Friday Cat Blogging

by Bryan

17 comments

1 jams o donnell { 07.29.11 at 1:44 pm }

Here’s a look that says handsome and defiant!

2 Badtux { 07.29.11 at 6:32 pm }

I take it his opinion of PHP is not very favorable ;).

– Badtux the Geek Penguin

3 Steve Bates { 07.29.11 at 8:54 pm }

Not much of a plot, but if that’s the book I think it is, character development is quite decent. 🙂 My copy got me through my only PHP/MySQL job to date, which probably will be my only PHP/MySQL job ever.

4 Bryan { 07.29.11 at 9:58 pm }

Jams, try over-stuffed and sleepy.

I think he prefers C^@, Badtux, although he finds my complaints when things don’t work as expected amusing.

It is probably the most common reference in use, Steve, and I have several others, but none those are heavy enough to stay in place on that surface in front of the window.

5 hipparchia { 07.30.11 at 12:15 am }

he may be overstuffed and sleepy, but he’s still handsome.

6 Kryten42 { 07.30.11 at 1:02 am }

Hey! I Have that book! And I agree with the cat. The book definitely has lost the plot! 😉 😆

PHP – blech! MySQL – Ohmigawd! Weerallgonnadieeee!! 😉 Ahem.

Thanks in part to badtux, I’ve seriously revisited Python/Perl. And I’ve always preferred PostgreSQL, especially after the MySQL tyrants wen’t nutz and then Oracle took over and are making things worse (of course!) I am currently rediscovering Zope and see it’s grown quite a bit since I last played with it (Zope is a framework for Python development. Or it was, it seems to have grown a few extra heads now. We now have Zope, BlueBream and Grok!) 😆 I just d/l CentOS 6.0, so time to rebuild my dev system over the next few days, then get to work! 😀 I’ve even been digging some old eZenes from my archives, like from Perl Underground. 😉 A great bunch of perl coders that didn’t fear anybody! 😉 😀

7 Bryan { 07.30.11 at 11:20 am }

Not quite so handsome at 3AM if he walks across you, Hipparchia. It’s OK when he lays down, but when his weight is on paws, it is more than noticeable.

Kryten, everyone who has tried any serious web development since it was written has bought that book.

Very few people use PhP/MySQL by choice, it is what hosts load by default, so programmers don’t have much choice. Kind of like Windows in too many ways, except you don’t have to pay money for the crappy software.

8 Badtux { 07.30.11 at 12:56 pm }

Look at Web2Py for a Python web framework that doesn’t have Zope’s bloat, Kryten.

I actually don’t mind PHP (much), it’s just another Perl-inspired language more or less, and fine for quick / small web apps that don’t do a whole lot more than enter data into database forms. Once you start delving into building large applications out of it using its somewhat mediocre object model you’re in for a world of hurt, of course, but no more so than using Perl (but without the advantage of having Perl’s first-class regular expression engine that can slice and dice like a Ginsu knife 😉 ). But by and large PHP doesn’t annoy me. Unlike Java JSP’s which are just pain because it takes fifty lines of code to do stuff that Perl, PHP, or Python will do in three lines of code, not to mention the 500 pages of object library documentation you have to chug through to write a simple “Hello World” program in Java. Talk about a productivity waster!

Excise appears to be a bloated tax, Bryan. Sort of like TMF now that I think about it, complete with the tiny little feet attached to the huge body :).

9 Bryan { 07.30.11 at 3:59 pm }

JSP seems to be more of a proof of concept operation, than a functional tool – i.e. Sun wanted to prove that you could build dynamic web pages with Java. It wasn’t designed to do it, so there is no simple structure to perform the task, just a lot of work arounds.

I would be happier if there was a lot less muscle, as fat is lighter. Excise is a bit muscle-bound, like Sox was before old-age crept up on him. His sister ensures that he exercises regularly – during the middle of the night.

10 Kryten42 { 07.30.11 at 11:44 pm }

I like that cat Bryan. 🙂 As jams said, he’s handsome, and looks to have the right cat attitude! 😀

Thanks badtux. I have come across Web2py in my meanderings, and it’s on my list. 🙂 I went with Zope first because I played with it about a decade ago. I was curious to see how far it’s come. 🙂 Curiously, given how long it’s been around, it seems many python developers don’t even know it exists! *shrug*

I like Perl because it’s development has been slow and steady, it’s very stable. It also is quite secure (assuming the coders knows what they are doing of course). PHP is less secure, and making it so is difficult and time consuming. Good coding practices are not enough. Still, I also use it when I need to. But I try to limit it to small pieces of code. 🙂 That and I’m still annoyed at the PHP developers! And yeah, I looked at JSP a couple times over the years. I have no plans to ever use it, or ASP either for that matter! 😉 I am looking at Ruby (ruby-on-rails), and possibly JRuby, (and Django for python) when I have my dev system up and running.

11 oldwhitelady { 07.31.11 at 3:32 pm }

Excise is very handsome…and what a great coat!

So, he’s a cat coder?

I wish I knew more about the current coding applications. I changed jobs, a couple years ago, and no longer work with COBOL, but I don’t know Java or any of the other languages – just HTML. I took the JavaScript tutorials, and they were fun, but Java?!? It looks like I need to download all sorts of stuff to get started on that. I could get my tutorial programs to work in the command window, but past that…nope.

Send Excise over so he can help me learn.

12 Bryan { 07.31.11 at 4:39 pm }

What Excise has in good looks is offset by his lack of cat box accuracy. He fails to appreciate that while standing in the box is good, he should also deposit in the box. If he had the Sahara for a cat box, it would land in the Med.

Start looking at PhP, OWL. There should be a lot of tutorials available for it, and it works with HTML. Most of the other languages talked about do similar things, but more efficiently, and are easier to understand if you start with PhP. It is a lot like BASIC in that it introduces you to the concepts, but has limitations. It is fine for small projects, but lacks the power to handle big things well.

13 oldwhitelady { 07.31.11 at 10:00 pm }

So, it’s not that Excise is a big cat, he just has perception problems. Ha – I hear that. Every once in a while, Mango misses the box. I keep paper around and under. There’s a cat box in the bathroom under the sink. Once I realized he was consistently missing the hidden end, I taped a large piece of cardboard to that end. That seems to help.
Thank you for the suggestion. I will check into PHP.

14 Kryten42 { 07.31.11 at 10:15 pm }

LOL @ OWL (may I call you that? or do you prefer oldwhitelady?)

So, he’s a cat coder?

And I bet he’d do a better job than many clowns who pass themselves off as *coders* these days! 😈

The biggest problem I think most coders have is that while they may learn the syntax of a language, they don’t bother to understand the underlying philosophy and architecture, then complain when they try to force it to do something it’s really not suited for! PHP has this problem, the developers are really trying to make it *all things for all coders*. They are doomed to fail. *shrug*

Hmmmm. I understand what you are saying Bryan about starting with PHP. My only reservation is that it can encourage bad practices. Python is also a good language for someone who started in COBOL (as I also did a long time ago, that and BASIC & Fortran). There are some excellent beginners tutorials and blogs around for both. I guess the advantage of going with PHP is that it is (sadly) heavily used for web site coding. The advantage of Python is that it can also be used for stand-alone app development, and is used (to a lesser degree for web development). 🙂 Maybe OWL, have a look at both and see which you prefer. I can give you some links to introductions and beginners tutorials if you like. I’m sure Bryan and badtux can also of course. 🙂 And you are never too old to learn something new IMHO! It makes life fun (and also occasionally, damned frustrating!) 😆 😉

15 Bryan { 07.31.11 at 11:48 pm }

I’ll try the cardboard thing, OWL. I assure you that I have several of the biggest litter boxes available, but the problem persists.

Some research indicates that cats are far-sighted, and don’t see things well that are close to them, like the edge of the litter box.

Oh, yes, Kryten, PhP is definitely for smaller projects. It really doesn’t scale up well at all, but it is a quick way to get something up and running. I was thinking about something entry-level to the concept of dynamic web pages, rather than trying to build an involved Content Management System.

The other point is that like COBOL, there is a lot of PhP code out there that needs maintenance, so there are employment opportunities.

16 Badtux { 08.01.11 at 10:09 am }

I am just glad that I have mostly avoided web development, because everybody and their uncle is a web developer, while folks who do OS-level work are much rarer and tend to be paid better. Of course I’ve done work on web projects when I’ve been the new guy at work (heh!), mostly the “real” web guys look at my HTML (“what? You’re using TABLES instead of CSS? And the only thing you’re using JavaScript for is form validation? What, you learned web stuff during the Paleolithic?!” “Uhm, yes ;)” ) and make sure I never get near their web application again except to write back-end code that they call to do stuff at the OS level, which is what I wanted to be doing in the first place ;).

My boys are big boys and they sometimes have trouble putting their deposits in the box too, which is why it has a washable throw rug surround to catch anything that misses. Not to mention the challenge of actually scratching the litter onto the deposit. TMF will sniff the deposit, then start shoveling litter madly… into the other corner of the litter box, sometimes even managing to throw it over the top (which has one of those big rims around it to supposedly keep that from happening). SIIIIIiiigh! He understands cause and effect about as well as teabaggers, but has the excuse that he has an almond-sized brain, while teabaggers have normal-sized brains but just refuse to use them :twisted:.

– Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

17 Bryan { 08.01.11 at 12:20 pm }

TMF and Excise have the same theory of cat litter – it is the scratching that is important, and it need not be associated with anything that happened to occur previously.