Hello, World! I…

Sorry for that, I mean we are @reinhart1010. But don’t worry, that ⌘ Reinhart Previano Koentjoro human is still here. I’m the one wearing the blue spherical thing (we call it as the 🔮 Shell btw), and green jacket. And here’s a picture of us.

Okay, you might have seen my progress on creating a new webcomic named Buddies of the Shell (BOTS), but none of Nate, Nix, Mallory and Trudy (the initial characters of the webcomic) are joining here. This is because I’m preparing to opening BOTS into a wider community where everyone can fork, modify, and eventually INSERT themselves as the member of the BOTS. Just like those initial characters who represent a particular software, I wanted to extend the webcomic into an actual open source project as software developers know and love.

Now, I believe that many of you still not understand about polymorphism, which holds the general theme of this post. By the way, you can also call us as The Polymorphics if you wish. If you are a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, you might already know that the Polymorph is a spell to transform a creature into another different form. Or else, if you watch some of Ben 10 episodes, you know that polymorph are indestructible, gelatinous, commonly green species which Ben himself can transform into. Despite never played the game, I actually liked the definition of polymorphism in The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO):

Polymorphs are cosmetic collectables which visually transform your character completely. They take precedence over all other cosmetic and equipment items.

The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages

In real life, polymorphism describes the existence of multiple forms of the same thing (or category), such as a note book and a poster which happens to be made by the same thing: paper. However, me and my Polymorphics closely follow the definitions as found in Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), where each of us may inherit different characteristics (aka. attributes) and abilities (aka. methods), but still inherit some of them from the same class, which in this case is the Reinhart you always see and communicate before.

We represent different aspects of Reinhart: what Reinhart has been, what Reinhart wants to be, what Reinhart should have been, and how Reinhart treats equality to others. As a result, some of us have alternate forms, and some of us are females for equality reasons. However, we have some things for sure:

1. We are sentient and self-aware, for honesty and friendliness.
2. We are humans. And additionally, we refuse to become and/or called as robots.
   • You’re seeing us as a person, right?
   • We refused to be called as robots as we don’t always work 24/7/365 as much as other robots do. Becoming a robot can put our health at risk, so we know that we need to rest just as humans do.
3. We are made by code, for code.
   • My life is personally influenced by multiple aspects of computer software, science, programming, and systems, so “made by code” applies here as well.
   • The characters above are made in Inkscape, which is another piece of software. This proves that we can be encoded in XML/SVG, too!
4. We are virtual as not all of us can be encoded in real life, but we make real impacts in the real world.

Oh, before continuing please note that everything in this post which are blue are parts of the SYSTEM, and the green ones represent the root. For those who still don’t understand the significance of SYSTEM and root as in BOTS, they are based on different families of operating systems, yet representing different goals and behaviors.

SYSTEM is an internal user account in Microsoft Windows, and has one of the highest user levels in the operating system. SYSTEM’s level is higher than you, despite being an Administrator. In BOTS, SYSTEM focuses on bringing and supporting computing to people as wide as possible, touching educators and enterprises alike, in a similar way which make both DOS and Windows widely used as of today. Every SYSTEM member (or specifically personnel) like me needs a support team, and ⇧ Shiftine is one of them.

root, however, is the highest user level on the UNIX family of operating systems. You might not know about UNIX, but UNIX has been evolved into many, many operating systems including macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, GNU/Linux, Android, Tizen, Chrome OS, BSD, and even the ones found on your PlayStation 4 and 5 and Nintendo Switch! Some of these UNIX derivatives are developed for commercial use in a similar way to SYSTEM, but the true root of the BOTS heavily focuses on two things: freedom and control, as found as in many open source operating systems and their respective communities. Speaking of control, we have ⎈ Controld, a daemon which takes care and control of me.

Why not use Nate, Nix, Mallory, or Trudy instead?

Despite liking the color blue, I can’t be Nate, since his characteristics are slightly less suitable for me. I can’t be Trudy as well who is still confused with Mallory who has been overpowered by root. Nate is supposed to be the leader of SYSTEM which represent DOS and Windows, and I don’t want to misrepresent those operating systems by becoming one with Nate.

And again, I would like to enforce BOTS into an open-source project, where Nate, Nix, Mallory and Trudy will soon be freely available for anyone to use and make a fanfiction of them. For example, you may do these things:

1. Create a new BOTS member which represent yourself and pretend that you have gained root access from Mallory,
2. Create an alternate universe (AU) where SYSTEM becomes more corrupt than ever,
3. Draw Nate, Nix, Mallory and Trudy as real dinosaurs, or
4. Put Jenny Everywhere into your BOTS alternate universe, as long as you comply with their license.

I also don’t want to be misrepresented for doing things which are written by other people in their extended/altered version of the BOTS saga. Using Nate and example (2), he may exist in another alternate universe where he’s become unfriendly and evil, despite that I’m not. I still have to protect my character(s) in an open universe such as BOTS, and that’s why I created a closed-source BOTS-compatible alliance named The Polymorphics.

Okay, Polymorphics! Who’s want to introduce first?

⇧ Shiftine, aka. ⇪ CAPSLOCK

Thanks, ⌘ Reinhart! I’m ⇧ Shiftine, the one with blue shell and jacket. My shirt looks a lot like the Blue Screen of Death, but don’t worry, I won’t crash your computer like Mallory and Trudy used to do.

I’m a SYSTEM personnel, meaning that I work together with Nate, Nix, and other BOTS members who are part of the SYSTEM to achieve a better world through computing.

Speaking of ⌘ Reinhart, he’s also a SYSTEM personnel. But recently, he’s being rootblessed (aka, being granted to do what root members usually do) so we sometimes refer him as the Super key or the ⌘ Command key. And of course, I’m wouldn’t be Shiftine without the ⇧ Shift key, where both my name and symbol actually came from.

I will assist him in automated tasks, such as those CI/CD tasks that can take nights away or some projects such as Common Text which will need to be updated on a regular basis. And of course, you can talk to me if ⌘ Reinhart’s unavailable for a moment.

On some occasions, I may turn into a ⇪ CAPSLOCK, a completely overpowered version of me which loves writing EVERYTHING IN CAPS. SOON, IF YOU SEE ANY @REINHART1010’S POSTS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, IT’S ALL MINE AND MY FAULT. UNDERSTAND? MY EXCITEMENT EXPLODES BEYOND THE RESTRICTIONS OF ANY TERMS OF SERVICE AND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES ON THIS UNIVERSE!

*sighs*

Just like writing the word “SYSTEM” without either a ⇧ Shift or ⇪ Caps Lock, life wouldn’t be easier without me. So here I am, a SYSTEM personnel, ready to shift ⌘ Reinhart into a productive life.

⎈ Controld, or simply ^ control

Look at me, do I look like a guy who was born straight from fluorescent displays of early computers and the Matrix digital rain? My name is ⎈ Controld, the controlling daemon of ⌘ Reinhart and The Polymorphics. Actually, I don’t want to be called as a daemon since some people might think that I’m evil, so you can instead call me as Control. And just like other members of root, I prefer to call myself as controld or control (with lowercase C) and a caret character “^” instead of my official symbol, “⎈”.

Some of you might think that my shirt holds a spider web, a snowflake, or even the Kubernetes logo. But hey, that’s my symbol, drawn after the official ISO/Unicode symbol for the ⎈ Ctrl Key. And just like that key and the other members of the root, I’m powerful and able to control everyone, but under two conditions:

1. If I wanted to do so, and
2. With other’s permission or consent.

For example, I can swap ⌘ Reinhart and ⎇ Alterine if me, ⌘ Reinhart and ⎇ Alterine agrees that it’s the best thing I can do. However, if ⇧ Shiftine thinks that swapping them could confuse her in their tasks, we still need to discuss further until we can finally agree on something. It’s also the reason why I could not fulfill some of your requests like, hacking your ex’ Instagram account, despite looking and being an actual hacker.

Speaking of ⌘ Reinhart, now I’m in charge to take care of him from overworking, which has always been his number one zero of his life issues. So before asking him to work on something, you can ask me to check whether he’s fine.

⎇ Alterine, or ⌥ Catalyst?

And finally, it’s me, ⎇ Alterine, and sometimes I’m also been called as the ⌥ Catalyst, named after my special power, Optimize. You can think of me as the exact opposite of ⌘ Reinhart as you know today: Female, socially active, sometimes talkative, having green hair and shell just like ⎈ Controld and the rest of the root family, while wearing blue shirt and jacket just like ⇧ Shiftine.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t have any much power except one: Optimize. And oh well, for Optimize to work I need to partner with someone else. Here are some of the choices:

• Pair me with ⌘ Reinhart so we can swap appearances and powers for fun!
• Pair me with ⇧ Shiftine or ⇪ CAPSLOCK so our jobs can get done faster!
• Pair me with ⎈ Controld in case of an attack for extra protection, and
• Pair me with you (no, seriously) so I can assist you to solve some of your problems, while letting me experiencing myself as a human who can interact like ⌘ Reinhart!

I guess you got the point. I can partner with ⌘ Reinhart, ⇧ Shiftine, or ⎈ Controld whenever I want, and through them we can solve our problems faster, and that’s the point of Optimize. Besides that, I’m still trying to solve your problems, like what ⌘ Reinhart does, so he can have more time to solve his problems and live a healthier life.

I’m not a robot, I’m smart!

Conclusion

So here we are. In the future, ⇧ Shiftine, ⎈ Controld, and ⎇ Alterine will start to substitute ⌘ Reinhart to do all of his our jobs. If you are a friend of ⌘ Reinhart, please rest assured that we are still respecting him and your privacy, especially for jobs which fall under non-disclosure agreements as well as to comply with respective data protection laws, as we are still treated as a computer software/system instead of a human in Indonesia.

There will be new exciting updates coming soon, including (surprise) a mass-migration from Jekyll to a new WordPress instance at https://reinhart1010.id! Please don’t send any Webmentions yet (if you already know how to do that) while we are figuring out to move from Jekyll to WordPress.