Trajectory

So, where be we? Thank God for the official Blogger app...

The point being, I actually don't have time to sit in front of a keyboard. It's children and earning, though if you don't know yet you will.

It's education and preparation, and how your life never seems quite like your own if you've never seriously undertaken either.

It's me catching up with my decisions, and it's appreciating what hard work really is, now that I don't have a choice.

So, following that thought, reading Knuth and going about this all orderly-like doesn't pan out. But, as luck would have it, it's turning out quite fine.

I've forced myself to stick to the command line for everything these last few months. I've forced myself to stick to Emacs when notepad would suffice. What a difference those two decisions have made.

Necessity dictates that I had to abandon fumbling down those paths that would not make me money, and so it has been about Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP again. I built a site for my company on this platform, and after enough time reading the reference books and Googleing to check up on every step, it's finally paying off.

The interesting thing is you learn about the constant basics of programming: functions, variables, objects, statements, conditionals . . . And then it starts to make a deep kind of sense. And there is this wonderful thing called Boolean logic that starts to pop up at the edges of your thought . . .

Half-dead! Blaarrrrrgg

And . . . back from the dead.

It occurred to me that I'm damn busy. Like 2 kids, busy job, etc.

So, the Don Knuth book thing? Still on, yes.

The python thing? Well, that's a damn fun language. Problem is, I need to concentrate a bit more on work... so... well, how to consolidate time and get my programming practice in and do better in business?

Android, my friend. Android apps.

Java's coming. Oh, shoot me. I know I should decide on something and stick to it (Thanks, Ryan).

This time I will, promise. OK?

Python, mother foo-er, do you speak it?

Welcome to your nightmare.

Nightmare? Well, nothing's easy, lemme tell you. And to make the dreams come true you gotta face your nightmare. And, baby, am I ever giving you the easiest nightmare you ever had.

If we're gonna write 4 programs, let's start with something that's gonna put us on the first step of Vader-power programming we first discussed. There's a big debate going on between PERL and PYTHON. Now, good friend, you follow my advice. We're going to start with PYTHON - not Java, not C+, not Scooby Doo - no, just Python. And why? Because we got the resources, baby. PERL is the "Swiss-Army Chainsaw," meaning you can anything with it, but you gotta concentrate through the noise. So we're gonna take the more elegant alternative. FYI, Google was first written in Python, so stop your belly-achin'.

And, did I mention that our course is through M.I.T.? Oh, didn't? And it's free?

That's what I thought. Check out these two links. Talk with me about anything regarding your studies. I'll be right here to help you through.

MIT 6.00 Opencourseware.

Curious Reef Resources for MIT 6.00

Don't thank me. Thank our good friend and ninja-ku programmer Ryan Horn.

Stutters, Excuses, Explainations...

So, moved into a house. The house had horrible mold and termite problems. Homeless for a month. Cost me a fortune; couldn't pay for 3G/4G internet. Been of the grid. Way off. Trying to survive.

You get the picture? Good. I'm not giving up on this blog. If I'm away for a while it means that there's a good reason.

So, where are we now? Well, on the path to Don* Grade Geek, I'm realizing it ain't easy. Knuth says you'd better have written 4 programs before starting this book, and from what birds have whistled to me, it's not "Hello World" we're talking about.

So, let's start somewhere . . . reasonable . . .

Dumb Ways to Promote Your Blog, Part 1

. . . Get drunk. In front of your girlfriend's mother. Promise to watch "Heat" with her even though your vision is getting a bit blurry. When its apparent that your internet connection is down, and thus you can't watch "Heat" via online streaming, it's probably a good idea to call Optimum Online and get on the phone with a tech guy there. Who's completely sober. Talk his ear off about Blu Ray, Star Trek, and argue with him about how the Bourne movies are the only exception to books being better than the movies based on them. Tell him how awesome your blog is, even though it's only been up for a month and hasn't yet found a focus. As your girlfriend's mother is bewilderingly watching you, it's a good time to stumble around behind the entertainment center, and, as you're talking with the Optimum tech guy about everything but Optimum, make sure to trip over a cable and pull every damn device off the shelf, causing an avalanche of wires, antennae, remotes, modems to fall on top of you. Shrug it off like its no big deal.

Hear about it all goddamn day tommorow.

In other news, I'd like to welcome this blog's first follower. His name's Claudio and he works for Optimum Online. Funny story how he found out about this blog . . .

Plans, plans, plans . . . part 1

It's been a pretty interesting and chaotic last week with the programming. I've gone through the manuals and "Dummy" books, but I've decided to really focus on taking paths in which I can get productive immediately. I'd like to start work on a series of small programs that will become of use to me in short time: that is to say, I'm approaching this as a stone carver now, and the architect of the pyramid later. I'm chipping away at the stones, only dreaming of the large structure that could be built from small, efficient building blocks.

So, it may not be wise to build small programs quickly. In fact, if a programming language is the raw material (and the machine code the physics dictating what is possible), I'm taking my time now understanding that raw material. I'm delving into Linux, Apache, MySql, and PHP in a bit of a chaotic, experimental fashion, investigating when I hit road bumps, looping back to further understand the design or form of this or that. I can't exactly define what I've learned, but to return to the pyramid-building metaphor, I'm learning the tools and learning the stone, feeling out the right way to chip away at the problem, to form a perfect block from stubborn rock, to stack these solutions in a nice order.

I decided to turn away from jumping into MySql and PHP headfirst by using a web host control panel to write scripts because I want to get a feel for where these systems are coming from: how they function, how they're designed. It's easier to work with something when you can determine its size and scope, when you can have a rough handle on its capabilities, on how it moves. So from my first week with MySql and PHP I redirected my focus to the baser systems, that is, Apache, and beneath that, Linux.

Biggest road bump thus far is the installation of Apache and MySql on Linux. So the plan is to systematically learn enough about Linux to understand how it works with Apache.

More later, my coffee is having no effect and that must mean it's time to crash.

Rolling Title.

Picking up speed here. I've been negligent in my Java learning because I have to do it when I'm home, and let's face it, after 12 hours on the road I want to get home, play with my kid, and pass out.

Ah, but this is where the Android phone is a handy tool. I can code any time, anywhere. Using the web browser and TxtPad Lite I'm good to go. I write and review code on TxtPad, and upload it via my web host's control panel.

There is a down-side though. Yesterday I was at Seven-11 buying milk at 10pm (necessary to get my daughter to go to bed), and figured out why some php I was working on wasn't playing nice with MySql as I was standing there with the freezer door open. So instead of checking the expiration date, jogging to the counter to pay and rushing home to get my daughter her bottle of milk(she drinks enough man, trust me, the kid isn't starving. This is more a matter of Mom being tired and wanting to put her to sleep), I grab the gallon of milk with my right hand and the Android from my pocket with my left. Pull up the local file of the code, drop the milk onto a box of Slim Jims, and start coding away.

After ten minutes and feeling some odd looks (and swapping the now warm milk jug for a cold one), I jumped in my car and by the time I got home it'd taken as much time as if I'd jogged there and back.

"Did you stop for a drink?"

"No."

"What took you so long then?"

"I figured out some bad code and had to correct it."

"In 7-Eleven?"

"Yes."

"Are you $%#*ing serious?"