Blogging Roller

I've successfully moved Roller referer tracking into the database and now I'm working on diveintomark.org style "futher reading on today's posts" and "futher reading on this post" functionality.

I'm not sure if the futher-reading comments and links should be shown in-line with the rest of the weblog entries, as Mark does, or as part of each weblog entry's comments page. After all, a comment is a comment is a comment. I'll probably try to make it flexible, so users can choose either style by including the appropriate macros in their page templates.

<a href= "http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/index.jsp?date=20030105#125855">Russell Beattie: Like I've told my wife (and this is true) there's not a single technology that I've ever started messing around with in my spare time that I eventually didn't use for work or even to get a new job. Linux and Java for me were like that... I was doing M$ VB work until I decided one day to install a Linux box at home then started looking at Java as a way to program for it... the rest is history. All this mobile stuff that I'm obsessed about now is the same thing. Blogging too. Hopefully it'll come back around for me.

Matt Raible: Upgrading Roller and Happiness. I've been meaning to upgrade this site to use the latest Roller CVS source for quite some time (about a month), but haven't got around to it. However, Dave and Lance have been checking in enhancements like mad lately, so I don't know if it's such a good idea.

Yep, now is not the time to grab Roller from CVS and upgrade your Roller-based weblog. I'm in slash-and-burn, rip-and-replace, and code-away-the-night mode, and upgrading Roller right now is not the path to happiness. Wait a couple of days until things settle down a bit.

Matt also has some cool ideas about the Rollers comments feature, which still needs some work. He also wonders what defines Roller 1.0. That is a good question.

I like the philosophy of under promise and over deliver, and in this case I think that means that we should announce plans only for the next release, which in our case is Roller 0.9.7. I also like the philosophy of release early and release often, and in this case I think that means we need to try to polish up a 0.9.7 release in the next month or so.

I'm not sure exactly what features we need in Roller to call it Roller 1.0, but I do think that we will know when we are there. What features do you think are must-haves for Roller 1.0?

Matt Raible writes about how he plans to fulfill his New Years resolution to be happy and he lists a number of goals that will lead him to that. I could have written that list myself: I need to do almost the very same things.

It is interesting to see the conflict that Chris Winters mentioned between work-related goals (e.g. open source development) and personal goals (e.g. wife and kids), laid out point-by-point. Work related goals like "learn more Java" and "getting a new laptop" standing side-by-side with personal goals such as "spend more time with my family" and "get off the computer."

I've always felt very lucky that I can get paid to do what is essentially my hobby: software development. Sometimes, I wonder how I would get by if it was not my hobby. Keeping up with the constant changes, new technologies, and new techniques in software development takes a lot of time. As Rafe Colburn pointed out some time ago, you have to carefully chose how you invest your learning time. Of course, you really need to carefully choose how you invest all of your time.

I wish I had some great insight to share on this topic. I guess all I can come up with is this. Spend your free time doing things that are fulfilling and things that are fun, don't worry so much about trying to sharpen your work skills or build-up your resume. Sometimes the things that are fulfilling and fun will also be things that are work and career related, that is fine. However, if you spend too much time on the work and career side of things even as a hobby, you may regret it later. If you spend too much time with the people that you love, you'll have nothing to regret.