fractalnavel : conversations

tech notes: m-i-c, k-e-y, m-o-u-s-e

fractalnavel — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:49:36 GMT

here we go again...

craig:: So you think the MVC pattern is something worth looking at closer? I read about it a few months ago in an MSDN magazine article. It did look pretty cool in that the view can be easily abstracted as a win form, web page or silverlight control since it's communicates with the controller through events. Let me know what you think, I'm interested. ...
me:: well, that chapter is a quick read, and it seems to be enough to give an accurate first impression. now, the quality of that first impression may vary. the chapter's at http://tinyurl/aspnetmvc, book name on front cover.

the sample is for a web app only. this is asp.net mvc, not a general mvc framework. not sure how this might map, if at all, to other presentation methods / runtime contexts. maybe there's more info in the more in-depth chapters of that book. it's not out yet, and that chapter is in pre-publication shape too, has some noticeable (minor) errors.

the sample app is live at nerddinner.com. now, on my xo's browser, it doesn't come up well at all - missing all kinds of styles, the maps, much navigation, etc.. not sure what that's all about, probably ajax related, on which this particular app seems to rely heavily in some areas. or perhaps the xo's browser is not jquery friendly, who knows. not worth finding out. but it's a mozilla xulrunner / gecko core, so it's interesting that this thing doesn't work there.

asp.net mvc v1.0 - we all know about ms first versions. in the sample app, they hand craft data listing and paging logic. now, it's a lot easier than it would have been pre c# 2.0, but one would think that all the tools (e.g., server controls) that we've come to rely on in webforms would need functional representation in this framework as well. anyone doing a not-small website will end up having to build or borrow a library of support functionality. the existing server controls aren't a good match for this framework.

mvc itself - eh, ok, this is stuff we should at least be aware of. the asp.net version seems not-ready-for-prime-time, but it certainly can support building small personal sites. but as for the "pattern" - if I ponder my own code habits over the years, I can see that I kind of do a lot of these things in one form or another already. it's a less overt, often less clean, but sometimes more elegantly subtle approach containing these same ideas. and that makes sense that halfway decent coding practices would converge on similar solutions to similar problems. with variation, of course. I noticed that the other day when considering what I had just done in that twitter-to-communityserver aggregator I've been tinkering with. it's got all the same types of layers, and when I dug up a c# new language features list, I discovered that I was already using some of that stuff without being aware of it. some things just seem "natural" to try. the good news is that these natural impulses now are often successful, whereas they used to result in failures, just brick walls with "I wish I could do this" written on them. for example, I got away with using an unnamed delegate, passing an expression that returned a method signature as a parameter on a constructor. they call that sort of thing "dependency injection" and "inversion of control" these days. same goes for using reflection to instantiate types specified in configuration files, for example. like with "ajax" the terminology and hype is often obscuring rather than reinforcing solid technical habits.

which is disturbing. it does two things: (1) it disenfranchises existing practitioners to some extent, similar to the new slang on the playground every year; and (2) it encourages unthinking formulaic approaches to this profession, which as a class has never been successful. great - another golden hammer, which the young'uns - and wanna-be trend-chasing old'uns - declare to be the "right" way. apparently perspective, experience and wisdom are still not valued. nothing new there.

so, mvc, ruby on rails, dynamic languages, closures, lambda functions, ioc, patterns, etc. etc. etc. - been there, done that, quit yanking me around with the labels. pisses me off that all those morons need a goddamn popular fad and a catchy name before they'll listen to any sense - assuming that there's a correspondence to sense there in the first place, which isn't always the case.

blogging, I know.

so, I'm tiring of twitter. another fad. it's nice to have that micro-blogging channel (in the strict sense), as I posted about earlier, but fuck using it as a chat / im mechanism. if I want to talk _to_ someone, I'll do it via better channels. I was never really into talking loudly at parties. who are we trying to impress here ? and as for the information sharing, there are better, more focused ways - delicious, blogs, whatever. as a news channel ? not hardly. the only motivation I can see that would keep me hanging around is that "everyone else is doing it", and not because of wanting to be there - it's that people have disappeared from those other channels. so I have to choose between going my own way, and joining the rest of the world in a least common denominator fuck fest ? I'll choose the way I always do, thank you. meanwhile, I'll micro-blog in a vaccum, the way I regular blog. it's just a tool.

...

oh - no "events" concept in asp.net mvc. get used to it ;-p

rodents in the foundations

fractalnavel — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:53:50 GMT

once upon a time, i included the following in an email, which subsequently got posted by craig on the open source poetry site:

oh, to be a cosmic mole
in and out of planck-sized holes
experiencing all as whole
trying to preserve one's soul

yeah, yeah, never mind.

so today, craig, who brings it back up every now and then, digs up the following at deviant art:

weird, but pretty cool ;-)

today is...

fractalnavel — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:02:50 GMT

pi day !

craig:: Sent: 2008.03.14 10:40:08 Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: happy pi day! 3/14

http://www.piday.org/
me:: first reaction: thank you sir, and same to you.

second reaction (after seeing where that link goes): oh no - they've commercialized it ! next thing you know, they're going to dumb it down for the masses.

on the other hand, should have thought of this myself. except i'm not of that mindset. easy enough to do, using those free produce & fullfill on demand shops.

see http://coolwhois.com/d/piday.org/20080314085304. i can't get a decent response from the host domain name it returns.

ah, but ok, they've been around for a while, that takes a little bit of the edge off: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.piday.org/. wayback has been slow lately...

this is also interesting: http://trace.die.net/search/?source=bm&q=http%3A//ord.dreamhost.com. from there, get alexa info, and some interesting whois: http://whois.domaintools.com/piday.org (too bad a lot of these details are only available for a price - sometimes steep).

looks like the site has had regular changes over the years, so at least the guy is somewhat committed to this.

and what about the guy himself ? http://cbri.umn.edu/~kunau/?p=89 (they must know each other through choir) (interesting, that wordpress site looks almost identical to scott w.'s graffiticms site - see http://evil.che.lu/2007/4/6/skittlish-0-4-release-and-sightseeing (which is also worth browsing around on)), and mostly, his site: http://www.hellerich.net/ - he's a young'un, gradgitated in '05. means he put up the piday.org site when he was 18 or so - !

but "official" site for pi day ? gimme a break. surprised there's nothing _on_ that site _about_ the site; i wouldn't have done all of the above ;-)

btw, relevant to a recent discussion of ours and to your employer / customer: http://cbri.umn.edu/~kunau/?p=143 (linked paper: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/). worth checking out other stuff from that guy's site and his outbound links, etc. he's in the bioinformatics field. also check out his department: http://cbri.umn.edu.

anyway, thanks for triggering that tour, interesting stuff out there.

i think that's what you might call a disproportionate response ;-)

best laid plans

fractalnavel — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:37:00 GMT

i mentioned that i was maintaining a wiki for a customer ...

Craig says:: is this sort of like you collecting all those hard bound books so that when you die somebody will appreciate it?
ChrisS says:: lol; damn; you may be right
Craig says:: lol
ChrisS says:: shit
Craig says:: sounds a little too familiar is all
ChrisS says:: yeah... story of my life
ChrisS says:: it's my way of being codependent without needing to actually be there
Craig says:: rofl; haha; oh that was good
Craig says:: man I gotta remember that one; priceless chris
ChrisS says:: thought you'd appreciate that

tech notes: the rules

fractalnavel — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:13:00 GMT

well, _some_ anyway....

Keith says (14:02):

Rule # 1: There are no rules, so code for them. gotta like rules!

Rule # 2: Code per specs and flexibility. gotta like rules!

Rule # 3: Communications Levels: User -> Analyst -> Developer. gotta like rules!

Rule # 4: No index on table == table scan. gotta like database rules!

Rule # 5: When a team has two people always agreeing, then there is one too many on the team. - A Friend

Rule # 6: Prevent the Crayon Fairy from sneezing on the web site!! - A Friend

Rule # 7: Usage, Invoice, Payment. gotta like order!

Rule # 8: Code per specs, even if business logic may not seem correct to developer . gotta like rules!

Rule # 9: Code per specs, Analysts test, Analysts change specs, change code, re-test. gotta like the process!

Rule #10: Everything is negotiable between Analysts and Developers, also Temps. gotta like the process!

SQL Tables, Indexes, Triggers, Stored Procedures - what fun one can have

Telephony Software and C# (to conference or not to conference)

Hated four letter words in programming: DATE and TIME, CODE and TEST

Sprained thumb from twiddling! May I have another project?

Projects: Completed: 4, Waiting for specs: 1, In Development: 1. Having fun? Priceless!

Time for another project? Do you know where your code is? Having fun? Priceless!

i really like my friends...

fractalnavel — Thu, 24 May 2007 23:36:23 GMT

a response one made to a nigerian scam letter:

In a message dated 2007.05.19 06:01:35 Eastern Daylight Time, writes:

This is what I sent to a scammer this time... read the second half of the email he sent me first, then my reply.

I hate those bastards...

Shiney

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Gregg <>
To: MR.GEORGE MENSAH <>
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 12:44:06 AM
Subject: Re: Urgent assistance needed please,

Well, it is certainly a pleasure to meet you Mr. George Mensah from Ghana! I am a also man of PEACE and INTEGRITY, and I believe I can assist you.

Here is how to proceed.

First send me the 20% of the $5 Million from your SUSPENSE ACCOUNT and do not make undue the advantage of the trust I have bestowed on you as well, and I assure you we can achieve this transaction successfully. --- Unless of course you would like me to contact Barclays Bank and alert them to your extra funds.

If you do not wish to send any money ahead of time, the following important information is the best I can do for you. Others have followed this helpful advice and they have all ended up trouble-free.

As one caring human (about to become a Millionaire) to another, here are some suggestions to all these problems you are having - PLEASE PASS THESE TIPS ONTO OTHER PEOPLE IN YOUR SCAM OPERATION:

Put a gun to your head and blow your brains out (I suggest employing at least a 44 Cal bullet, and placing the tip of the gun barrel about 1/2 inch above one of your ears, or just your remaining ear if the other was cut off in your country because of a crime you committed).
Hang yourself (use strong rope, I'm sure you're a big heavy sloppy fat-ass).
Cut your wrists (lay in a bath tub to contain the mess. A little blood goes a long way on a tile floor. Be sure to slice up from your hand towards your elbow, not across your wrists).
Drink a bottle of drain opener or nitric acid (mix a little sugar in first for better taste. Wait a few minutes and watch the fun while your intestines squirt out of your navel).
Stand in front of a moving locomotive (actually, suddenly darting in front of one works best because the train engineer can't apply the brakes soon enough to stop).
Jump off a cliff (or into a live volcano if one is handy).
Overdose on laxative pills (you'll bleed to death from your newly modified rectum. Remember to flush the toilet regularly or it will overflow due to your expelled internal organs plugging up the pipes).
Wear a fresh ham or a dead cat around your neck and swim in shark infested waters (don't use swim fins, they will just slow you down by giving the sharks something to grab onto you with).
Get yourself mugged and killed (I suggest flying into Chicago Illinois, walking downtown, and yelling 'NIGGERS ARE STUPID" repeatedly until you are stabbed to death).
Stick your head in a corn picker or hay bailing machine (Come to the USA. I know many farmers who would love to stick a towel-headed moron like you under a thrashing machine).
Drive at minimum 150MPH into a really thick brick wall (a sports car works best - not much metal holding those things together - leave off your seat belt while your at it, and disconnect the air bag first).
All sorts of other means are available to help you out at http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4SUNA_en___US208&q=suicide+how+to+commit.

At least one or two of the above mentioned options should work out well for you.

In the U.S., It's mandatory by law based on a person's low IQ Level and basic stupidity - like yours.

It helps keep the idiot population like you people from getting out of hand.

To expedite your decision of actually performing personal demise, please feel free to fly into Chicago Illinois (O-HARE International Airport).

There you will find many helpful people during the night in the downtown area who will be more than happy to assist in kicking the living shit out of you if you have not quite made up your mind about suicide.

You should perform this action after you have had time to rest up a from your flight and eaten as many pain pills as you can.

Be sure to drink plenty of fluids since you will undoubtedly end up with great loss of blood.

The good news is that you will still be clinically alive.

Don't concern yourself with bringing anything with you on the trip -- A local U.S. hospital will supply you with everything you need (the beds are nicer to sleep in than in most US motels, plus the steady sounds from the monitors of your heart and brain slowly coming to a stop helps you to sleep. The food from the feeding tubes taste great as well).

Trust me my future transaction partner, you'll forget all about your money problems when you're in a coma.

Have a nice day.

By the way, your English sucks. Try using a spell checker next time you bug-eyed mongoloid.

Please be aware that I have sent your email address to Yahoo for proper processing. I will assume that similar emails I receive are from you as well.

You're goin' down pal...

----- Original Message ----
From: MR.GEORGE MENSAH <>
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 11:37:27 PM
Subject: Urgent assistance needed please,

Dear Friend,

I hope this may not constitute sort of embarrassment to you, My name is George Mensah,Iam the regional bank manager of the Barclays Bank Ghana Ltd.
I came to know you in my Private Search for a reliable and reputable person to handle this Confidential Transaction. I am 44 years of age and married with 3 lovely kids. It may interest you to hear that I am a man of PEACE and INTERGRITY; I only hope we can assist each other.

I have packaged a financial transaction that will benefit both of us, as the regional Auditor General of the Barclays Bank Ghana Ltd.; it is my duty to send in a financial report to my head office in the capital city Accra at the end of each year.

On the course of last year 2006 end of year report, I discovered that my branch in which I am the manager made an excess profit of five million united states dollars [US$5,000,000.00] which my head office are not aware of and will never be aware of. I have since placed this fund on what we call SUSPENSE ACCOUNT without any beneficiary. As an officer of the bank I can not be directly connected to this money, this is why I.m contacting you for us to work so that you can assist and receive this money into your bank account for us to SHARE. I will offer you 20% of the total amount for yourassistance.

Note that there are practically no risks involved in this transaction , it will be bank to bank transfer, all I need from you is to stand claim as the original depositor of this fund who made the deposit with Takoradi branch so that my Head office can order the transfer to your designated bank account.

Do not make undue the advantage of the trust I have bestowed on you, and I assure you we can achieve it successfully.

Best regards.
Mr.George Mensah.