Tang's DW

Gee, I think this software of mine is close to ready for release. I just need to brush it up a little.

... (create a todo list ... it's half a dozen things)

... (open the file, and there's a list of another half dozen things to do)

... (there are several known bugs that have no discernable cause)

... (none of the functions are documented and I cannot tell what one of them is supposed to return)

... (making it run well will require repeatedly rerunning it and massaging input data files)

... (it produces no output when given the same input that had produced good results the last time I had worked on it)

... (the file is still named test.pl)

This might take more time than I had thought.

When my comics routine starts to involve hunting through five pages of topwebcomics.com for the comics that I've started following since the last time I updated my webcomics list, it's time to build a new list. ( Read more... )

The ComicMix March Madness Tournament is going on. Surprising upsets:

• Ava's Demon (never heard of it) beat The Oatmeal (has a huge fandom).
• Grrl Power beat Scenes from a Multiverse and Order of the Stick.
• Commander Kitty beat Dresden Codak.
• Unsounded beat Homestuck, which has the most fanatical fandom on the web.
• Weregeek beat Cucumber Quest.
• Not A Villain beat Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
• Namesake (underranked at circa #350 on TopWebComics) beat Slightly Damned (ranked #2).
• Two Guys and Guy beat Penny Arcade and Sinfest.
• Girls with Slingshots beat Dr. McNinja and Unsounded.
• Romantically Apocalyptic beat Lackadaisy and Awkward Zombie.

Edit: With eight comics remaining, I predict the winner will be A Redtail's Dream beating out either Ava's Demon or XKCD in the final. I expect Ava's quality and novelty to beat out XKCD's fandom when they meet, and it even has a good chance to take the top spot itself since ARtD is currently going through a slow and boring story, while Ava's Demon is in a highly interesting storybuilding phase.

Edit: With four comics remaining, we have another surprise: Sandra and Woo knocked out XKCD. Compared to XKCD, S&W is in a better position to defeat Ava's Demon, having adequate art and matching Ava's in characterization and emotion. It is also the last comedy comic in the running and could take the whole competition for that reason, and its upbeat attitude may be an advantage over the downer storylines of the remaining competitors.

Yet another surprise is Bittersweet Candy Bowl beating Girls with Slingshots. I had thought BCB to be one of the weakest of the last eight and that any comic that could beat Dr. McNinja and Unsounded, as GwS did, must have a formidable fandom. Wrong on both counts, apparently.

So, a prediction: ARtD over S&W by a sliver in the last round, credit to the breathtaking full-page art. Let's see what actually happens.

Edit: Could I have been any more wrong? The two finalists are BCB and S&W. I would have placed both in the bottom half of the eight semifinalists, while my favourite ARtD got the least votes of the four. So now the question is which fan base is larger (or has more money), furries or lolicons? I predict Sandra and Woo will win because its author is making a bigger deal of the contest and turning out new artwork to invite readers to participate.

Edit: And the winner is: Bittersweet Candy Bowl, which annihilated S&W thanks in part to its fans' ability to buy more votes than were actually cast for it. And so ends any notion that I have a finger on what's popular on the web.

I fell back into a webcomics habit again. Here's an updated list. ( Read more... )