A templating system using the file system for inheritance

Way back in the early days of the web, around 2004, I wrote a templating system that used the file system for inheritance. I think Fred Toth originally conceived of the technique. 

In the directory /A/B/C you place the template M with content

Hello [%include N%]

You then have the templating system expand /A/B/C/M. It would execute the directive [%include N%] to include the template N by looking up the directory tree, in order, /A/B/C/N, /A/B/N, and /A/N, and using the first N it found. You would place common templates (eg headers) and default content (eg company name) in the upper directories and "override" them in the lower directories. It worked really well for the mostly static sites my department was creating.

I have not seen something like this elsewhere. You can, however, achieve the same effect by manipulating your templating system's template search path per output document.

The system came to be called Trampoline and it has a Perl and a Java partial reimplementation. The implementations are in the Clownbike project at Source Forge. None of the templates Clownbike used made it to Source Forge, unfortunately. Those became the proprietary web sites our customers were paying for. Galley, an internal project, seems to have some.

I have no idea if any of this code still works. I am sure to be embarrassed by the code's quality! Some quiet, rainy day this winter perhaps I will try running it.

Red Indian Pipes

On a walk this weekend I saw a red Indian Peace Pipe. Neither I or my wife had ever seen one before. Apparently, they are not common, but also not rare.

Setting a Mac's default email client

I mostly love using Macs, but sometimes the conviences provided are not. I needed to change my default mail client to Microsoft Outlook. You set the default mail client within Apple's Mail app's Settings. However, you can't access Settings unless you first configure an email account! Since I don't want Mail to touch a actual real email account I ran these mail services locally using Docker:

docker run virtuasa/docker-mail-devel

This enabled me to configure Mail to use "debug@example.com" and the local POP server. And now I can access Mail's Settings to set the default mail client to Microsoft Outlook. I really do feel for all those users without there own System Admin.

MSCHF's “Not Wheels” and Osprey's Gaslands

I recently saw MSCHF's “Not Wheels” and it reminded me of Osprey Publishing's Gaslands, a tabletop post-apocalypse vehicle combat game. Even if you don't play the game, getting some matchbox cars, salvaging greeblies from the inside of defunct printers, superglue, and some paint is a lot of fun for the whole family (well, some members of the family).

Examples of hardiness

I walked at Tippacansett this past weekend and I was drawn to these examples of hardiness. Perhaps I was thinking, consciously or not, about still being an individual-contributor software developer at 60.