What on earth is the username for?

[textzenith]

Thanks for creating this project — it sounds like a great idea, but I'm baffled already at the install process.

Why do I need to provide a username? No one else uses my computer.

Can I provide a wrong username? Does it need to be the same as my user account on my Linux machine? What if I later sync to Beeminder, does it need to be the same as my name on that platform?

So if go ahead and do python2 install.py textzenith, then later decide to install for another user with python2 install.py tabbythecat, what happens?

If the answers to all these questions are uninteresting, what is it going to do with my username, anyway?

Not sure if this issue will ever be answered, but it would great if it were. Thanks!

[syvb]

I think the username is just so that you have a unique filename for your log - if you ever want to share your log with someone else (who has their own log file), unique filenames makes it easier for them to manage the two files and not get confused about what file corresponds to which person.

[textzenith]

Hey, @syvb. Thanks for that!

Of course, that makes sense — I've been seeing how it works and it seems the log file is a pretty central concept.

I've come with so many annoying questions — grrrr! — I mean, what even is the average gap between pings? I've found it now, and it's 45 minutes (45 * 60 in the settings.pl) file, and while these things are fairly discoverable from within the source, I might propose a small documentation change later.

If, indeed, I can manage my time more wisely 😀

I like the Perl btw, I miss this language. It's so eminently hackable.