W3: just do it!

January 23, 2022

What does one do when a software bug is annoying them? Report it to the developers, of course. But there's one cool thing with Open Source software: you can also do it yourself!

I did this with LibreOffice back in the day (just kidding, that's only last year). I reported the bug in November 2020, self-assigned it in March 2021, and after learning the ropes, sent a fix in May. Et voilà! Now I can make clinical statistics charts without the data series going haywire! Could I have done this with MS Office, huh?

So, fast-forward to November 2021, when I reported this bug in Avogadro, one of the programs in the Open Chemistry suite. These months I've come to believe this project should be getting more love from contributors (just look at the name, it's important stuff!). Seeing how little manpower such an important project gets has inspired me to, hopefully, work for them in GSOC 2022.

But that's a whole different matter. Here I'm talking about a bug that was, well, bugging me; and it seems like I've grown less patient and more efficient since last year. Because this time I only waited until January, and sent in a fix two days later, this week. It also helps that the Open Chemistry codebase has such well organized code, heck I want to spend the summer diving into it so badly!

Now, honestly that's not taken up much time this week. Most of it was spent improving the code I want to use for fully 3D-printing hydraulic and electronic circuits. It's not yet in a state wherein I could comfortably publish it (FOSS ftw ;), but at least I've implemented the ability to export the prints. The hackers and makers among you will love this...

I've also become more familiar with the theory behind dielectric spectrocopy, and I'm pretty positive that I could use it for my intended purposes if I design the circuits carefully.

Also a friend has quite a few spare stepper motors to sell cheap, so that's some monies I could shave off the BoM for the Big Project. A project still expensive for my standards, but it's something.

Btw, if you would like to contact me for any reason, drop me a text at @aerkiaga:matrix.org.