Category Archives: Code

Adventure Log, Part II

It’s been three weeks since I posted that last entry, but it’s been a somewhat eventful three weeks. I moved the weekend after that. I’ve been on various spurts of productivity and non; Tonight, for example, was very productive. I did a fair amount of coding work on a project I’ve been working on; I figured out how to get my router set up with OpenVPN in a non-standard way (It’s mounting my windows box for it’s config files, as well as the OpenVPN executable, giving me a fair bit more flexibility than I’d otherwise have). I also dived some into Quagga, which I need to get working to make fullest use of OpenVPN. I configured my work Ubuntu box substantially; It’s now making pretty full use of it’s graphics card (though it turns out that there’s a nasty tradeoff involved; I can either have my monitor rotated the way I want or have full graphical effects; Since they’re both cosmetic, I went for the graphical effects.)

I’ve also, since last writing, gotten a significant amount done in my personal life: I’ve convinced myself to join a dating site and message a girl (Though not gotten a response from that one, I think I can do this once more). Aforementioned programming project took a significant amount of getting over mental blocks; I figured out how to use SVN properly, and have myself a repository now. It is also heavily perl and regex based, which is good for me.

In the past few weeks, I’ve managed to get a number of other things done; I got my PS3 and Xbox set up in my new place so they can browse media, I got  OpenVPN set up between my work and cloud machines, as well as my work machine upgraded with my old desktop graphics card, enabling me to use it as a proper desktop.

Some of this progress has come at the expense of work, though; I know I’m not keeping up with my work as well as I used to. I did recently change to a new schedule, and that’s part of it, but a big part of it is just that I’m not doing anything. I’ve gotten some good insights, though, into many things; I’ve delved deep into areas that aren’t as common for the support team, and I’m certain that I have the best breadth and often depth of knowledge of the frontline group (and I think I stack favorably against the escalations group, too). We’ll see how it works out, though; Stuff has been bad at work for a few weeks, but maybe it is turning itself around.

On PHP design

I’m many things, but the part I want to talk about tonight is my coder. I’ve been coding for more than half my life: When I was 8, I started writing some basic LOGO programs in an extracurricular activity called Wiz Kids. (One of my best friends to this day, Donkey Kong, I met through the program, though we weren’t in the same session). My dad showed me some Perl back before web 1.0. I have a degree and a half in Computer Science, though I’m not certain what good either of those do me.

But I can code, and I do enjoy it. I just suck at it. Case in point: I just dug out a set of PHP scripts I wrote for a friend who has a webcomic. They’re not horrible, but I see so many things I could have done better. I’m fairly certain it’s actually secure code (which means something, in php), but the design is all wrong: It’s written as an application that you drop a layout into, rather than as a set of scripts you drop into a layout.

I’m gonna fix that, eventually. But, for the moment, here‘s the code. It’s used in only two sites, one of which is Brian Carroll’s Instant Classic Genrezvous Point. It’s an interesting exercise, but needs to be reworked. Still, not bad for a couple days of PHP coding without any real direction.