Lloyd's Lounge

So writing this blog software was a mess of fun. I didn't know a lick of PHP when I started but PHP.net's documentation has been fantastic. One brilliant thing they do is allow users to contribute their own notes. On a single page you can get snippets of code, horror stories, gotchas or extra information that relates to the functionality that the particular page is describing. Not only that but the documentation alone is simply comprehensive, easy to read, and easy to navigate.

Compare that to my recent exploits with Objective-C (it's not done yet, I got sidetracked by all kinds of things). Apple's online documentation was there, more or less, but navigating it was an exercise in frustration. They use this wacky frames set up (so 1994!) that doesn't seem to be consistent from documentation set to documentation set. God help you if you're trying to use the documentation reader in Xcode, despite the fact that all of the documentation is in HTML it doesn't seem to understand the concept of back buttons. The reader does have method searching capabilities but they're slow and touchy to the point of almost being worthless. Granted it should be said that PHP is just a scripting language for the web and Objective-C and is an actual programming language with a truck load of libraries for writing GUIs and major applications. Oranges to, well, Apples (I couldn't resist that one).

I'll go into my Xcode experience later. Basically it wasn't a good one and I quickly found myself back in Vim territory using quickfix with /usr/bin/xcodebuild just how I like it.

Anyway. Back to PHP. I'm considering releasing the source for this site once it's in a more stable shape. The next big thing I want to add is a way to browse archives but for now the basic functionality is there including some administration pages for editing and deleting that I finished today. Oh yeah, e-mail notifications for myself when a comment is posted would be nice and probably trivial to add. In any case releasing it would require me to extract the parts of the code that are specific to this site. That would mean some tricky CSS surgery but it would be interesting to try. Most of the PHP functions are already external to the documents so that bit is easy.

I love getting consumed with these projects. I was just talking to J (the girlfriend) about this idea right before I got sick so everything fell into place and let me work on it with out feeling too guilty; I should be packing right now for the BIG MOVE. The problem with these furious bouts of code bashing or project hammering is that my interest for the task can wane before I have it in a state that I can feel satisfied with. I'm sure I can easily fill up another entry with that topic.

I have every intention of finishing Happy Fun Ball, just not until after I've moved and settled in. At least I keep telling myself that.

you rule! this looks beauteous. love, me

I'd be interested in reading about your adventures in Xcode. I'm going through Apple's developer tools using a few Cocoa books for tutorials/reference, and so far it's going pretty well, although slow since I don't have a whole lot of free time.