XSW SP #1 – Darkside of the Shell (2000-06-09)

Welcome to the first issue of XSWeekly Special Edition.  In
this letter I sit down and talk a bit with the creator of DarkStep,
Fahim Farook.  I have also done a write up of the shell and a brief
history of its conception.  Some of you know that I am heavily involved
with DarkStep so you may see some favoritism in this letter towards it.

In 1999, after Fahim departed from the LiteStep development
team he went underground and starting working on a new shell.  In late
October of 1999, I received the first private beta of DarkStep.  To
say I was excited to get to play with a shell written by one of the
better LS Developers is an understatement.  Although the first few
builds were unstable and buggy, it grew into something more.  It grew
apart from its LiteStep roots and is even now evolving into a fully
featured, user friends setup.  It is becoming what Fahim wanted LiteStep
to be.

What is DarkStep?

The aim of DarkStep is to be an easy to use alternative shell
for a user with any level of computer expertise – whether they be an
expert or a novice. This is achieved by transparently doing all the
work necessary in switching shells. The configuration of the core
DarkStep components is a snap as well due to the fact it is all done
via a graphical user interface where you simply click a button or check
a box with a minimum of typing. However, the modules themselves will
probably require a fair bit of computer expertise because most of them
have been designed in such a manner that their configuration requires
the editing of text files and a fair amount of documentation reading.
Hopefully, this situation will improve in the future as more and more
module authors code easier to use modules.

DarkStep is not an open source project though an SDK will be
available for module developers with any extra help necessary provided.
While it is not an open source project, DarkStep will never be a
commercial application either – it is rather what you might term
“Donationware” <g> It is completely and utterly free without any
restrictions for you to use and distribute but if you like it and would
like to send him books, clothes, money, hardware etc as thanks, he will
not say no :-) Some might question this attitude in this day and age of
open source projects but he has decided to keep this project closed
source mostly because of the fact that he has seen the code that he and
others worked on for LiteStep for so long being used without a word of
thanks or any mention by others in closed source projects. That sort of
attitude has soured him on open sourcing and as he worked very hard to
shape DarkStep into what it is, he doesn’t want the same thing to happen
with DarkStep …

I have known Fahim for a while now and consider him a true
friend.  I find him light hearted and deeply commited to this shell.
The following is a brief interview I held with Fahim and I think that
you can gather the same feelings that I have.

<XSWeekly> Ok well i know how much you hate these damn things so thanks
for even hopping on.

<Fahim> I don’t hate it that much … but I just can’t get to efNet
from work and I’m hardly online except to get e-mail from home.

<XSWeekly> What finally drove you to leave the LS dev team and start
ds?

<Fahim> Nobody knows the answer to that one – including me <vbg>
<Fahim> Actually, I guess it was a lot of things going on at once:
a) I’m mostly a loner who works best on his own b) all the
fighting going on in the LS community at that time especially
about certain decisions I’d taken regarding LS and the demands
by certain people that they be kept informed because they’d
worked on LS too …
<Fahim> c) The direction I wanted LS to take as opposed to what the
others involved with it at that time wanted to do …
<Fahim> d) My need to be a loner ..
<Fahim> e) My need to work on my own <vbg>

<XSWeekly> Is DarkStep the direction you would have taking litestep in?

<Fahim> Definitely! What I planned for LS 0.25 was all ease-of-use
features … I wanted LS to be  so easy to use that even
newbies would start using it.
<Fahim> I kinda lost sight of it when I first got working on DS because
there was so much to do and I was basically going with the
flow at first but I’ve kinda got back on track again with
0.970 …

<XSWeekly> So the current gui configuration of the shell is the path
that you see DS taking in the future?
<XSWeekly> Ease of use over configurability?
<XSWeekly> Or do you plan on doing both?

<Fahim> Yep! I wanted to make even modules GUI configurable so that
they would dynamically update  when settings changed even
during my LS coding days – remember LSDesk? That’s the
precursor to all the GUI DS native modules that will be coming
out soon …
<Fahim> I don’t see any decrease in configurability just because we
went GUI … how do you mean?

<XSWeekly> Well now were stuck doing things by menus and specific GUI
sets.  In a LS environment, many interesting things have come
about from mods that the designers never dreamed of.

<Fahim> Not necessarily … I think what happened in LS is more due to
using the same settings in an innovative way … the same
settings will still be available via the GUI so why should
there be any less innovation?
<Fahim> The only area of innovation that got taken out is with the
Step.Rc specific text editing stuff …
<Fahim> And that is basically due to a limitation in the Step.Rc format
itself because modules can’t write to the Step.Rc through the
API and so themers had to adapt …

<XSWeekly> Good point.
<XSWeekly> What do you have planed for the next release of the core?

<Fahim> The next release? I really have no idea… Currently, my major
goal is to get all the native DS modules converted to GUI …
<Fahim> I think the biggest challenges there will be the Popups and
SysVWM.
<Fahim> Then, I intend to take a look at Mike Lin’s TraySaver source
and strip out all the GUI stuff so that what will be left will
be an exe that keeps track of the system tray …
<Fahim> I will then incorporate the Exe in the DS core so that DS will
launch that Exe as the first app launched by DS so that even
if DS crashes, the TraySaver-lite version will go on and so
allow you to recover most of your system tray …
<Fahim> I would like to keep a solution that even other shells can make
use of… I believe the only problem with TraySaver b10 is that
it takes over as the shell and some other problems and once
those are eliminated, the version I have in mind should work for
any LS compatible shell (and systray module).

<XSWeekly> Many people don’t know that you are not from the US, tell
us a bit about where your from and how living here has been
for you.

<Fahim> I’m from Sri Lanka – a small island nation in the Indian ocean
… some call it an island paradise though the country has been
going through a civil war for over 20 years and has a lot of
problems … but it certainly is a beautiful place …
<Fahim> Living here? It’s been an experience :-) I enjoy most of the
perks of living here – access to the best computer hardware,
software, books etc … and I enjoy the width and breadth of
the country – I’ve been to (or at least traveled through)
about 10 states so far and you see such a wide variety of
people and places …
<Fahim> But on the other hand, it also looks very similar – I hate the
fact that most of the big chain buildings all look the same and
this is mostly something I’m used to and not so much a fault of
the US itself in any way <g> but I find myself constantly being
lost because all the buildings look alike – or rather I’d think
I recognize a landmark when it is just another BurgerKing or
Waffle House like the one I saw two states ago. <vbg>
<Fahim> The other negative thing is of course what I’ve talked to you
about personally – the kind of stupor that I see people in over
here (at least most of the people – but not any of the
Internet generation that I’ve met virtually …).
<Fahim> People are satisfied to live their lives out in a tiny little
corner and think the “experts” (the lawyer, the doctor …)
control their lives because they know better – even when their
advice is blatantly against common sense ..

<XSWeekly> How do you feel about some of the personal attacks against
you?

<Fahim> I have had relatively few personal attacks and none directly -
I do hear of somebody saying something negative about me but
that’s it … Nobody has so far written to tell me “You
suck!!!” :-)

<XSWeekly> ON that thread, how to you feel about the shell community
as a whole?

<Fahim> I like the shell community as a whole and enjoy the sense of
camaraderie and the fellowship … but I do hate the bickering
and nitpicking that crops up from time to time …
<Fahim> And the competitiveness that goes “my shell is better than
yours” – I would rather that we all lived together in
harmony… (or at least, tolerance <g>)?

<XSWeekly> Do you see that as the eventually downfall of the shell
scene?
<XSWeekly> This competition on an unhealthy level?

<Fahim> I don’t think that the shell community will actually die
down … it might disintegrate a bit but it will keep on
going …
<Fahim> Because there will be more and more users coming in just as
there are more and more shells and each shell will have some
userbase – whether it is just the shell developer.

<XSWeekly> Out side of programming what other hobbies do you have?

<Fahim> I read (fantasy/SF mostly but almost anything from historicals
to westerns to romances …), I love PSX games (Grandia, Star
Ocean 2, Wild Arms, Brave Fencer Musashi etc …)
<Fahim> I enjoy music and movies as well …

<XSWeekly> How do you feel about the “hero worship” some users pay you?

<Fahim> Err … people hero worship me? <vbg> News to me :-) Most of
the people who do write to me are usually very businesslike -
they are polite and thank me for what I’ve done, but they
don’t  have any qualms about telling me if I did something
wrong either …
<Fahim> Actually, a lot of them are really friendly and helpful and go
to insane lengths sometimes to give me a bug report …

<XSWeekly> Anything else you would like to add?

<Fahim> Nope … I think we’ve gone through quite a bit … but lemme
know if you have any further questions or would like any
clarifications ….

<XSWeekly> Thanks for your time and putting up with my question (=

<Fahim> We don’t need to do polite interview ending stuff here demi :-)

To best sum up this letter I will quote Fahim, a quote that is
now displayed on FPN:

“alternative shells aren’t toys for power users alone”

- demigod