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[fluffybunny]

Hey ya’ll, sorry for the noob question but what is the difference between Bibliostats and FSM (not the deity, the other one)?

[CauseISaidSo]

They’re basically the same thing in different stages of life, fluffy. schnee created FSM about 5 years ago I think and it was running great until the last Fark page redesign when it broke. schnee now understandably has other priorities that demand his attention so FSM is now more of a historic reference, at least for the time being.

FSM was one of the things that drew me to Farktography and made it fun for me. Being a programmer myself, I liked the challenge of “rolling my own” version of it and also wanted to play with some of the data myself, so I wrote a scraper that watches the contests and gathers various statistics. Later, I created Bibliostats to publish some of the results of that. Bibliostats is in its infancy in that there are a lot of reports and charts and other features that I’ve got planned for it, but my work schedule has been quite demanding this year, so I haven’t had as much time as I’d like.

As far as more technical differences, I’d refer you to the Bibliostats FAQ thread, or if there’s anything in particular you’d like to know, I’d be happy to answer.

[fluffybunny]

No further questions Your Honor. I appreciate your work on it, like you said, it makes Farktography a better and more attractive place.

What language do you work with? I have some experience in C and Python, and a smattering of others. What’s your favorite platform(s)?

[CauseISaidSo]

Thanks, I’m glad you like it. I actually did it mostly just for myself, but knowing that others enjoy it is a really nice bonus.

I work exclusively in C#, Windows, and ASP.NET. On the business (paying) side of things, the Microsoft plaform has been pretty good to me over the years so I’ve never found a reason to explore others much. Back in the days when mainframes roamed the land and 64K was all the memory anyone would ever need (i.e., late 80’s/early 90’s), I wrote some apps in C for various *nix platforms, but from a developer’s standpoint, a console was a pretty much a console then.

Before moving to C#, I worked mostly in C and C++ and used Visual Basic for the GUI side. We (my company) also dabbled in Java for a couple of years, but it was the Microsoft version that Sun eventually ixnay’d, which has turned out to be a major pain for us. At one time, I was also fairly proficient in assembler, to the point where I could pretty much translate 8085 opcodes by memory, but those days are long long gone. I’m kinda melancholy on that – it used to be a much simpler thing to write a program and you had TOTAL control over the whole machine; on the other hand, you can now code such rich UI’s and have access to such a vast API (both O/S and tons of opensource stuff) that you can create complex apps in a short time that would’ve been unthinkable then (and likely impossible with the resource limitations).

[fluffybunny]

I don’t code for money, its more of a nerd thing that sometimes winds up benefiting wherever I’m working.

I never had the patience for assembler, only ever did it when I had no other choice. Mostly written stuff on Linux and MS platforms and to support one of my other bad habits: micro controllers. Even with those I use C vs assembler. While the resources are miniscule compared to PC like platforms, there is enough slack in modern uC’s to relax efficiency compared to the z80 days.

[CauseISaidSo]

Funnily enough, I just recently had a similar conversation with my son. He’s working on his senior project in EE and was talking about the UART built into the PIC he’s using. He got a big laugh when I described how we used to do RS-232 strictly in software by bit-banging on the 8085, which limited the baud rate 38.4K as that was the fastest you could loop to watch the receive line (assuming you coded in assembly).

[fluffybunny]

Speaking of PICs,…

Microchip has always impressed me as a modern company in a fiercely competitive global environment. They are as accessible to guys like me buying 1 part as to companies making millions of production units. They have been this way since I discovered them in the ’90s, when I coaxed a sample of two 16f877’s from a sales rep. Another company (albeit vendor vs mfg) in that field that I have the same sentiments for is Mouser, who are “just down the street” from me.

Your son does know that the TY in TTY stands for type, as in literally typed out on paper, right?

Man I’m old.

[CauseISaidSo]

Yeah, that’s pretty much the impression I get of both of them, too, from my hardware-related readings. Them and SparkFun. I dabbled in uCs and digital logic while in/shortly after college and I still subscribe to Nuts & Volts while laboring under the possibly mistaken impression that I’ll eventually get more free time to play in that arena again. I used to subscribe to Circuit Cellar Ink (a mag by Steve Ciarcia from early Byte) but they blew past my level years ago.

Man I’m old.

You and me both, brother. 😉

But don’t make the mistake I did when I first came to the forums and assume that everyone must be younger here. Aside from a couple of whippersnappers in post-grad (plamadude30k & farktographer), I think most everyone else here is somewhere between “mature” and old fart. 🙂

[fluffybunny]

Seems like the difference between “mature” and old fart is like the difference between “perspire” and sweat.

Good talking to you, see you around the place.

[ravnostic]

Speaking of PICs,…

Microchip has always impressed me as a modern company in a fiercely competitive global environment. They are as accessible to guys like me buying 1 part as to companies making millions of production units. They have been this way since I discovered them in the ’90s, when I coaxed a sample of two 16f877’s from a sales rep. Another company (albeit vendor vs mfg) in that field that I have the same sentiments for is Mouser, who are “just down the street” from me.

Your son does know that the TY in TTY stands for type, as in literally typed out on paper, right?

Man I’m old.

Gee, what a small world. Reading this thread might as well be reading Greek for all I understand about it; I dropped out of programming back in the 80’s when BASIC stopped being the way to go. But that Microchip company you mention? Yeah. You’re using chips that I’m making.

Microchip is an excellent company in more ways than I could go into here without overtaking the thread. Thanks for your support from a guy who makes the product you use!

[fluffybunny]

Hey rav, small world indeed. Would like to hear your take on Microchip. While we all hear about the bad companies, I try to keep tabs on the good ones. Holding on to optimism I guess.

[ravnostic]

Hunt me down on FB and I’ll give any opin’s or answers to questions. Great company–but it’s the CEO who’s made it so. ‘Ravnostic’ should get to me, or via the farktography page.

[fluffybunny]

I am probably the last person in the world who is not on FB. Maybe some other way.

Cliche’ yes but organizations take on the character of their leaders.

[Author]

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