in return. … just starting a conference next year doesn’t count.

Anyhow, the main reason I feel so much better is that I will attend this years GNU Hackers Meeting, which is held the days before FSCONS at the same venue: ITUniv. It’s going to be great to see some “old” faces and some new. …. and finally I can pay back Simon Josefsson the lunch I ‘forced’ him to pay for me at FOSDEM.

… all in all, it’s gonna be great

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