Notes on codes, projects and everything
Recently I volunteered in building a site that reports whether certain websites are blocked locally (please don’t ask why that is happening). As it is a very simple app reporting status I wanted it to be easily scrape-able. One of the decision made was I want it to have things to see on first load, this practically removes the possibility of using react, which is my current favorite.
Javascript is getting so foreign to me these days, but mostly towards a better direction. So I recently got myself to learn react through work and the JSX extension makes web development bearable again. On the other hand, I picked up a little bit on Vue.js but really hated all the magic involved (No I don’t enjoy putting in code into quotes).
Recently I find some of my pet projects share a common pattern, they all are based on some kind of grids. So I find myself writing similar piece of code over and over again. While re-inventing wheels is quite fun, especially when you learn new way of getting things done with every iteration, it is actually quite tedious after a while.
Sometimes, letting a piece of code evolving by itself without much planning does not usually end well. However I was quite pleased with a by-product of it and I am currently formalizing it. So the by-product is some sort of DSL for a rule engine that I implemented to process records. It started as some lambda functions in Python but eventually becomes something else.
A new day, and a new post on job application. So this time instead of asking a snippet, I was actually asked to deliver some sort of a full application. Not sure why this was required, but I had fun creating them nonetheless. Though I would say I am not really a fan of creating visual stuff though (oh the crappy animation nearly killed me).
The making of this plugin was completely a random act of hand-itchiness. A friend of mine (@cornguo) published a fun app online. There is a name for this kind of app, but I can’t recall at the moment. It typically displays some buttons (usually in a grid), and clicking them causes some sound to be played. The interesting part in cornguo’s app is that there’s a text-input field where the name of the buttons can be typed-in for replaying.
It is very much expected that there will be endless stream of new (and often times better) tools introduced to solve the same set of problems. While I am slowly resuming my programming work, and in the process of reviving my very much dead postgrad project, I found some alternative to the tools I had used in the past. I suppose I shall just jot them down here so that there’s a reference for later use.
I often struggle to get my Javascript code organized, and have tried numerous ways to do so. I have tried putting relevant code into classes and instantiate as needed, then abuse jQuery’s data() method to store everything (from scalar values to functions and callbacks). Recently, after knowing (briefly) how a jQuery plugin should be written, it does greatly simplify my code.
After coded enough Javascript few months back, I found that there are a couple of functions that I kept re-using in different projects. Therefore I took some time to refactor them and re-arrange them into a single file. The common code that I keep reusing even today consists of functions that does prototypical inheritance, scope maintenance, some jquery stuff, google maps api stuff and some general ajax application related code.
Maintaining state in Javascript is not too difficult once you catch the idea. However, as I am not a super brilliant programmer, it takes me some time to find a way to maintain state as YUI Event does in jQuery.
Writing a usable form and database library has always been a painful experience. So why bother re-inventing the wheel when there are so many to choose from already? I am writing one mostly for learning purpose. After numerous attempts, I finally get my form and database library in shape. It is nowhere complete, but nor it is perfect, but it is currently the implementation that is closest to my original design. I will keep working on it so it can be used in my personal projects in the future.
I am not going to waste time telling stories that inspire this post, as most people would have already heard something similar constantly. This is not a mythbuster kinda post, so don’t expect a scientific proof to the answer of the question. Instead, through this post, I hope to break the impression that claims composing a HTML document is difficult.
A new day, and a new post on job application. So this time instead of asking a snippet, I was actually asked to deliver some sort of a full application. Not sure why this was required, but I had fun creating them nonetheless. Though I would say I am not really a fan of creating visual stuff though (oh the crappy animation nearly killed me).
Previously, I started practising recursions by implementing a type check on lat (list of atoms), and ismember (whether an atom is a member of a given lat). Then in the third chapter, named “Cons the Magnificent”, more list manipulation methods are being introduced.
I was invited to try Go (the programming language, not that board game) a few months ago, however I didn’t complete back then. The main reason was because it felt raw, compared to other languages that I know a fair bit better (for example Ruby). There was no much syntatic sugar around, and getting some work done with it feels “dirty”.