The Happs

I think I've managed to confuse a lot of people lately. The comments that I've been getting on my recent posts confirm that. First, without any warning whatsoever, I start posting all of these articles about what recipe software needs to be like. I didn't explain why I was doing it, I just did it. And then in the middle of it all, I disappear for a while. What's up with that?

Let me explain the easy one first. I was in Mountain View, California the week before Christmas. The training center that I was teaching at was on Castro Street (which is not the same Castro Street as in San Francisco). Castro Street in Mountain View is a center of cultural diversity. I was within walking distance of Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Indian-Chinese fusion, Irish, Greek, Scottish (?) and a few other types of restaurants. For the record, I don't recommend the Greek place. It was worse than crap.

Anyway, the point is, I didn't really spend much time on my computer in the evenings. And when came home, we had no Internet. Fortunately, the holiday season managed to distract me enough that I didn't miss it too terribly until today, when I finally got around to talking the new landlord into hooking up the wireless again.

As to the recipe software. Some of you may recall some time ago when I was working on something called the Open Recipe Format (ORF). Long story short, people got busy the project was back-burnered for a while. I still had it in the back of my mind, expecially lately. Then a couple of weeks ago, Tuxgirl was asking me some questions about recipe software. I got a wild hair and decided to start talking about what I wanted to get out of recipe software. I figured it would be the best way to explain to other developers why I want to do the things I want to do.

If somebody else takes a look at my articles and decides to write their own software, so be it. At least somebody is doing it. I didn't have a whole lot of time then, especially since it was really a bad idea to work on it at work. I work for a completely different company now than I did when I started ORF, and my free time is different. I still refuse to work on it while I'm in the classroom, but I'm starting to have plenty of time when I get back to my hotel at night. I'm hoping to spend some serious time working on it again.

In the mean time, I still have a lot to say about recipe software and I'm gonna keep saying it. It's great having your own blog, isn't it? I also have a couple of dishes that I've cooked and taken pictures of, so if that's what you read this blog for, stay tuned.