Watching time, the only true currency // A journal from John B. Roberts
Twenty-two Undersea cable maps, ranging from 1858-1992. Reminds me of Neal Stephenson’s Wired Magazine article from December 1996 “Mother Earth Mother Board,” about laying the cables. [Via The Map Room]
I wonder how redundant all these cables are now, both in terms of multiple cables per route and wireless/satellite alternatives. Seems like an economic monopoly — and therefore, a target — to me.
I’d like to learn enough programming to satisfy my inner geek, even though I’m never going to be a coder. I have a project in mind which might be a useful tutorial. Nothing too complicated, but the end result involves HTML, forms, and a database. So I figured my lack of programming knowledge might be turned to good use: I can choose any language I want.
Joel and Tim point out gaps in many programmers’ bag of tricks, and suggest that those gaps are growing through the teaching of “easy” languages. I’m not trying to make my living as a programmer. This is simply messing around on a rainy day(s), so I don’t have to worry about anything but the tools fitting the job. Which, it’s true, is what the links above are saying, too, but their focus is on the higher end of the scale here. So I won’t worry about C, Lisp, or even Java at this point.
As I’m swimming in the Web 2.0 froth (and liking Backpackit), I decided Ruby on Rails would be my testbed.
Several hours later…
I understand programming logic (the basics). I know how computers work. Still, configuration, installation, and development environments frustrate me to no end. What I want to do is write a program, and see if it works, and then iterate back over it. The more time I can spend at an editor versus the command line, the better shape I’ll be. The syntax for variables, arrays, and the like can be learned by just keeping at it (or so I tell myself).
Anyway, in my effort to avoid configuration and hours of set-up time, I downloaded Locomotive, as it promised to bundle everything together. Then I downloaded the BBEdit language module for Ruby (file) so I wouldn’t have any syntax coloring excuses.
Cazy part about Locomotive, which just went to 1.0, and unapologetically has no application help was that the screencast (QuickTime) was the most useful tutorial I could find. I ended up going back and forth in the screencast to check my work and learning where I had gone astray.
Hardest part was the database. Locomotive comes with SQLite to ease the pain, but the default database.yml file in Locomotive 1.0 has info for MySQL and PostgreSQL, too. You need to remove that if you’re using SQLite. And the screencast is not from Locomotive 1.0, so there are some differences (but no real distinctions). Overall, Locomotive was a boon in this process, but it’s still not easy.
The last piece in my set-up process was finally resolved when I realized my chosen table name was (mistakenly) in the singular, instead of the plural.
For the magic of ActiveRecord to work, you must name your database tables and columns according to specific rules. For example, when you create a table, Rails wants it to be plural. Not story, but stories. (Really Getting Started in Rails – thanks!)
I got a (tiny) bit further than the screencast itself, and then I realized how much I have to learn, both about Ruby and about how to model my database. The lengthy holiday break comes to an end tomorrow morning, so this project may drag out over weeks or months, depending on how many ‘aha’ moments I find time for.
Following a meme shared by Neil Turner a year ago, here’s 2005 in review, via the first sentence of each month’s first post.
January: I won’t claim I’m back up to speed, but all the home email is read, the aggregator is showing only a day’s worth of new items, and I’ve got fewer than ten open browser windows. (Re-plugged, Jan 1, 2005)
February: Via Slashdot, I found this Ars Technica review of the radioShark. Solid details over four pages, with ample illustrations. (More details on the radioShark, Feb 1, 2005)
March: Tonight, I’m speaking briefly at the East Bay Internet Group (eBIG) meeting of the Blogging and RSS SIG (special interest group) on Jumping on the Blogwagon. What’s the Buzz on Business Blogging?. (Blogging and RSS SIG meeting tonight, Mar 1, 2005)
April: Actually, it’s not just geeks who will find the new Link Count numbers from PubSub interesting, but geeks will have fun arguing over a new dataset.(Geeks love numbers: Link Counts, Apr 1, 2005)
May: Well, actually it’s David Sifry who updated his State of the Blogosphere, but he’s CEO of Technorati and uses Technorati data as the raw material. (Technorati updates State of the Blogosphere, May 2, 2005)
June: Nice to have another site that requires little explanation: TV.com. (TV.com is live, Jun 2, 2005)
July: I threw out a link on Wednesday evening, but the RSS promo from work late Thursday afternoon actually drew attention to the News.com tag cloud. (Seeing who’s paying attention, Jul 5, 2005)
August: I was looking forward to seeing Batman Begins.
(Movie: Batman Begins, Aug 1, 2005)
September: Not quite sure what went wrong today, but the kids were at their worst today. (Whine is in the air, Sep 3, 2005)
October: First, I got excited that a Slashdot thread started about The Big Picture. (Slashdot misses the point, Oct 2, 2005)
November: I was reading Tim Bray’s brief notes on Wikipedia, which end with this observation about one possible fund-raising option. (Thought experiment: Wikipedia to book to… Google Print?, Nov 4, 2005)
December: Nothing like getting on a morning airplane to make for a light sleep the night before. (Light sleeping, Dec 6, 2005)
Not a best of, or most popular, but interesting for me to review all the same. 254 posts for the year.