Into 2023

12/31/2022

This year has been very eventful to say the least.

For us, we introduced Pnic in late May. It is a Bash script for trillion-digit arithmetic calculations. Initially, division's (/) limited precision prevented Pnic's true completion. This was quickly resolved with its new and current algorithm. Launched alongside Pnic was KESIMATE, our pocket calculator simulator powered by Pnic. However, because we slouched on its launch, we would like to insert the following addendum to We Made Our Own Calculator, the post that launched both projects.

KESIMATE simulates a real pocket calculator authentically down to the display blink, while remaining relatively lightweight for life by staying independent of user interface (UI) libraries. It is also very small and portable: only 33 kiB including Pnic, and you can use it on anything that runs Bash. Finally, like with any good shell scripts, customizing its key bindings is as easy as editing a text file.

KESIMATE is not perfect however: its performance on (square) roots is abysmal, and its capabilities are limited for many. We can also not say whether it is ready for production use. On our end, KESIMATE has been employed as our software calculator since its launch, even for crucial finances. It is through this that we found and fixed its and Pnic's bugs. When all is set, we may proceed to turn them into binaries to squeeze every last bit of performance.

Earlier this month, we reached our 14th anniversary, but were busy with various activities.

First, we discovered that--in Bash--it is faster to detect a variable's occupancy with its length rather than itself. This is opposite to other languages like C and Java, but this ultimately depends on how they are implemented. We refactored the scripts of all active projects while going over each to fix any bugs. This resulted in three revision releases today.

Meanwhile, we found a bug in Bash in which the length of some variables are returned incorrectly. This affected about 2% of our refactors, including Pnic. We filed a report as #110799 and it was since marked as done. Once a fix becomes available, we will wait for about half-a-year before revising those affected by it.

Second, we acquired our first Android tablet after at least seven years. We also made changes to our Android software infrastructure across all active devices to turn them--especially the tablet--into mobile versions of our aging PCs using only FOSS. While we are still undetermined on our entry into Android development, we are fascinated on how entry-level models have gone a long way from being unusable to adequate, minus their cameras. As for our PCs, we hope to replace our Latitude 5480 in four years (totaling to nine) before demoting it from Primary to Secondary.

Lastly, we spun off one of our internal Bash scripts into a public project. SheFF--short for Shell FFmpeg--prompts the user with options to build their FFmpeg command, FFmpeg being the multimedia multi-tool used by YouTube and NASA's Perseverance rover in Mars. Colloquially, SheFF is a video converter. Before developing software, media transcoding (conversion) was part of our production activities since the beginning, and finding the right tools was not easy. So, not only is SheFF a convenience for us, but also a throwback to our media production years, even though it missed our 14th anniversary by a few weeks.

As this year comes to a sighful close, we are looking forward to see what 2023 will bring. You can help by actually looking after one another; not faking it. Likewise, we greatly appreciate those who reached out to us, particularly for J-Card Template--we should really work on it soon. With only seven minutes to New Year's Eve (UTC) at this time of writing, we wish you a great 2023.