October, 8, 2007 archives

after eight releases, we have gone from over 150 open bugs to under 70 bugs.

one of the really old bugs we are still looking at is how identifiers that are reserved words (or have non-alphanumeric characters) are handled from ado. as far as we can tell, the driver is doing everything correctly, and it is ado that is failing to properly quote the identifiers, but we have gotten some developers at microsoft involved in tracking the problem from that end.

just today there was a new bug filed about using the driver with visual basic 6, which was itself released in 1998. i am going to have to build a vm image with that installed so i can do some testing.

the next release of the new 5.1 branch should be out later this week. we will probably limit the scope of new features we are going to implement in 5.1 so that we can get unicode support and the other already-implemented features out there as a beta (and then production/ga) release sooner.

tim o’reilly blogged about how bill gross is into atoms now, or how idealab has shifted the focus from web businesses into businesses that make physical goods. which is all well and good, but the part that annoys me about idealab at this point is that the shares i have now held for the better part of a decade seem to have little chance of being tradable on the open market any time soon, or otherwise turning into money in my pocket in any foreseeable way.

back in the dotcom days when i worked for a second-generation geocities knock-off called homepage.com, there was a time when altavista agreed to buy us, but the board of directors (led by bill gross) shot it down. as a sort of consolation prize to employees that had been around for a while, they allowed us to convert some of our homepage.com options into idealab shares, which required exercising the options. the certificate for that has been in my drawer ever since.

why do i have the feeling that when the internet brands initial public offering is done, bill gross will have shares that he can then turn around and sell, and all i’ll get out of it is that idealab will be able to spin off some more of bill’s ideas?

i complained about the site for collecting special conditions feedback, but here is some more specific suggestions on how to fix it:

• make it clear who will be reading the comments, and how they will be used. possible wording: “These comments from the public will be read by Russell Brown, president of DLANC, and Bert Green, co-chair of the DLANC ad-hoc filming committee, and compiled into a report to accompany the special conditions when they are sent to the Los Angeles City Council.”
• remove the restriction on identifying information. just get rid of that paragraph. i understand 100% why it is there. it is wrong. the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
• change "To Post a comment" to "To send a comment".

things i am not suggesting:

• making the comments public.

to be clear, i support the special conditions. my concern is that we remove any appearance of impropriety in how comments from the public are collected. it will be far too easy for opponents of the special conditions to dismiss them if there is the hint of an appearance that dissenting opinion is being discouraged or worse.