New Photos
I took some photos of downtown Chicago and its people a few days ago. I posted them in the downtown Chicago gallery. Previews after the break. read more...
Posted on February 08, 2010 at 12:36 am. 0 comments. Tags: Photos downtown Chicago
Unfortunate Circumstances
A friend of mine recently died from cancer and I've been having a hard time concentrating on anything at home.
Posted on February 06, 2010 at 07:31 pm. 0 comments. Tags:
MySQL objects
I was working on my blog objects organization paper this morning and I suddenly came to the realization that I was passing MySQL objects from the database class to the other classes in the program. I've been working rather hard to keep my classes as separate from each other as possible, so this came as a shock when I realized that I had been working completely counter to my goal.
So, I think I'll work on taking MySQL objects and transferring the data from the arrays that are returned and placing the data into a newly instantiated object. When I return a collection of items, I'll transfer them into an array of instantiated objects. Though, I need to insure that the data maintains its integrity. I wouldn't worry about Java doing such a thing, but PHP doesn't seem nearly as reliable...
Posted on January 20, 2010 at 08:09 am. 0 comments. Tags: php mysql objects
Tags
The tags functionality appears to have been non-function for quite a while. A while ago I changed a bunch of my functions around to make the names clearer and follow certain programming conventions (such as the camel hump naming scheme). However, I neglected to change the function names in the tags file and because of this, the function wasn't working at all. The odd thing is that there were no errors to indicate WHY it wasn't working. After some judicious commenting of functions, I figured out which function was the culprit. This problem has highlighted my need to separate my functions and code into more manageable chunks with less disparities.
Posted on January 18, 2010 at 10:50 am. 0 comments. Tags: code php objects admin
Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 IF ED
This is a photo I took of my Nikkor 300mm F/4.5 IF ED lens attached to my Rebel XT and mounted to a tripod.
read more...
Posted on January 13, 2010 at 10:53 pm. 1 comments. Tags: photograph photography rebel XT Nikon 300mm f/4.5 Photoshop flash strobist
Overloading PHP functions and methods
In a nutshell, it's not possible.
PHP only allows one function or method with a name to exist per class and only one constructor per class. Originally, I was going to write a class called "Entry" which had two constructors. One constructor would receive arguments for all of the attributes of the object and a second constructor would receive an id number as an argument and retrieve the attributes from the database. Now, I'll have to create an empty object and just call a method that does what I want e.g.: Retrieving the data from the database and filling in all of the attributes I give it.
Now, a "magic" method exists represented by "__call" with two passed value: $name and "arguments. The first argument, $name, is the name of the method that you just called. $arguments is an array of all the values you passed to the method.
So if I have an object called "$car" and I called a function like so: $car->conversion($value1, $value2), the $name variable has the name of the method I called ("conversion") and an array containing $value1 and $value2.
Posted on January 13, 2010 at 11:57 am. 0 comments. Tags: php admin
No real updates
I've been slogging away at a description of objects for my blog. I anticipate it will be somewhere around 5-6 pages long and will take a bit of time to organize before I can finally start coding. The good thing is that I already have the logic figured out in my current code (which is mostly imperative). The hard part is figuring out how the objects should interact with each other. I'll try to enumerate everything a little later.
Posted on January 11, 2010 at 02:45 pm. 0 comments. Tags: admin php blog objects website
Java
I'm about half way through Beginning Java Objects, by Jacquie Barker. This is a few months after finishing Murach's Java SE 6. The first portion of the book dealt with syntax and I feel as though I had a pretty decent grasp of the syntax already, so I was able to go through that portion of the book quickly and easily. The second section was about object modeling for a project. This portion of the book I glossed over and didn't really bother reading very in-depth. However, I started to realize the importance of modeling objects.
I've been struggling with direction in modeling objects for legal software I want to design as well as modeling objects for my blog, which I want to fully revamp into OO design. Thus, I think it would be very beneficial for me to re-read this whole modeling section before continuing on to the third section of the book.
However, before I even go back and read that, I decided to put Object modeling on the back burner for a little bit so that I could start a new book: TCP/IP sockets in Java by Kenneth Calvert. Before I can fully realize how the objects in my legal software can work, I want to become knowledgeable of Network programming so that I know which objects should do what and be more qualified to program the legal software.
As for my PHP objects, I'm finding it difficult to separate the procedural issues from abstract issues. That is to say, I want to try to abstract what my blog does, but I find the procedure creeping into my abstract description. Nonetheless, I'll try writing it out further in the hopes that I can feel my way through this.
Posted on December 21, 2009 at 10:07 am. 0 comments. Tags: Java admin php development dev
Laptop
I just got my new laptop in. I purchased a Lenovo Thinkpad T400. Border's offered a discount through their corporate account plus a coupon for 15% off. The total came to a little over $800 (ouch!) but all other laptops from companies like Dell and HP that had similar build quality were similarly expensive or had inferior hardware. So, I just went with a trusted brand. read more...
Posted on December 19, 2009 at 10:27 pm. 0 comments. Tags: laptop Apple OSX development admin
New Plan
I was considering a Macbook to replace my IBM. However, I think I'll bypass that idea for now. Rather, I'll look at a Lenovo today and tomorrow and then experiment with the Hackintosh software on my T40 which is functional, save for the cracked screen. However, my dock, plus my monitor in my office should suffice to make it workable as a development station.