Thinking About the Geek Code.

I've encountered two websites discussing the Geek Code recently, which was rather fashionable in geek circles during the nineties:

• One was in MENJ's blog, in which he showed his particular Blogger Code snippet. The Blogger Code is essentially a fork of the original Geek Code. It also tells me that the last thing he'd want to have sex with is a blogger. Can't say I blame him.
• The other was in the Y!PP Forums, in which they were discussing an addition to the Geek Code, specifically one that was Y!PP-related.

The Geek Code's nice and esoteric and stuff, but there are several things about the whole thing that rubs me the wrong way:

• It's a centralized development effort, and the developer hasn't budged off his butt to work on it for years now. Presumably he's too busy with real life, which is understandable. Thing is, I think people have approached the creator to actually continue the whole thing, but apparently he doesn't like that. So, bwah.
• As a result of the lack of updating, the Geek Code website is so outdated. I mean, really. This was way before IMs and P2P, and what with all the fandoms the Geek Code doesn't really represent everyone on the Internet any more. Not even the geeks, a category which has expanded.
• Single developer, single point of updating, centralized decision-making… man, that just so sucks. The Code should really be extensible and linkable, with the abilty for Geeks to define their own symbols and ranges.

So it got me to thinking. What's stopping me from making a similar Geek Code system? Well, apart from pissing off the originator. I don't know, but here's what the new (proposed) code should do:

• It should be compact — I mean, we could do it in XML, but XML development, from what I can see, is like a whole troop of maddened kittens thrown into a tar pit.
• Plus, XML is remarkably elephantine for what should be a nice, clean code, which can be mildly comprehensible to anyone with an arbitrarily large number of neurons with active, healthy synapses.
• And then there's the issue of it being extensible. I don't think anyone should be in control of the Geek Code definitions. I mean, if you're gonna do it, you might as well link a definition file to the code block to some remote file.
• Again, brevity should win over completeness, though the link might be better off being a URI — everyone knows what a URI is. Well, you know 'em as URLs. Web addresses.
• What we should define, however, is the code conventions themselves, and how to define the Geek Code definition files. You'd need to talk about what each symbol means, and how you'd define symbols and stuff like that…
• It's too fucking late to talk about something so fucking trivial like this. Geez. But I'm obsessive this way.
• Anyway, geez, I don't know.

So. Basically, Geek Code could do with being modular, Geek Code defs should be left to The People (get a central clearing-house for Geek Code defs if you're worried about malformed definitions, and get a reputation of being reliable, instead hogging all developmental rights to yourself), XML is too fat for the Geek Code, and the new Geek Code should go as far as describing the conventions and the format for definition files and no more. And I should sleep earlier, and not do this sort of thing at 1 am in the goddamned morning.

So, anyway. Rambling. Ah heh.