Why?  Why do we not write perfect HTML?  Surely with the free validator on the authority’s website there is no excuse to write code that wont validate against the standard.

The answer there is simple, if and when all the major browsers (Firefox, Safari, IE, Opera, Chrome) all render a page according to the standard, then I will finally start caring about the validation of my websites.  Until then, I will continue to write code that works across the board, and just not care if it is “valid”.

To be real though, most of the browsers work pretty well, however the 800lb gorilla in the room, IE, does not.  Microsoft continually changes the standards by which they will render a page, like promising CSS 2 support in IE7 then bailing on that promise 6 months before release.  And let us not forget the horribly pathetic Javascript rendering engine, JScript, that the rest of us just ignore because it can’t be trusted to behave reliably.

So, like even on this website, we find ourselves writing “valid” code, and at the same time having to redefine valid to mean “Code that works in all the browsers”, not “Code that the W3C says is valid even though it looks like crap in IE6″.  Just to maintain a semblance of order and sanity, we use the handy IE CSS hacks where IE on Windows will actually arbitrarly execute code depending on the version of the IE browser being used.  Does that sound like an admission of guilt on the part of MS to anyone else?  OK Bill, repeat after me, “I know my browser sucks, so, instead of fixing it which would severely hamper my marketing and legal budgets, I will just allow hacks in order to ensure you nerdy web guys can still make pretty pages”.  There, was that so hard!?

So, someone feel free to run the validate against any of my websites.  Don’t bother sending me the results because I don’t care.  The sites work, the code looks good, documented, and is maintainable, so, what exactly was the complaint?

*valid code is extremely subjective, but let’s assume here I mean W3C “valid” code.

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“Want to make a website which features a different picture of a babe everyday.

Successful candidate:

• Must create and design the website
• Logo creation
• Provide 3000 original large, high quality photos with my watermarked logo
• These photos must be legal
• All copyright will belong to me
• Photos must automatically change as of 12:00 PM MST
• Must be able to and will be responsible for setting up the website with advertising program to ensure money is made from visitors”

The poster gave a max budget of $250….

Really!!!???

Let me make sure I understand…You want me to develop the software to power the site (admittedly very simple), design the look and feel of the site, create a logo, and come up with 3000 original photos of “babes” and then sign it all over to you, all for $250?  Then you want me to market it and advertise it?  What the heck do I need you for?  Let’s face it, you cant get 3000 images, even non-original ones for that price, but I have no idea what the photo shoots required would cost…maybe $25000?  For that many images there are going to be a lot of different girls, doing a lot of different things, in a lot of different places.  $25000 may be extremely cheap I don’t know.

I do know the person that posted this is delusional.  He/She wants to pay a paltry sum for someone to do ALL the work.  Usually clients have ideas, content, and know how to market their own stuff, but not in this case.  Maybe this person works in politics and thinks this is how the real work actually operates.

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thing.  Which I just don’t get.

If you are a programming, why would you use views?  It is adding a layer of abstraction between the logic and database in an interpreted language with a framework that is already bloated beyond all recognition.  I know when I write plugins for WordPress, I want the plugin to be quick, precise, and add the least amount of overhead possible.  Views just seem to be a way to do all the opposites of those, just for the hell of it.

If you are not very technically inclined, I understand.  Using views is a lot like using MS Access.  You can create fairly complex queries yourself, without having to get someone that actually understands it involved.  And that is the trade off.  You can do it yourself, and eat the extra overhead, or pay/hire/bribe/cajole someone else into doing it for you, specialized, and thus, in theory at least, more efficiently.

These folks claimed to be programmers though, so I just don’t get it.  Why are you depending on someone else’s plugin, that extends functionality that is inefficient and clumsy, can’t do everything, and still requires custom code to be written or even more plugins to be added.  Where exactly does that circular line stop?

The Drupal “framework” and I use that term loosely since it is really a CMS that can just be extended, has enough problems and bloat in it, why exactly are views worth adding more?  Again, assuming you know SQL and PHP on even a basic level.

It just doesnt make any sense.  Query writers and views are one thing if you are working directly with the database, (e.g. phpMyAdmin or TOAD), but adding it as a layer to a “custom” application that you will be supporting when you claim to be capable of actual programming!!??  Please explain that one to me.

To be fair, I dont use Drupal much, I like WP much better.  The OO approach is much more appealing than the very Perl-esque (read: old) way of doing things Drupal does with its modules. But I still don’t get what the big deal is about Views.

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The solution is simple: optimize your images.  I use Fireworks, but Photoshop has it built in these days as well.  It is basically a way of taking the image you want to use, and removes unwanted data, making the image size smaller, and hence, faster to load.  The web is a horrible medium for images, the 72dpi resolution of most monitors is just not that great.  But, it is all we have right now, and that is probably a good thing since anything more and the image just gets bigger and bigger.

By optimizing, your look stays intact, and everyone can enjoy it faster.  And it is cheaper on your wallet since it requires less bandwidth and less CPU to serve a smaller file.  Speaking of cheap, for those of you that do not have the Adobe suite, there is a pretty spiffy free online optimizer here.  Enjoy, and for the love of all things holy, optimize!

If you want to read more on the topic: HTMLSource.

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For those of you that have never programming professionally, this stuff may be very new to you.  However, trust me, it is extremely important.  Programming standards are not stupid, are not corners to be cut, and must be strict, otherwise they ARE pointless.

There are standards when it comes to documenting your code, and I wont get into them.  But if you are interested there are programs out there which more or less set the standard if you want to use them.  JavaDoc, PHPDoc, and for those MS folks….. .  Go check out their websites for good advice on how to format your comments in your code.

Now, for actually coding, I have my own set of standards, developed over the years, to make the code both readable, but also hopefully logical.  Most people I run into think my code is pretty readable, some languages more than others.  Let’s face it, Perl code will never, ever, be as readable or “pretty” as Python.  It just isn’t going to happen.  Sorry you old UNIX guys, but Perl just isn’t very pretty.  The OO languages are much easier on the eyes.

So, other than for documentation reasons, readability (which leads to maintainability), are there actually other reasons to program to a standard?  Only if you want to use your code in some sort of portfolio.  But those first two reasons are EXTREMELY important.  Everyone out there that has programmed professionally will know exactly what I mean.

Tabs or spaces?  Braces at the end of a line or on their own line?  Spaces between concatenation or operators?  Double quotes or single quotes?  Print to buffer or hold in variables?  Globals or object variables?  Arguments or variables?

There are a ton of questions, and I cant answer them all.  But think about why you do something, and if you cant come up with a good reason, probably time to stop doing it.

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We were headed up to OK, but found out there was a burn ban, and what’s the fun in camping without a fire?  We ended up at Martin Creek State Park, in one of their little cabins.  We like to do tent camping, but Illianna is still a little too young.  Illianna loved running around the cabin and exploring the woods.  She was collecting things and giggling at every corner.  I’ve never seen her so filthy, and let me say she is a regular mess pot, but this took the cake.  I turned a blind eye to the dirt until she grabbed some cereal which had obviously fallen in the dirt/ash and came up to me with dirty hands and a black mouth trying to spit it out.  Poor little thing.  She’s so well trained to pick her food up and eat it after it’s fallen on the floor.

It was nice to see trees older than a couple of years, and we almost had the park to ourselves, but there was a huge power plant humming in the distance and a stupid train announcing its presence every hour or so.  We were able to see some wildlife, roast marshmellows, hike around, and see a few more stars than we can see from our backyard, but we won’t be returning to that park.  We managed to take a pretty decent photo of ourselves.

Yesterday it wasn’t too hot, there was a slight breeze, and a few clouds remained in the sky from a storm that passed through the night before, so we decided to go on a walk. I got us all loaded up, which was a feat of it’s own because once the dogs see their collars come out they start going crazy, and we were just about to head off, when Missy Moo looked up at me with an evil smirk and pulled her hat right off. I only have one hat, which after recently falling into the pool I found out was made of paper (I didn’t know you could make a *real* hat from paper.), so I was in a bit of a predicament. Fortunately I saw one of Ryan’s baseball caps in the entry. It did the trick, and she kept her hat on most of the walk. Of course she wanted to try on Dada’s hat at well.

A few weekends ago Ryan suggested we attended our first ‘but not last’ comic book convention. He’d heard on the radio that Wizard World was going to be in town and found out Top Cow was going to be in attendance. Our $20.00 admission bought us 3-4 hours of fun and we could have stayed longer if Illianna wasn’t getting fussy.

There were so many cool vendors, the people watching was great ‘yes there were people in tights and capes’, and I had flashbacks to my teen years. Ryan and I both were on the look for old friends, but never came across any. It was great to see how the typical social misfit was totally in their element at the convention. I think everyone has a place in this world and figuring out where that is is a continuous process.

We found lots of goodies. Pawstar was one of the first. They have all sorts of cool things, but what really caught my attention was the cute bear hats. I recently had one of my coworkers pick me up the original Japanese version from Miki House when he was back in Tokyo for a visit. ‘I’ve got the shopping site bookmarked at work because it took me hours of randomly clicking around seeing as how I don’t read or speak Japanese- so good luck.’ Pawstar is much more reasonably priced and available in the US. Ryan was excited to come across Uberclok. ‘I think he goes to their website regularly and drools.’ We’ve got a pile of anime we need to watch and now we’re adding another movie to it.

The biggest find was some artwork by Dirk Strangely.

His name seemed very familiar to me and I thought I might have seen something of his at Hot Topic, but it was determined I’ve come across him from my shopping on ebay. He has a unique blend of dark and light. It reminds me of Mirror Mask.

All and all we had a great time being nerds and I can’t wait until next time.