php Archive

3

Freelancer.com ? Really?

By
Xnuiem
– October 26, 2010Posted in: thoughts

I have been wandering around some of the freelancer websites looking for some programming/project management gigs to keep me busy, and I ran across this one on Freelancer.com:

“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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1

Why Drupal Views make so little sense

By
Xnuiem
– October 14, 2010Posted in: programming, thoughts

I recently had a very short contract gig working for a company that creates websites using Drupal.  While that doesn’t sound very interesting or even hard, to make it more so of both, these guys used Views for every

Drupal
Image via Wikipedia

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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0

Types of Programming Bugs

By
Xnuiem
– September 23, 2010Posted in: programming, thoughts

In a recent project I have been working on, I took over another’s code base, based in Drupal, and have been working to both fix issues and add functionality.  It has been a lot of fun learning Drupal, and working with this interesting application.  And finding different types of bugs.  If you are a programmer, you know there are bugs that are different and behave oddly.   Here are some types of programming bugs I have come across recently.

Heisenbug
Named for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, this type of bug is only appears when you aren’t looking.  You know the kind, the kind you swear you can’t replicate, but yet, the users day after day report them happening.  If you try to measure this type of bug, you will inevitably alter your results.  They are the worst to track down, because a lot of the time you end up making changes just to hope they go away, even though you still aren’t sure exactly what caused them.

Keyser Söze Bug
These actually arent even bugs, but they make you think they are, and are a complete pain in the neck.  Basically, it is a “bug” that is causing a huge problem for you, but as you learn, and dig and dig, you figure out it isnt a bug, just a “feature”.  It may be stupid, illogical, or incorrect, but the code itself is working just as design and written.  So, in essence, it isnt a bug, only made you think it was.

WTF Bug
This is one of those that you swear up and down you have fixed, several times, yet is still there.  The most common one of these is when a customer’s ISP or internal firewall have cached old versions, so the damn thing is still cropping up on you, but you know it isn’t there anymore.  Another time these happen is when you change one part of the code, only to figure out that those methods were depreciated 8 versions ago, and now all that logic is somewhere else.  Yes you changed it, yes you committed it, but the bug is still there.

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1

Programming Standards are NOT pointless

By
Xnuiem
– September 19, 2010Posted in: programming, thoughts

It seems some people took my other article a bit too seriously.  While I was very serious and feel strongly about my convictions when it comes to HTML “validation”, the same cannot be said of programming standards.

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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0

phpMyAdmin over SSL

By
Xnuiem
– October 4, 2009Posted in: programming

I get asked this question a lot: “How can I force phpMyAdmin to run over https ‘SSL’?” It is basically an issue to deal with security. Since phpMyAdmin deals with directly accessing your database, it only makes sense you want to make it as secure as you can. While running over SSL ‘HTTPS’ is not the total solution, it does help. So, here is how to make it run over SSL.

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0

PHPX Takeover Request

By
Xnuiem
– January 22, 2009Posted in: programming, thoughts, website

Well, it has been about a year since I officially stopped working on PHPX.  And last week someone came forward and asked to take over the project.  It has been a very interesting thought process on this since it is a lot more complex than I originally thought it would be.

First, there is the problem moving trademarks and copyrights.  PHPX is a trademark, PHPX is also a 501(c) non-profit dedicated to the distribution of free and quality software in order to better facilitate communication between communities of people in a virtual environment.  Sounds all official doesn’t it?  Well, sadly, it is.

I want to give over PHPX for someone that cares about it to develop it, but I am not really sure how to disentangle myself from all the legal stuff that goes along with it.  Perhaps I should just fork it and let them take over that.

What do you think?

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0

WP Plugins move to Google Code

By
Xnuiem
– December 30, 2008Posted in: website

As I have gotten more and more involved in the WordPress world, I have released a couple of plugins, working on several more, and have already learned a few things.

One, it is always a good idea to release early, and release often, except where WordPress release system is invloved.  The system is based on SubVersion, which has been great getting to learn, but it lulls you into making some assumptions.  The problem with this system, is the moment you upload code to the repository, it releases publicly.  While that is fine if it is a small plugin and your first release should be public, it is not a good thing for larger projects that are going to require a lot of testing and iterations to get it ready for an actual public release.  WordPress does disclaimer their system, saying it is not a hosting service just a listing service.  Which begs the question, “Why are you using SVN?”.  Probably because it is familiar to most people that will be contributing code.

With all that in mind, I have moved my development versions over to Google Code.  It is a hosting service, is faster than Sourceforge, and I like the interface a lot better; it is a lot more clean and easy to understand.  All my WordPress plugins will be there, under the project SuiteX, and eventually the other projects I have going, like LadderX will move over there as well.

This doesnt really affect any of you much, except for questions/concerns/bugs/requests, I ask that you go over to the Issue Tracker on Google and post there.  It will keep everything a bit more organized, than random comments on this website or on the WordPress forums which do a horrible job of notification or even categorization.

Per the usual, if you have questions, please just ask.

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0

phpMyAdmin over SSL

By
Xnuiem
– February 14, 2008Posted in: programming

I get asked this question a lot: “How can I force phpMyAdmin to run over https ‘SSL’?” It is basically an issue to deal with security. Since phpMyAdmin deals with directly accessing your database, it only makes sense you want to make it as secure as you can. While running over SSL ‘HTTPS’ is not the total solution, it does help. So, here is how to make it run over SSL.

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