Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by kryten 4719 days ago
I spent several years using outlook, apple ical and windows live calendar. I then ended up having to write a backend for icalendar protocol and saw what a shit crock everything is. It's a miracle any of it works.

Last year I moved back to a paper diary and a mechanical pencil. It is considerably more flexible, readable and editable. I hit several brick walls with computer based calendars particularly with having to add complex events like "every third Friday but not the 25th because I'm on holiday then".

Free form is sometimes better than structure.

Its like going from a relational database to a document store.
1 comments
icebraining 4719 days ago
If you want a flexible calendar application that can handle rules like that, you need Remind[1].

For example, if you want to be reminded every third Friday of the month, except on 19th of July because you're on holiday, you can write:

  OMIT 19 July MSG Holiday
  REM Fri 15 SKIP MSG My Event
Now you ask it to print the events for the next six months:

  $ remind -s6 test.rem
  2013/07/19 * * * * Holiday
  2013/08/16 * * * * My Event
  2013/09/20 * * * * My Event
  2013/10/18 * * * * My Event
  2013/11/15 * * * * My Event
  2013/12/20 * * * * My Event
As you see, it skipped "My Event" on the July 19th, because it was an Holiday.

[1]: http://www.roaringpenguin.com/products/remind

link
kryten 4719 days ago
I can't really be bothered with all that after basically writing that entire solution for a private company. Another metalanguage to learn...

Plus I have to have a network connection and log into a UNIX box for it which I can't do whilst I'm on the phone as it's stuck to my head at the time.

link