Thread for geekin'


Hey TWT, I just got a book on VBA. Pretty cool stuff. I know you don't like BASIC but I was able to streamline a bunch of stuff I do all within a day!

Sorry man, I know of no one else to share my excitement with :D ... they just don't understand.

VBA? What's that stand for again?

Anyway, I'm feeling good, too...my calendar script kicks izza**, and I'm learning a lot from Project MoFo. Anyway, I know it's too late now, but IMO, VB, BASIC, and VBScript suck! :) They're fairly popular in the corporate world, but I'm not nuts over them. CFML and Java are the only languages that I dig that also happen to be lucrative.

I know about dongles! Only men haf them! Waaaaahhhh!!

Toose, I forgot to bookmark new forum & Tyler is soooo slow answerin his email. Please email me with URL.
EMAIL DESTRUCTED! hahaha! This poost will self destruc as soon as Toose emails me. Pardon for bargin in TWT. Pardon pardon.
[Edited by PigsnieLite on 10-19-2001]

Go to MV's homepage and click on the Forum link.

Thank you TWT but that link on MV didnt work at first. But it works now all of a Sudden! Bye bye. See you soon, LOLL. :bawl:

Hello pigsnieLite...miss ya...:D

All programming languages (including Assembly) are for wussies. I just take a soldering iron and hardwire the logic straight on to the chip.

Ya, but on something one square inch, you can't possibly find room for subclasses, getter/setter methods, or more than a conditional or two. And good-freaking-luck trying to fit a constructor there! :D

Bah, who needs constructors? It's all broken down to 1's and 0's anyways.

Bow down before my godly presence, you HLL-using pansies. :D

Hee Hee. You binary burner you! You ROM inducing Fodder! All your HiMem does is turn the lights on to allow the giant brains a library in which to work!! :D

Ha! I have know idea what you guys are talking about,but your banter is freakin' hilarious! I get a kick just reading your male posturing...:laugh:

Hi Arthur
I have only one thing to say to you...

1000-1001
0-10010-10100
100-1111-10111
0-10010-10100
10100-1000-1111-10101 ?

I'm sure you'll figure it out.... :)
[Edited by Toose on 10-21-2001]

ohmigoodness...it doesn't get any better than this.Someone should write a book on all the ways computer geeks can insult each other...is anyone else watching this?:laugh:

Behold:


<?php
$v = 4
$x = 17;
$y = 2;

$z = (($x % $v) > $y) ? ($x / $y) + $v : ($v * $y) % $x;
print $z;
?>


The above code is PHP code...any idea as to what it outputs to the client? :)

Don't know PHP :)
Mine's all binary... like arecibo... only not such complex subs as DNA :D

Well, if I ignore bit incosistencies, and assume that the numbers are unsigned, I get this:

8-9
0-18-20
4-15-23
0-18-20
18-8-15-21

If I covert this to ASCII, it makes no sense at all. If I use corresponding letters of the alphabet, it makes more senese, since the first line would say "Hi". I'm guessing it says something along the lines of "Hi, how are you?"

Piece of cake. Though this is the first time I've ever seen php code, it's obviously based on C, so it's easily solvable.

Let's see, if 17 mod 4 is greater than 2, then 12.5 is printed to the screen. If not, then 8 mod 17 would be printed to the screen.

Since 17 mod 4 is 1, the screen output would be:

17

Yep. Pretty simple really...though many people are intimidated by the way it looks. You'd be amazed at how many people are not familiar with the ternary operator...personally I love it. And yes, it is a C-based language, yet suited for the web, which is what I like about it. Anyway, I only posted it for Sades, who's into this kind of stuff. Wasn't really planning to stump anyone with it.

Oh, well you asked for the output.

I think the ternary operator was invented mainly to confuse newbies. :) I know I was confused back when I first starting looking at C code.

LOL, quite likely. I posted it on SitePointForums awhile back, and a few people seemed pretty much convinced that the question mark and colon just didn't belong there. :) I thought it was cool right off the at...It makes things much easier on me. On a related note, I think OOP was invented for the same kind of reason. :) I see it's value, but I just can't get too high on it. I use it now and then, but I find I can do things just as easily with functions.

Yes, I agree about OOP. I can do most of the same things using global structs.

Thanks T...it's been cracking me up!:laugh:

Hmmm, I'm not familiar with those (I generally use more web-oriented, abstract languages)...would I be correct in assuming that they work in a similar fashoin to subroutines, functions, subprocedures, methods, etc? IE: accept arguments/parameters, return values, and other such things?

Hmmm, I'm not familiar with those (I generally use more web-oriented, abstract languages)...would I be correct in assuming that they work in a similar fashoin to subroutines, functions, subprocedures, methods, etc? IE: accept arguments/parameters, return values, and other such things?

No, they don't accept parameters or anything like that. They basically create new variable types (by "type" I mean like int, short, etc. I don't remember the exact terminology). Here's an example of some structs, from a program I was working on recently:

typedef struct coords
{
float x,y;
} coords, *coords_ptr

typedef struct stars_typ
{
coords p;
} stars, *stars_ptr;

typedef struct ships_typ
{
coords vertices[4];
float xo;
float yo;
float x_velocity;
float y_velocity;
int status;
} ships, *ships_ptr;

typedef struct shots_typ
{
coords p,q;
int color;
float y_velocity;
} shots, *shots_ptr;

stars star[100];
ships ship;
shots shot;

If I want to say, change the status of the ship to 2, I would do this:

ship.status = 2

I find it kind of nifty. :)

Oh! I do remember reading about those...I think it was on the CPlusPlus.com tutorial. Yeah, I know what you mean...data types. Seems a lot like an object in that respect, really. Anyway, I did read about them a little, but never got into it. C/C++ bugs the heck outta me...I don't need that kind of power. :D There is such a thing as TOO abstract, though. I dig PHP because it's a nice balance between the two. Flexible and simple, but far from lacking in power. I feel the same way about Java (gotta love Java :)).

Honestly, though, I must confess: I do use CFML a bit. It seems like newbie junk, but I have to give it credit for being exactly what it wants to be: easy to learn, easy to use, and good for FAST web applications.

BWAAA HA HAA!! oh my god, my sides. :D :D :D this is the most ridiculous thread i've ever seen, i just thought i'd share that. i don't know if you're kidding or what, but damn, i'm laughing.

Kidding? I don't understand. If you're asking whether or not we're making this up, the answer is no. :) The acronyms, opinions and code here are all authentic, I believe.

ok, i'll stop kidding... *spff...* *must stop laughing* *stiffled giggles* no, don't worry you guys aren't nerds or anything.... *more stiffled laugh* :D

ok, i'm playing. do you guys remember the superfriends from the simpsons? they were those nerdy kids bart had to hang out with when he discovered the comet. do you folks sit around and talk to each other verbally in code? THAT i would like to see.

LOL. Naw. One thing I really dig about programming part of the time is that most people are kind of shocked when they hear it. I sort of think the same thing myself about people who know more about programming than I do: how can they go out bowling, or the movies? They're not NORMAL humans, after all. :) It's really not a big deal, though. We're no different than a mechanic overall...it's just about the knowledge. However, people are sort of "afraid" of computers for some weird reason. A guy will try to tell the mechanic what's wrong with his car, but when it comes to a programmer, most just sort of take a step back and keep out out of the way, when it's really not that complicated...it's just intimidating. It's all in yer head, though. :)

Heck, I could have you writing simple PHP programs that accept user input in a day or two of training, tops. Computers are just hard to get started with, and are still fairly new to the mainstream public, so people tend to think that people who work with them often must be nerds living in their techno-dungeon. :D

Yeah, I remember the Superfriends. It was funny because while Bart was forced to hang out with them, Lisa hung out with them voluntarily.

And speaking in code is fun. Actually, I've never had a consversation in code, but it sounds intriguing (I must be a nerd or something). Actually, in elementary school, I was practically a stereotypical nerd. I had huge glasses, and my friends and I talked about GW-BASIC and Batch programming at recess while everyone else was playing sports. One day in fifth grade one of my friends brought a printout to school with Pi to 40 decimal places, and we committed it all to memory (and I still remember the first 25 to this day - how pathetic is that?)
[Edited by Arthur Dent on 10-23-2001]

Ugh...that's bad. Even worse than the fact that I can recite the Greek and Hebrew alphabets...which is of 100% absolutely no use to me in any practical way whatsoever. Anyway, math isn't my bag, baby. Much credit to you sir, for apparently mastering something that I despise. :)

A programmer who despises math? Say it isn't so.

Why did you learn Hebrew, BTW?

I didn't learn Hebrew...just the alphabet. Ditto for Greek, although with Greek, I came fairly close to learning a bit. Just never got any farther, and I've forgotten most of what I learned. I do hope to learn a language (spoken language, that is) at some point, but for now I'm just stuck with two foreign alphabets taking up valuable brainspace. :)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I hate relational databases sometimes!

I could not link up the tables I needed no matter how many times I pounded on the monitor!!!!

I outer joined, I inner joined, I equal joined... all to no avail. I had to parse data to make it work!!!

Frustrating.


PS I hate you data non normalizers out there!!!

MySQL makes it easy as hizzell. Example: say you want to grab a record from a table full of articles, which has an "aid" field which references the ID for the author, in the authors table...you want to get the article data, and the authors name. Behold the ease of MySQL:

[code]SELECT a.articleid, a.title, a.body, a2.name FROM
articles a, authors a2 WHERE a.articleid = '1' AND a.aid = a2.authorid[/code]

You're talking about querying data that is existing in a database... I'm talking about building the table structure so it can be queried.

MySQL syntax appears to be the same as what I use in SQL server

Yeah, it uses a very standard syntax. I don't understand: linking them while building? We talking about foreign keys here or something?

Primary keys, Foreign keys etc etc. Basically I'm taking HUGE piles of information from several sources in several formats and building tables in a central location so the data can be accessed. Finding the correct, normalized data to link all of this together is major pain. Right now I have 20+ tables of data that i have to relate together (no "aid" or computer assigned primary keys cause then those tables wouldn't make sense to the others)... some tables have upwards of 20000 records, some only have 50 records. Linking tables like this together will cause them to barf unless you use the correct SQL joins... PAIN IN THE ARSE!!

Ah, I see. That threw me off...I always have to "unofficially" create my foreign keys, so to speak. It's up to me to make sure they all line up properly. Works well enough. And yeah, that's a lot of records. This forum has one table that tracks words and such...around 500,000 records! Yikes. This whole forum has 30+ MB of data...and that's just raw text. :)

Hey TWT

I fixed up my Crystal problems...

I had field parameters set... actually the field defaulted to return values only above 0 and I had tons of 0's in the fields. I just don't know why it defaulted like that... never done it before.

Databases are like women, you have to caress and care for them and pay oh so much attention to them or they'll get mean.... and they'll wait for the most inopportune moments to argue about it.


:D :D :D ;D Love ya ladies!!!

Pff...no wonder this thread is called Geek Speak!

Glad to hear it's fixed...you're beyond me with this DBA stuff, though. I'm a scripting guy for the most part...though I want to head into more DBA-style work, seeing as how it's easier once you've mastered it, and tends to pay better, from what I understand.

Yup! even a dummy like me can understand it! :laugh:

Just realize that the pitfalls are plentiful, I fall in to one every day. You must set everything up in the beginning with a clear plan on how it's going to work in the end or you're dead.

Guys
I am a software oriented person versus a hardware oriented person. I just started the A+ course but am no where near enough completion to figure out my current dilemma...

My computer intermittently recognizes my cd-rom drive. By that I mean that sometimes when I boot it sees it and sometimes when I boot it doesn't see it. When the pc sees the cd-rom drive, it works perfectly so I don't think it's the drive. I've reloaded the drivers etc to no avail. On the boot sequence it shows up as the correct letter... what gives? Any ideas?

Is the problem still occuring, Toose?

You want more geekspeak, there's a book for hackers @ my aunt's bookstore & it's free if you want it. Sum is dum but alot is major gs. if u want the adrs http://www.freelookbookstore.come

Love,
Jozie

Thanks guys... got it solved. I had a bad CD burner. It was powering up, no device conflicts, no boot errors etc. Didn't know it till I tried to use it. Finally I took it out and the computer works great again. That's what I get for buying the cheapest burner I could find. I'm going USB next time.

TWT

You wanted to see some working SQL...
Here's a portion of what I wrote yesterday... selects data, and manipulates it every which way... update queries today :)

SELECT QryMasterData.bl_id, QryMasterData.AFM_bl.name, QryMasterData.fl_id, QryMasterData.rm_id, QryMasterData.area, QryMasterData.count_em, QryMasterData.rm_cat, QryMasterData.rm_type, IIf([count_em]>1,[count_em],0) AS [Emp Count>1], [count_em]-[Emp Count>1] AS [Emp Count=1], IIf([rm_type]="FUL",1,0) AS [ADM FUL Count], IIf([rm_type]="OFF",1,0) AS [ADM OFF Count], [ADM FUL Count]+[ADM OFF Count] AS [Total FUL & OFF], IIf([Total FUL & OFF]>0,[count_em],0) AS [FUL & OFF only Emp Count], IIf([Total FUL & OFF]>0,[Emp Count>1],0) AS [FuL & OFF only Emp Count>1], IIf([FUL & OFF only Emp Count>1]>0,1,0) AS [DO FUL & OFF Count], IIf([Total FUL & OFF]>0,[area_uplifted],0) AS [FUL & OFF only Uplift SF], IIf([rm_cat]="LAB",1,0) AS [LAB Count], IIf([LAB Count]>0,[area_uplifted],0) AS [LAB Uplift SF], IIf([rm_cat]<>"LAB",1,0) AS [Admin Non Lab Count], IIf([Admin Non Lab Count]>0,[area_uplifted],0) AS [Admin Non Lab Uplift SF], IIf([count_em]=0,1,0) AS [Unnocc Space Count], IIf([rm_type]="FUL" And [count_em]=0,1,0) AS [Vacant FUL Count], IIf([rm_type]="OFF" And [count_em]=0,1,0) AS [Vacant OFF Count], [Vacant FUL Count]+[Vacant OFF Count] AS [Vacant FUL & OFF], [Total FUL & OFF]-[DO FUL & OFF Count]-[Vacant FUL & OFF] AS [Single OCC FUL & OFF Count], IIf([Vacant FUL & OFF]=1,[area_uplifted],0) AS [Vacant OFF & FUL Uplift SF], IIf([rm_type]="FUL" And [count_em]>0,1,0) AS [Occupied FUL Count], IIf([rm_type]="OFF" And [count_em]>0,1,0) AS [Occupied OFF Count], [Occupied FUL Count]+[Occupied OFF Count] AS [Occupied FUL & OFF], IIf([Occupied FUL & OFF]=1,[area_uplifted],0) AS [Occupied FUL & OFF Uplift SF], IIf([Vacant FUL & OFF]<1,[area_uplifted],0) AS [GSF WO Vacant FUL & OFF], QryMasterData.area_uplifted, QryMasterData.chrg_ind, QryMasterData.rm_std, QryMasterData.AFM_paycc.name, QryMasterData.paycc_id, QryMasterData.dp_id, QryMasterData.option1, QryMasterData.option2, Left([AFM_paycc.name],4) AS Option3, Left([dp_id],4) AS Option4
FROM QryMasterData;


Here's some of that Autocad .lsp I was telling you about...

(defun C:NAMEIT (/ names PT1 size Nam)
(setq Nam (getvar "clayer"))
(command "Zoom" "E")
(command "layer" "M" "DWGNAME" "C" "7" "" "")
(setvar "clayer" "DWGNAME")
(setvar "orthomode" 0)
(setq names (substr (strcase (strcat (getvar "DWGPREFIX") " " (getvar "DWGNAME")" "(date_stamp "MM/DD/YY"))) 57))
(setq SIZE (* (- (car (getvar "EXTMAX" ))(car (getvar "EXTMIN" ))) 0.02))

(setq CEN_PTX (+ (car (getvar "ExtmAx")) (* SIZE 2.0)))
(setq CEN_PTY (cadr (polar (getvar "Extmin") (angle (getvar "Extmin") (getvar "Extmax") ) (* 0.50 (distance (getvar "Extmin") (getvar "Extmax"))))))
(setq PT1 (list CEN_PTX CEN_PTY 0.0))
;(setq PT1 (getpoint "\npick name spot"))
; (setq size (* (car(getvar "EXTMAX" )) 0.02))
(command "style" "DWGTAG" "hlVBold" 0 1 0.0 "N" "N")
(command "TEXT" "J" "C" PT1 Size 90.0 Names)
(command "Zoom" "E")
(command "style" "ARCHiSEL" "ROMANS" 0 1 0.0 "N" "N" "N")
(setvar "clayer" Nam)
; (command "Move" "L" "" pt1)
)

Hizell of a lot of trouble to stamp a name on a drawing eh? :D

Well Toose, that settles it... you are now officially INSANE!!!

And think, people used to call me a geek in high school b/c I had this amazing thing called a website... sheesh!

Was there ever any doubt my good man?

Not since you volunteered to help me out... How's that saying go, "sucker born every minute" ;) :laugh:

:rotfl:

I will never be as geeky as you guys are (T and T2). Mose and I are really tryin to catch up though. :laugh:

Well, you guys just speak a different language...

:laugh:

I'd say it's much much easier than the stuff you're working with, but after doing something for so long, anything's easy.

Okay, I'm sad to report that I was able to follow most of that code. MOST, thankfully. If it had been all, I'd have had to kill myself. I'm not a DBA guy. Don't know if I wanna be either. :nope: Thank goodness I didn't follow the second block of code at all.

Impressive stuff, though. And yeah, Spud's right: everyone thinks "Oh, I could never do that," but it's just not true. I taught my sister basic HTML when she was 8...we're all capable of it. But people get creeped out when it comes to techie stuff.

I used to do some visual basic programming in High School and it really wasn't that difficult once I understood the logic and commands.. I couldn't even write a program that popped up and said "hello" anymore though :)

I did some of that too. Only problem was...it wasn't an actual class, the teacher just gave me the book and said, "do this". Needless to say, I gave up on it and just made a web page for him that broke down his Exploring the Internet syllabus. I never got it finished and the images don't even work anymore on it.

This was why I asked if you ever used IIF (Immediate IF) statements... you can see them peppering the SQL in my code. It basically takes the place of IF, THEN, ELSE in many conditions. Non SQL syntax would be for example:

=IF(fieldx>1,fieldx,0)

In english.. if fieldx is greater than 1 maintain that value, otherwise set fieldx to 0

In standard SQL you would set it like this
IF[fieldx]>1 THEN [filedx], ELSE 0

With IIF you can set this:
IIF([fieldx]>1,[fieldx],0)

Saves you alot of work in defining the parameters for the THEN and ELSE.

There's my tip of the day:D

Yep, me knows. I had to use it in a CFML script I wrote a few months ago. And vBulletin uses it sometimes because (I think) not all versions of PHP support the ternary operator, which does the same kinda thing, and works like this:

$var = (condition) ? value_if_true : value_if_false;

And yeah, when I saw those throughout I thought "aha." It was pleasantly surprising to understand part of it. :laugh:

Okay

SQL Server 2000 IS THE BOMB.

Has anyone used it? Chris? DTS Packages? I'm going to automate myself out of a job.


Oh, Chris, while I'm on the subject.... have you created any database stuff with XML yet? I'm getting my feet wet and I'm really liking the flexibility of it.

Since I'm updating geek stuff I'm now hardware certified. A+ in the bag. Now I'm studying i-net+

Wow.. I'm speechless.

WTF? :confused:

Boy do my days of making silly either-or-choice stories with Basic seem....basic (fortunately i wiped them all one day by writing the wrong thing on the prompt line. Live and learn. Or alternatively - blame your 'puter and think about burning it ;))

Means I don't have a clue about what is being discussed in here.

Nah, not really. I've got a book on it, though. You can have it. :DEh, Sorta kinda. I've played with XML a bit, but for the most part I've just tried to take XML data and format it with XSLT. Gave up quickly, though, because I wasn't really trying to accomplish anything specific.

If I had to, I expect I could take data from an SQL backend and turn it into XML with PHP (which actually has built in functions to handle and parse XML), but I haven't really done so yet. Only once did I have any reason to, and I found a way to do what I wanted without it.

Seems like content syndication is where it's finding it's niche.

Check the screenshots.

The first one is a connection to a remote server and a variety of steps to achieve an end result. Basically I connect to a server, grab a source database, drop my current tables, create new ones with the same criteria and populate it with new data all by pushing the green play button at the top. That's raw freaking power. I'm talking about 1/2 million records being parsed, formatted, and transformed into a single table.

It's like your dad giving you the keys to the Lamborghini and telling you "go slow, son *wink*"

The second is a shot of one of the transformations via column mapping.

/me is impressed.

I wish I was a geek. I'm just a nerd.

Aha! Welcome to geekdom!

We need new members. If I'm not mistaken, you do have to install and administer SQL server for MCSE, correct? It's really a cool tool and it's so powerful it's frightening.

If you ever work for one of these multi gazillion dollar organizations like I now work for... pretty please tell your co-workers that push technology makes the worker bees feel like stinging (especially in the arena of OS patches that take a better part of a morning to run). Push as a last resort should be the focus.

thank you

[/soapbox]

DITTO :bawling:

He he....

A$$hole.


I'm sure you're saying I'm never off of it, aren't you?

:D

No, I was saying that even you are occasionally funny.

Buttmunch.

Re: Geek Speak
 

I'm resurrecting this thread to see what geeky stuff everyone's doing.

Yoda, check out your post #65. Boy were you on the money.

Re: Geek Speak
 

Hmm... the closest I've come is taking a very easy Intro to Computer Information Systems class... hardly geeky. I got an A in it, though.

Re: Geek Speak
 

Cranky Geeks - Quite simply the best webcast on the ... ermmm ... web.

Later on today I'm gonna flash my router, which is apparently illegal in the majority of US states...

I'm thinking of slipping the router a Mickey first. ;)

Re: Geek Speak
 

Aye, good idea, T.

I've been geeking it up a lot lately with all the new MoFo features, though most of them are pretty old hat; taking database records, outputting them, and formatting them with templates.

I did have to get pretty creative for MoFo Lists, however. It's a big confluence of PHP and JavaScript.

I was going to try to break down the logic of the application step-by-step, but as I started I realized it would be ridiculous to read, and hard to follow, so I'll try to sketch out a somewhat rougher overview...

At one point in the process, I was simply planning to wipe out all related entries everytime someone submitted a list, and then insert whichever ones had been checked. After all, the version being submitted is the latest version, so why not dump the others?

Well, for three reasons: first, unless I checked for the existence of each entry, it'd have duplicates. The way the system works now is that there's a table for movies, and a table which logs movies seen; the "seen" table needs to apply to ALL lists, so it doesn't bother with associating itself with any particular list. Second, I wanted to know when each item was added, and I couldn't wipe everything out each time a new list was submitted without losing that. And third, I wanted to be able to track the addition and removal of items, which you can see on the list updates page.

So, to do all this, I would need a few things. I already know which items are checked when the list is submitted; that part's easy. But now I need to also know which items were checked when the page first loaded. I need to know for two reasons: so that I can compare this list to the new one, so that I know when someone has UNchecked an item, and so that I can make sure not to delete the items that were checked, and stayed checked.

It breaks down like this:

- Items that were unchecked and stay unchecked, get ignored.
- Items that were unchecked and get checked, are inserted into the "seen" table.
- Items that were checked and stay checked, are excluded from the "delete" list.
- Items that were checked and get unchecked, are added to the delete list/deleted from the "seen" table.

I ended up tracking which items were checked originally upon page load by having hidden fields which share an ID number with them. These are all stored in an array, and when looping through the list upon submission, I use the PHP function array_key_exists() to see if the movie's ID can be found in the array. If it can't, that means it was NOT checked when the page loaded, and I can safely add it to the delete list (just a variable containing ID numbers).

If it CAN find the ID in the array, then, then it was checked to begin with. So, I check it against a copy of the submitted list; if it's not on there, that means it was checked, but was removed; so I add the ID to another variable ($removedmovies) for later, and add it to the aforementioned delete list variable.

After all that, whatever's left can simply be inserted. I added those IDs to another variable ($addedmovies). When I'm done, I insert both $removedmovies and $addedmovies (both comma-delimited) into the updates table.

There's more, but this gives you an idea of all the little details needed to get this sucker working. It looks so very simple at first glance, but it ended up being one of the more involved applications I've written in some time. It's ironic, too, because the intial version was very simple. At first, the movies were just stored as text titles, with duplicates and everything. There was no carryover from one list to another when you checked off a movie that was on both. Changing this fact ultimately complicated everything about the application, but has made it much more robust.

There's some little JavaScript touches, too. For example, when the edit page loads, there's a hidden, empty form field. Everytime an item is checked or unchecked, a JavaScript function is triggered. First, this function checks to see if the item in question has been checked, or unchecked, and switches the CSS classname of the movie title so that it's either plain, or crossed out. Then, it changes the value of the empty form field to "1." This lets the script know that you've made a change -- any change.

The result is that whenever you change lists using the dropdown menu on the right, the script checks to see if the value of the form field is 1 -- if it is, it knows you've checked (or unchecked) something, and asks you if you're sure you want to leave the page without saving your progress. It's a small touch, but these are the kinds of little extras I live for.

Code available upon request if you want it, T. Dunno how useful or interesting it would be, especially to someone who isn't wading knee-deep in it, but it was an interesting project for me for a few reasons. One of which being that it started off as uber-simple, became suddenly and frustratingly complex, but when finished, felt surprisingly elegant. I still think there are some significant inefficiencies in it, but I'm fairly pleased with where it is. There's lots of room for expansion and the like.

What about you, eh? What are you up to, geek-wise?

Re: Geek Speak
 

I watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager recently...

Re: Geek Speak
 

I always love your mods and your home grown code. It's fun being on the outside of the process and watching it come together. Believe me, I'm well aware how things can look very simple yet require backend logic that most people don't think of unless they get involved in the process.

I doubt seeing the code would be of any benefit to me as I have yet to traverse the PHP waters. I have the PHP book from Sitepoint but haven't even cracked it open yet. From a similar perspective as yours though I can definitely see that you put a lot of work into this place and I frequently say to myself "hey that's cool, wonder how he did that".

As for me, I'm working on wrapping my head around .NET. ASP.NET in particular with C# on the back end. I'm still heavily involved in DB work but the limitations in reporting (Crystal etc) were beginning to bother me so I started learning ASP so that I could display data from the collection of databases that I run. It's turned into somewhat of an obsession as I never realized how powerful Visual Studio is straight out of the box. Right within an application you can design and host a SQl Server DB, manipulate it anyway that you can think of with a variety of available programming languages, display data on the web etc. Right now I'm drinking from a fire hydrant there's so much to learn about all of it. The catch is, of course, that your web server has to be running the .NET 2.0 framework but even that is becoming more commonplace these days. I built a little webserver and shoved it under my desk to host all my little intranet projects and it's really been a blast.

I'll probably start poking around at Ruby on Rails soon too, more as a personal interest project than anything else. I've read up on it a bit and the technology behind it look pretty cool.

Also, totally off of that train of thought I'm still playing with Flash for fun and was surprised to learn that you can integrate flash controls to work with SQl Server data. Not up to speed on that at all yet but it's another rat hole I want to go down.

Re: Geek Speak
 

The sad thing is, there are a couple times where I went back and looked at my own code and went "how did I do that?" And not always in a good way.

Let me know how the SitePoint book is, if you would. I started learning PHP from the free tutorials that eventually became the book, and I'm curious as to how it turned out. Is it still using the example of a joke database, for example? I always thought that was a pretty good way of learning things. Second only to perhaps a database of books.

The fire hydrant analogy is a very good one, I think. There's just so much out there; access to data just isn't the hurdle anymore. It's all about who allocates their time the best and latches onto the best technologies.

Yeah, people are really talking about that. I dunno, though; I don't buy into anything anymore until I see it firsthand. So many people have created frameworks that work great, provided you buy into them completely. And to anyone who hasn't ever done that before, they're blown away when they first do. These things hook you, but then down the line you find yourself wanting to do something it can't, or to use another technology for something, and you realize you've boxed yourself in a bit. Not you, I mean, but the people who fall in love with these things.

I'm generalizing, and this may not apply to ROR at all, but it's just something I've seen with various new "hot" technologies. Even the ones that catch on don't usually end up doing everything they say they will. They seem to fall into a niche doing whatever they're best at. Case in point: Java's great for a quick GUI, but it's not running absolutely everything, like a lot of people seemed to think it would.

I admit to not knowing much about Flash, but from what I do know, they've done a great job of allowing (or at least not stopping) other languages and the like from "plugging into" them. PHP's one of them, I believe.

Anyway, Flash/ActionScript/whatever is pretty far over my head, but yeah, you can do some pretty cool things with it.

I'm actually very intrigued by the whole Flash dynamic. Before, anything that was particularly flashly or "smooth" on a website was Flash. HTML was always clunkier; the closest it came to emulating it was mouseover effects. Now, this Web 2.0 stuff with the JavaScript Prototype framework (which Scriptaculous and MooTools are both based on), and AJAX, has made the two harder to distinguish from one another. I've been wondering for awhile now as to whether or not that'll cut into Flash a bit, since there's a larger barrier of entry to it.

It'll be very interesting to see how that develops.