Though it shows just how little I've used it, I've just [a few days ago] been introduced to Visual SourceSafe's (a Microsoft versioning system) ability to drag a file from one project into another. Now, whenever the original file's changed, it's changed in *every* project that references it.

Whew boy, that could be a bad thing. If you break compatibility with earlier versions, you could bring someone else's code crashing down. Same thing if someone comes back to maintain older code later and there's been a version update without taking shared projects into account.

I'm sure there's some way to help mitigate that in VSS, but even more importantly is that it gets programmers to start thinking of individual files of code more intelligently. You have to factor correctly for these things to work in separate projects. No more undeclared wacky, project-specific, global-scope variables. Now they *have* to be parameters, and so forth. Very nice fringe benefit of sharing code. It actually starts to look like code should.

Speaking of code that doesn't look like it should, my trialware app is about to [finally] be released. Incorporated the business and registered with three levels of government so that I can do business. Also went over to Kagi.com to get an account. Why Kagi? Well, that's traditionally the place Mac shareware registers, and I'm afraid it's just Kagi's dominance in that particular market, combined with their longevity (to this point, at least) that's got me interested. They do, however, have a few good perks, like a permanent email forwarding address (rufwork at kagi dot com for me) and a permanent URL that forwards to your site. These are, ultimately, very small things, but they really do decrease the price of admission for shareware authors. Now you don't have to worry about getting your own domain, etc, before starting up your business, if you don't mind passively advertising Kagi when you're taking the shortcuts.

And now the "port" to Mac Classic begins. Wonder if that'll bring any dough whatsoever.