brytonmoeller / the-red-spider-project

Coding and xkcd combined, for fun!

The Red Spider Project

[https://github.com/the-xkcd-community/the-red-spider-project]

Why

Because we like to combine our love for the xkcd comic with our love for coding, and we want to share the experience.

How

For the impatient: fork the project, then

git clone [email protected]:yourname/the-red-spider-project.git redspider
cd redspider
git remote add upstream git://github.com/the-xkcd-community/the-red-spider-project.git
git config branch.master.remote upstream
git config branch.master.merge refs/heads/master
./setup.py
rsshell

The project is like a small, self-contained operating system layered on top of your actual operating system. People can add programs at will. It's an open-ended process without deadlines or a final goal and we're very open-minded.

What

When you run rsshell the following commands are available to you.

• xkcd-fetch: Manages an offline xkcd comic database for you. Run with -h for help.
• xkcd-search: Searches the database from xkcd-fetch for keywords. Run with -h for help.
• json-parse: Manually inspect JSON files. Undocumented.
• level_up: An RPG-style lines-of-code counter which pops up a "level up" message when you pass a milestone in a programming language. Run with -h for help.
• summon: A generic file/URL launcher which can handle any file type your underlying system supports. Run without arguments for help.
• fortune: A command that randomly or specifically displays good #xkcd IRC threads from a cache or the XKCDB website.
• godel: Translates mathematical formulas to Gödel numbers and vice-versa.
• random-number: Generated a random number by simulating a fair dice roll. Run with '-h' for help.

The following commands are expected to be added soon.

• spider-life: A Conway's Game of Life variant with two colors and four different topologies for the universe.
• xkcd-windows-wallpaper: A Windows app which sets your wallpaper to an xkcd comic of your choosing.

Where

• Home page
• Issue tracker
• Wiki
• IRC channel: #redspider at foonetic.net
• xkcd forums thread

When

We started in March 2012. In the first few months we spent most of our effort on the infrastructure. In July we were treated to some splendid logo designs and we got a homepage. In December we launched our IRC channel and in March 2013 the wiki took off. In the meanwhile several members have been working on various subprojects, mostly in short bursts of activity.

In the near future we may expect a few big improvements to the infrastructure.

Who

Julian coined the idea, qubital set up the GitHub repository, Neil wrote most of the initial infrastructure code and Joey designed the logo proposals. Please also refer to the copyright notices in the source files and to the Authors.txt, which lists all the authors who decided not to add their name to some file they edited.