News - 2024/02/24 - Programming Happenings
Author: Kevin Day
Description: News post on 2024/02/24.
Keywords: Kevin Day, Kevux, FLL, Featureless, Linux, Library, Distribution, Open-Source, News, 2024

# 2024 / 02 / 24 - Programming Happenings

The new year has yielded a large amount of development progress in several of my projects. I have also seen some bad happenings and good happenings in the technology world. With my projects moving into the next stages, I have decided to begin releasing more details of my plans going forward.

This is a longer than usual read and so let me first summarize the topics at hand. The fundamentals of my ideas driving my work and life are now being formalized into what I am calling Project Lighthouse. This is itself not actually a project but instead is an idea from which one may follow with their own projects in not just software technology. My programs and libraries follow these ideas represented by Project Lighthouse and extend into what I call Actual Accessibility. That is to say, the ability to access. My network related code is slowly progressing but it is progressing. My TacocaT program is a small tool that I am using to help brainstorm how I am going to write the network related code. This ultimately shall become the foundation for the Furl program as well as more complex projects. The Controller program is going to see some major work to both utilize this network related code as well as improvements to make it a functional way to break free of the nonsense that is SystemD. I finally got around to setting up https://git.kevux.org and making all of my code available there as well as a few others that are not my projects.

## Project Lighthouse

The Project Lighthouse is the accumulation of my ideas, beliefs, and principles coalesced into a formal, written, idea. The word Project is being used a little oddly here. Because Project Lighthouse is an idea there is no actual literal project. The use of project is instead intended to be used such that when someone is following the principles represented by Project Lighthouse the could state that their project is a lighthouse project. This can then be represented by a logo or a short statement of Project Lighthouse.

If you have been closely following any of my projects, then you might be able to put together an idea on what the Project Lighthouse ideals are. This year, the year 2024, is the year that I will be formally writing down these ideas and principles. Until then, consider this a teaser for what is to come.

At its root, the Project Lighthouse serves one solitary purpose. A become of hope. Like a traditional lighthouse, it just sits there, passively, as a light in the darkness, a beacon of hope, or an icon of warning. One specific principle is to not force anything on others. A lighthouse project, a Project Lighthouse, does not impose itself on others but allows others to come and go as they please. Think, "Here be knowledge". There is likely a close relationship to a Project Lighthouse and a traditional library (not in the software technology sense but instead as in an actual traditional library with books and such).

## Actual Accessibility

Here and there I have mentioned the ideas of Actual Accessibility, but I have not truly formalized them into words. There is a whole slew of problems in the current day society where people fail to use words with their actual meaning. This is not normally a real big deal, but then somebody turns around and popularizes mis-used terminology into what is sometimes referred t as a buzz word. Even worse, there are some words that have been hi-jacked and mis-used in the legal system. Adding the word Actual to the word Accessibility is done to emphasize that I am not referring to the absurd non-sense that the American legal system has done to the word Accessibility.

Accessibility, or as I am calling it here, Actual Accessibility is simple one thing. The ability to access. That is it.

This concept of Actual Accessibility also happens to be a necessity for Project Lighthouse and should provide some further insight into that set of principles.

Open-source provides great insight and ability into Actual Accessibility. If the legal gets in the way of the ability to access something, than that makes things less accessible. Pretty simple.

Proprietary software, therefore by design, cannot be actually accessible. Open-source, however, by itself does not solve the problem. It is only a step in the correct direction. The true solution is at its root, language. The ability to communicate is the core of the solution to Actual Accessibility.

In software, a language is defined by a standard and a standard therefore provides the Actual Accessibility. To truly do this one must have an open-standard.

My solution to this part of the problem is the formal introduction of the Open Standard License 1.0. Computing machinery must be capable of talking with other computer machinery as well as with humans (or even animals).

Future news posts may contain more information on my thoughts regarding Actual Accessibility.

## Network Projects

I have been doing a lot of research and studying and there is yet more to come. My goal is to complete a network source code library for providing the functionality that I need to go alongside or entirely replace existing network related tools.

My goal is to write the program called Furl. This is a play on the word curl (and the program called Curl) and the FLL. Like curl, the word furl also happens to relate to curling, such as with curling a flag. The naming is quite convenient.

I acknowledge that the networking is a large task. I have decided to first write a simpler program to help me brainstorm ideas on how to write Furl. Introduce TacocaT. And yes, that last letter T is capitalized.

The design purpose of TacocaT is to talk to itself. This program shall perform similar functions as the existing tool, called Netcat. Once again, I have found some convenient words to play with when naming the project.

Ultimately, I want to merge some of this network related code into the Controller program so that it may better operate as an system initializer. This will further allow me to avoid what I call the nonsense that is SystemD.

The network related code shall not stop here. Implementing the networking sets up the foundation to do something even more extreme. Write my own web-browser. This is a crazy large task, but everything that I am already doing can lead to this anyway. I won't implement a direct replacement in some ways and in others I expect to make compromises. But for now, one step at a time. I am simply tired of the utter trash that has become of the current day web-browsers.

## Kevux Git Server

I finally got around to doing this. I created the sub-domain a while back but nothing came up of it. That has now changed. Head on over to https://git.kevux.org to check out the repositories.

The repositories are mostly Kevux based repositories. Some others have been added for projects that I think are small, and possibly nearly forgotten, but should be preserved. The doxy2man repository is one such example.

Kevin Day