The BeOSJournal recently caught up with busy Elliot Rosenberger, who not only programs in BeOS, ports unix applications in his spare time, but is a high school student in his alter ego. ;)

Hello Elliot, how are things?

Hey hey hey! I'm doing alright.

Are you a longtime BeOS user?

Well, not really. I was first introduced to BeOS when I moved to Vegas in June of 1999. Our cable provider carried ZDTV, and BeOS was a favorite to show off in The Screen Savers. Ever since seeing it in action, I had wanted to get it, but being a 12-year-old with no computer all to my own was a bit of an issue. Of course, when PE came out, I rejoiced and downloaded it the second it was posted.

Unfortunately, I ran into some hardware issues. My modem was unsupported, as was my sound card. As much as I enjoyed using it, I couldn't really use it full time for the above reasons. Eventually, however, I had gotten a newer computer with much more BeOS-friendly hardware, and had used BeOS for a while on it. Eventually I discovered Linux and migrated to it, but after a few months of dealing with stupid errors and obscure configuration files, I went back to Windows. Soemtime after deciding that Windows was boring, I switched back to BeOS and have been using it for about 2 years as my main OS now.

What got you into porting the Firebird releases for BeOS in the first place? Is each release a difficult process?

After running Firebird in Windows for a few minutes, I wondered how it would run on BeOS, so I went out and looked for build instructions for Firebird and BeZilla. After sort of "merging" the instructions together and proceeding with them, I had a working Firebird build for BeOS. Overjoyed with my "achievement," I set up a web server and posted Firebird on it. Within 5 minutes, my modem disconnected me due to overwhelming traffic.

And I'm not done yet.

Each release really just consists of downloading the latest Firebird sources, unpacking them, and typing "make -f client.mk build". As you can tell, this is pretty overwhelming for the average person, so I do it for them.

I don't really see myself as a Firebird or Mozilla developer. The Mozilla source tree is absolutely huge (well over 500MB), and I could never work with anything so big. All of the credit for making Firebird so great (or not so great, in some people's opinions ;)) should go to the actually BeZilla developers, not me. I just simply package things up for them so they don't have to.

Do you think FireBird will ever become the default browser in BeOS?

I sure hope not, although silly yellowTAB seems to think it's a good idea! I see Firebird as sort of a stepping stone -- a placeholder until we get a proper, BeOS native web browser that can handle the majority of websites out there.

Firebird goes against the BeOS philosophy in nearly every way. Different keyboard shortcuts, different widgets, different everything! Although it's a good product in my eyes, it's simply not a "BeOS product."

What is the most compelling thing to you about BeOS from a purely conceptual viewpoint?

Ooh, tough one.

After some thought, I suppose the main thing is the speed of the GUI.

I tried using Mac OS X for a while full time, but eventually ended up selling the iMac. It's just not worth it to use an OS that can't handle doing things as fast as I would want it to.

BeOS, although not terribly fast internally, gives the highest amount of speed possible to GUI response, and so although things might not be terribly efficient inside, it sure seems that way in the outside, and in the end, isn't that what really matters?

How long have you been coding, and what are your tools of choice? How hard did you find "computing 101" in school, and did the teacher ever give you a hard time for being so into computers?

Let's see... I first started learning how to code sometime in 8th grade, which would be sometime in 2001. I went directly to what's considered the most popular language by most, C++. After a few hard years of struggling, programming is coming more and more naturally to me now. Sadly, I've developed my own "programming style," which completely conflicts with the BeOS API, which would explain the lack of BeOS apps that I have released. Most of my coding projects consist of using the Allegro library for graphics routines and standard C functions for calculations and whatnot. I have to say that I find making my own GUI system in Allegro comparable in difficulty to using the BeOS API for programming. Of course, I think far, far differently than the average BeOS coder.

Hmm... I suppose "Computing 101" for me would have been in 9th grade in my "Keyboarding" class. While everyone was halfway through lesson one ("Let's learn the home row!"), I was well past lesson 3. Needless to say, they moved me out of that class and placed me in Website Sciences, a class designed to teach students how to manage Linux web servers.

Curveball question for you.. ;) What muppet are you and why?

Statler, because I can't help but nitpick at everything, including everything I make.

(Too kewl. I'm very much like Waldorf myself. -chris)

Can you explain Allegro a little bit, and your interest in it?

Allegro is a graphics library to be used in C and C++ programs. It's mainly useful for those developing videogames, as it makes drawing sprites and whatnot to the screen very, very easy. However, it's also very useful for those wanting to develop cross-platform applications. Just about any program that uses Allegro can be compiled in DOS, Windows, Linux, and of course BeOS with no changes to the source code. An excellent example of this is the MMORPG Engine I wrote which sadly didn't get terribly much exposure.

What is coming in your coding future?

You mean, what secret projects will I come out with next?

Well, at the moment I'm not furiously coding on anything BeOS related. My largest computer-related project at the moment would be the VegasDebate.com website, which I'm taking extra care to make sure it renders on NetPositive, even though I'm undoubtably going to be the only BeOS user on the site.

As soon as the site is completed, I'll likely end up working on MMORPG Engine some more (a friend has been developing on it lately, adding new features to both the online portion of the engine as well as the level format) and fixing up some Preference apps on OpenBeOS.

Do you enjoy the internet? What do you do online, and how do you spend your time when not in school?

I think the Internet is wonderful. A network allowing for people from around the world to connect to each other, discussing and providing information to each other on numerous topics, and even having some recreational time together (online games ;)). Sadly, a network of such complexity allows for differing standards, one of the largest as far as BeOS is concerned being the HTML specification. Fortunately, though, most websites render to the point that you can at least read the content fine on NetPostiive and, failing that, there's Firebird.

Online, I mainly talk to friends and browse the web. Occasionally I'll play an online game with friends (at the moment, America's Army: Operations is the current obsession ;)).

Outside of school, I generally just "hang out" with friends. I got my driver's license a few months ago, which gives me oh-so-much more freedom than ever before. ;) I'm involved in numerous "after-school" activities, including speech & debate, mock trial, electronic music club, and science club. Outside of school sponsored activities, I'm enlisted in the Civil Air Patrol, which is basically a cadet program for those who might in the future be enlisting in the Air Force.

And, of course, I spend time on the computer.

Where do you picture yourself in 20 years time?

Hmm... that's truly hard to say, seeing as to how often the industry changes. My two main subjects of choice are computing and law, with computing being the most realistic of the two. Most likely, in college I will be majoring in computer science and minoring in law. Hopefully, after I graduate I'll be working at some small start-up either sysadmin'ing or coding on projects.
Of course, if that plan fails, there's always the Air Force, which isn't as bad as most people would imagine it to be.

What is your all-time favorite movie?

Requiem for a Dream! Darren Aronofsky is a genius, as is Hubert Selby Jr. After you're done with the movie, be sure to check out the book too! Beware, though -- both are of a controversial nature ("when drugs go wrong") and are pretty graphic and detailed.

As a young developer, and fairly new (recent years) BeOS programmer, do you feel attached to the BeOS Community? You've been hearing lots of stories about the "R4.5" days, and before, when BeOS was moving into a (then) future with gusto. Do you think that's still true today? Do projects like OpenBeOS, B.E.O.S., and Zeta excite you, and if so, why?

Yes! The BeOS community is half the reason that I still use BeOS. When I first logged onto BeShare sometime in 2001, I couldn't help but be amazed as to how much help was being offered to me, rather than just simply being told to RTFM. The BeOS community is BeOS's greatest asset. Sadly, some parts of the community have changed in the past two years, primarily due to Be's downfall and yellowTAB's secretive and at times unprofessional appearance, but all in all, it's still the best OS-related community I've had the pleasure of dealing with.

I'm really not quite sure how to respond to the next question. In some ways, we are still moving ahead with great things in sight, but in others, things are at a relative standstill. I suppose that in the end, although Be Inc.'s BeOS is dead as we know it, things are still moving forward without them. BeOS itself is being adapted to the future, both through things like kernel hacks (Athlon XP support, etc.) and recreation projects (OBOS, etc.).

OpenBeOS, BlueEyedOS, and all the other recreation projects excite and worry me at the same time. It's great that BeOS is being recreated so that it can adapt to users' needs in this generation of computing, but what happens after it's recreated? What if people start grabbing the OBOS R1 sources and making their own distributions? What if someone decides that things should be kept in /beos instead of /boot on the boot partition? It takes just that little change to add another burden on developers to make their apps run on all distributions of OBOS.

And then, there's the legal problem. Just how legal -is- OpenBeOS? We're doing a lot more than just reverse engineering for compatibility. We're taking programs and cloning them pixel-for-pixel. Are Palm or what's left of Be, Inc. going to ever decide that they don't want people recreating what they can make money out of?

As far as Zeta goes, oh, boy...

They're grabbing BeOS, "improving" it by creating a few thousand "lovely" applications that are about as consistent as the typical Linux application, and filling it up with multitudes of redone Be, Inc. programs (mainly preference applications) which don't even compare to the originals. With crappy original apps, thousands of freeware BeBits applications to make the installation take well over a gig of space, a broken font renderer, and a team that has absolutely no training in professional GUI design, Zeta is bound to destroy the BeOS community. Oh, and the new decors suck too.

The sad part of all this is that we don't even know how legal Zeta is. Despite being questioned numerous times in various places, including the yellowTAB forums, we still have not had any substancial proof to warrant that Zeta is legal. All questions regarding the legality of Zeta are either simply avoided or responded with something along the lines of "Yes, it's legal."

WHERE IS THE PROOF? Where are the legal documents regarding yellowTAB's ability to distribute a modified version of BeOS? Nowhere, as far as the general public can see.

Furthermore, yellowTAB's "bragging" about Zeta is extremely annoying. "Zeta can do this! Zeta can do that!" when R5 can do EXACTLY the same things. Ooh, wow, drag and drop! I haven't seen THAT in R5 before!

Will we see more of your mad coding skillz in the future, regardless of where the future of BeOS leads?

If by "mad coding skillz" you mean "absolutely horrid, easily breakable program writing skillz", of course. As long as BeOS still runs on my hardware and nothing better has come along, I'll continue using it full time, coding all the while.

Thank you very much, Elliot. It was a pleasure talking with you.

You too!

Great.. see you on BeShare!

See ya!

Elliot Rosenberger is a 16-year-old student living in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. He is involved in numerous projects and activities, both BeOS and 'real-life' related. He can be reached via E-Mail at elliot@rodentindustries.com.