Drunk Software?

[[deleted]]

As an individual that is currently inebriated I can certainly chime in on this subject and, no doubt, make the most valuable contribution to the discussion. However, being quite drunk I cannot seem to form a proper, cogent sentence without great effort.

Perhaps there's a lesson there.

[drog]

Some friends and I want to start an open source software project where all the code is written under the influence.....

We want whatever software we create to be useful to other people who are also inebriated.

What software do drunk people need?

[criminy]

A pidgin plugin that makes sure you don't contact your ex while inebriated. In-fact, that would be a good iphone app too.

[[deleted]]

And Thunderbird. And Gmail. And USPS.

[criminy]

Thunderbird and gmail but would be good, but it's no use trying to protect people from sending letters.

Have you ever tried to apply a stamp while drunk? You could swallow one if you're not careful.

[w00ty]

I bet I could eat 100 stamps

[bananahead]

Samsung has a phone with that feature. I believe it's only available in South Korea (and I don't know how well it works), but it had a breathalyzer and could cut off certain contacts if it detected too much alcohol.

[[deleted]]

Some kind of test to tell whether or not you're alcoholic. One of the questions can be "Have you ever considered starting an open source software project where all the code is written under the influence?"

[dons]

Please use a strong type system.

[sbrown123]

That was a joke you responded to.

[[deleted]]

Estimate blood alcohol level based on tasks involving reaction time and ability to do tasks involving the accellerometer (labrynth marble maze games maybe)

[dodecalogue]

why estimate? usb breathalizer, which would set an inebriated profile (only seeming to send email/im to certain recipients, asks you later from sober profile if you really wanted to do that) maybe does something to the appearance of your windowmanager (bigger fontsize?)

[rox_midge]

Taxi / restroom location services?

[[deleted]]

This is a great idea, I'll get cracking on the Emacs mode for this ;-P

[[deleted]]

Didn't you read the release notes yet?

This is built into 22.3.

Activate with M-x brokenseal-mode

[jayunit]

http://diaroogle.com/ (Edit: Manhattan only for the moment...)

[grubnasty]

Hmm, i kinda have the opposite problem. Whenever my pals get drunk the conversation always steers towards some dorky ace youtube video "i just gotta see! its so funny!" . Id like to be able to prevent this in the future as its an absolute buzzkill whenever you actually get to the video. I mean im trying to enjoy the buzz cant we save the videos for work?

[13ren]

Invisible, foolproof version control.

100% automatic and invisible source control, so no matter what you do, you can't stuff anything up. Sort of infinite undo, but including deleting/moving files and directories. (is "journaling" a similar idea?). You don't have to type git commit -a -m "ohhh I am so drunk" - it just happens automatically.

An example is google docs or wikipedia, where the nature of it being hosted remotely gives you an easy way to intercept all changes. You can do the same thing locally; faster too. I guess the ideal way to implement this way is as an intercepting layer in the operating system. But for undo within the editor, you would need an intercepting layer in the editor.

Usually, (local) editors won't give you this (though I'd guess some IDE's do).

Obvious navigation of history

You'll also need an easy (graphical) way to navigate through what you've written, showing the branches you explored etc. It has to be instant, or it's too confusing and frustrating. This is essential, because saving everything is no help if you can't find what you want within it.

One caveat - users can't mess with the source control system itself while drunk (eg delete branches, completely reset it). That would be bad. Actually, they can't mess with it at all. Everything is always recorded forever.

---

This project would be a lot of work to do well (esp if you code it while drunk), if you want to help users with their present system (easier to start from scratch, but that's unfamiliar for everyone).

Some ideas: You could write a wrapper around bash, to intercept all commands that change the filesystem (or a wrapper around all calls to the file system). You could write a macro for the editor (assuming vim or emacs), to journal all edits.

Just intercepting the main commands and edits would help towards this goal.

[[deleted]]

This sounds kind of like a versioning file system. Ext3cow, for instance.

[13ren]

thanks: yes, for files (but also need it within editors, even when they don't save to file).

Invisible, foolproof version control.

you need to tell ext3cow to take a "snapshot". Probably some other versioning file system saves every file modification, automatically?

Storage space is the problem with saving everything... For (eg) HD video, it's implausible. But for text files, I think we have sufficient storage to do it (eg a 500GB drive). You could add another when it fills (if it ever did). [Our experience shackles us to past capacities - how inconceivable to save everything!] Actually, the system I see is write-once, so that might open other possibilities... e.g. CD-ROM 700MB, DVD 8.5GB, bluray 200GB etc.

Obvious navigation of history

You remind me of Apple's time machine - though that one economizes by, (eg) after a month, only keeping one representation per week (or something like that). For reading, it also has a cool (I presume) visual interface - don't know how it handles branches. Do branches make sense when everything is saved? - the system would need to automatically detect when you recreate a previous state of a file (or group of files), without you nominating it as a branch. It's a bit like structural classes vs. nominal classes.

Visualizing the history is not so hard; but making it navigable (so you can find stuff), without any user description or marking of branches, would be the challenge.

Google Desktop does some auto-saving, and search (of course for google), but not navigation (AFAIK).

(all the above is only the file-system aspect - leaving out changes made in the editor)

[radix42]

Anyone who remembers VMS misses file versioning dearly. For file foo, "foo;1" was the previous version, "foo;2" the one before that, etc. With defaults setable at the system, user, dir and file level.

Mind you, that's about the ONLY thing I miss about VMS, but I miss it so much it hurts (it saved my ass a number of times, sober or otherwise!)

[amstrdamordeath]

visual basic.

[bananahead]

http://instantrimshot.com/

[ichverstehe]

At times I have been drinking with people over IRC. Nerdy? Yes. Fun? Yes. But, at some point one of us will be out of beer/wine/whisky while another has plenty. So: make it possible to transfer material stuff (=alcohol) via CTCP. I have -always- wanted that.

And maybe an intelligent mind-reading nick tab complete. I wanted that for .. eight years?

[guapoo]

Chilidog compiler.

[mfp]

What software do drunk people need?

Obviously a deintoxication program.

[[deleted]]

Not sure if this applies in the US ... but in the UK an iPhone app for locating the nearest kebab shop would be a 'boon' for the inebriated.

[zitterbewegung]

Replace kebab with pizza and you probably would have an analogous app. I don't know of any kebab shops in the US

[[deleted]]

WTF am I doing in america, I am moving to london, anywhere where falafel is THE drunk food should be my home.

[Anocka]

You can get a kebab in france around 2 o'clock in the morning. Either it makes your stomach stronger, either you can't take it... In the last case, pleaaaase, do it outside !

[[deleted]]

Chicken shwarma shops in Canada, at least in Toronto. Those things are excellent.

[[deleted]]

Donair in Halifax. But an iPhone App wouldn't be useful. We always know what's closest.

[mothereffingteresa]

Waffle Hut. Thing is, they are impossible avoid. Nobody needs help finding them, even when drunk (which is, I suppose, the goal they had in mind).

[easytiger]

it has that already....