I found it very amusing that I wrote a javascript for loop

for( int j=0; j<checked.length; j++)

Ahh, C comes back to you at the oddest times.

I’m pretty happy with Flickr’s new video service… I took this video back at the beginning of Feb, and tried to upload it to YouTube, where it was promptly rejected for being in the wrong format. I didn’t want to bother converting it, so I just forgot about it for a while. Flickr, on the otherhand, instantly uploaded and converted the file for me. All I had to do was pick the file. Since I’ve been ridiculously busy, I can’t beat the convenience factor with a stick! So enjoy!

Until further notice; learn python. It is a hybrid language, and it is gives a reasonably un-biased PLT context.

My friend Raluca just wrote me this tweet…  saying “I just found the funniest comic that someone made about @edwelker”.  The scary part is that I never told her that I actually did that…

I just finished writing a not-so-simple, not-so-complex PHP script.  First, lemme say that I had a good time with it, since it isn’t either XSLT or Portal (my workplace’s homebrew) code.  It’s kinda refreshing to look outside of my multi-month project.  Exciting, in fact… despite how insignificant (in the grand scheme of things) it is.

I’ve got to admit, thought, that I don’t really like PHP.  I’m not going to bash PHP outright (as I’ve heard MANY people do).  It is a programming language, and it certainly has it’s place.  I’ve used many things written in PHP.   In fact, I feel bad about the way people dismiss PHP.  That said, I still don’t like it.   My problem is that I feel PHP is simply too verbose.  There seems to be a function for everything.  It is the total opposite of Scheme, where every function is a based on a handful of core functions.  I have had to deal with a number of languages in my life, and I certainly prefer languages with as little syntax as possible.

I spend a lot of time googling the functions.  And then the parameters.  And then the return types.  And then I run across another function that is kinda like the first one that I saw, but slightly different (maybe even described as more or less efficient!)  And then I have to research the return types.   I’m mostly bothered by the related functions.  Just give me something I can use in different ways.  Don’t give me the kitchen sink and tell me to choose the faucet type.

This is the same problem that I have with XSLTs.  It is a rather verbose language (which happens to usually be interspersed in XML/HTML).  This makes it hard to pick-up in a hurry, and makes it unintuitive.  This is important.  Unintuitive.  I spend a major part of my work day making sure that all of the webpages, all of the components, all of the behavior… even the URLs of my work are intuitive.  So I don’t like to accept much less from the tools I work with.

To extend the analogy slightly further… I have seen that when websites are unintuitive, that said websites can fail.  Is the same thing the case for programming languages?

I have no time for anything!

This is how I usually feel. There are so many things in the world that I want to do/know about, and yet they all take time to do/learn. I don’t have any big to-dos that eat large chunks of my time either… I work, I have my orchestra, I eat, and I relax. I try to use relaxation time for learning/discovery (when I can, of course). It is just very hard. I haven’t taken an analytical approach to the problem yet, but I think I should sometime soon (of course, that may take a while to get to.)

I don’t often rely on calendars, I may have to start. I don’t feel like people ‘rob’ me of time, but I think I should pay attention to that. And of course, I am always trying to make my learning/doing time more efficient (that’s the only thing I have down pat).

Ok, enough rant. Now just a little tip-of-the-hat to what I’ve missed recently… the FringeDC Meeting, the Refresh DC Happy Hour, the first Refresh Baltimore Meeting AND planning group, as well as my books, especially the Web Navigation, RESTful Services, Graph Theory, and Discrete Math books!  (This is not to mention the projects I’d like to get started!)

Maybe I’ll just win the lottery. That may buy me some more time.

My new resolution: learn how to take better photographs, simply to reduce the time I spend editing them!

I’ve decided that once I do that, I will retire my Olympus C-8080, and move on to a Digital SLR. Reviews are mixed (at best) about the E-3, and I may like something better than the E-510. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself… use the camera I have first!