Completely changing the subject as a (hopefully distractive) distraction.
Roberto asks who will produce the first post of 2008...
...are we allowed to stay up until midnight in our own timezone and
claim credit for a post in that TZ? This gives people from Tonga,
Kiribati, NZ, Aus and the like some sort of advantage. (Samoans have
no chance.)
Or are we going to standardise on UTC (and let's be kind and treat GMT
as equivalent for the purposes of this experiment) and just try to be
closest to 20080101T00:00:01Z?
PS: For Christmas I got a brand new road map of Sydney -- NEW! (it
says) 2008 EDITION -- to replace my 2001 version, which, though it's
getting a bit dog-eared, and doesn't know about all the pesky new toll
roads, tunnels, changed intersections, buildings and sports grounds
with new sponsors' names, etc., of the past few years, is still
perfectly serviceable.
What I want from my road map is that it should tell me about roads
_which already exist_, with the names _they have now_, so I can
navigate _today_. I'm NOT particularly interested in knowing the route
which the Chatswood-to-Epping rail link will take, because it's
already years overdue, I can't use it until it opens, and probably
won't need to use it often even then, but I DO want to know what
George Street turns into once you get past Central Station (Regent
Street, I think), and whether you can still turn right at the Glasgow
Arms (sadly, the map doesn't say).
Why is it that in IT, roadmaps seem always to be imaginary pathways to
things which _don't_ exist yet, and may never do so (or may exist but
never be released, or be released and then bought out by someone
else), whereas road maps are, well...just maps showing you which roads
actually go where? In my mind, the Light Blue Book and the Dark Blue
Book act as Lua's road maps because they tell me the things I need to
know today.
I don't need or want to be waiting with bated breath for Lua 5.2 or
6.0. Lua's not like a car, which will rust out, or like a PC, which
will seem old-fashioned in three years, or like a lease, which will
need renegotiating and renewing every so often.
PPS: Guess it wasn't such a brand new subject after all. Happy New Year.
