Coding myself crazy
So, I get finished with a roughly 14 hour day of working, about 12 of those hours being on the new St. James website and when I log in to my own Wordpress blog, I am alerted that there is an update to version 2.6! Will it ever end? I hope so. Of course, I’m crazy enough to try updating my Wordpress tonight. If I’m smart, I’ll wait until I have time to work on it.
I’ve been working on putting together the online store today and it’s been a bit of a pain. I am definitely a big fan of object-oriented programming, but there are definitely times where someone can take it too far. In fact, you can use object-oriented programming to such an extent that you manage to obfuscate what would normally be very nice, readable code.
In the case of the store component that I have been working with, the original programmer did just that. The code is a mish-mash of a whole bunch of files, each referencing each other. There are so many levels of things going on that it took me an hour just to wrap my head around the basics and start finding the bugs that I needed to fix.
That brings me to my second point—bugs. When you spend so much energy worrying about your objects, you not only forget to debug some stuff, you actually don’t want to debug. Because there is so much complexity that you have added, it’s a huge pain to debug your code. In fact, it’s a pain for others, too, especially when you hide your SQL queries all over the place and split them up, sometimes using global values for them, sometimes coding them into a function. Pick one method and stick with it. Your code and your users will thank you.
Twittering
I have decided to start using Twitter and as a result, have put a small area on my blog where you can see the last five twitter updates that I have posted.
It took a little while to get everything formatted properly. Apparently, the theme that I chose to use didn’t take into account what should happen if the title of a widget was a link to another web page. Additionally, Wordpress doesn’t really put classes around navigational entries, so I had to do a little bit of work to get everything looking proper.
My next goal is to put together a small tag cloud page. I just have to find some time to work on all of this stuff!
Now I’m happy with it, and it’s time to head off to bed.
Joomla! Goodness
I’ve been spending my past two weeks putting together a new website for work. We decided to use Joomla! as our CMS and I have been learning a lot about how the site is put together and doing a lot of patching and coding in both CSS and PHP. It’s been fun to get back into doing some programming. I’ve realized that I’m really rusty on my SQL, though. I’m going to have to buy a book and re-read about it!
So, this is a quick post. I’ll put a link up when the site is up and live. In the meantime, here are a few links to the stuff that we are using:
Joomla! Content Management Server (it rocks)
Rockettheme (because they have good taste)
Apple Macs (yeah, we have a lot of them at work)
Linux (for servery goodness)
PHP (the best language for the web)
Google (because I’m a big fan)
The Flea by John Donne
Here’s my addition to John Donne’s poem, “The Flea”:
And whilst this flea may have suckled we;
where one flea be, three more be hence.
Thus be I a counterdemonstrator—
I will callest me an exterminator.
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.
P.S. We have a bit of a flea infestation in the house!
Happy Fourth of July!
Everyone have a happy Fourth!