Month: December 2002

Ok people, I’m outta here. You might not hear from me again until next year. Or you might hear from me tomorrow, I’m not sure yet.

These are some of the projects I plan to work on in the next two weeks:

• Hack Drupal to do what I want
• Dig into PHP a bit more
• Built a site for a client using valid XHTML and CSS… that looks good and is accessible!
• Check out a web hosting company and their capabilities
• Check out a broadband provider and their capabilities
• Fix up and old PowerMac 8500/180 for Milt
• Have fun with the family
• Eat lots of cookies

Have a nice holiday, or whatever it is you might have in the next two weeks…

Today we used Net::IMAP::Simple to make perl talk to an Exchange server. We normally make Mozilla do most of the talking to the Exchange server, but today someone wanted perl to talk to it. Net::IMAP::Simple is pretty similar to Net::POP3, which we’ve used before.

I’m tempted to really wire up perl to do some crazy IMAP related stuff to see how much I can confuse the IT guys with what’s possible.

I started looking at the PHP Developer’s Cookbook, and it’ll probably be more useful to me that the other PHP book I tried to read. I think one problem with the other book is that they presented completely invalid HTML throughout the book, which really bothered me. It was also too much of a beginners book, and while I might be a beginner of PHP, I’m not a beginner programmer. The Developer’s Cookbook is more like the Perl Cookbook which is an incredibly useful reference.

Beyond all that, I need to get away from the fact that so much PHP I see is poorly done. There’s a lot of poorly done perl out there as well. It’s not the fault of the language. Still, when I look at how things are done in PHP I can’t help but think, “it takes all that code to do that? I could do that in one line of perl!” And the fact that so many PHP programmers tend to mix HTML and logic rather than use a templating system doesn’t help. I don’t even like to consider writing something web-based in perl nowadays without using something like HTML::Template.

I think the biggest strength of a system like Movable Type is that the templating system is so powerful and easy to use. Is there any PHP based CMS/weblogging tool that uses templates in a way even close to how Movable Type does?

I never really liked Bill Gates. A few years back one of my bosses asked me if I read his latest book, I said no. What I really wanted to say couldn’t be said in the office. Anyway, at the library last week I checked out his book Business @ the Speed of Thought. (Actually, I checked out the book on tape, since my reading time is precious, but my driving time is largely wasted.) I’m about half way through with it, and it actually has some interesting stuff in it. I’m surprised. I’m not sure if I’ll get to hear it all before it’s due, but this is the most interesting thing I’ve gotten out of it so far:

Make sure any system you build or buy supports PC and internet standards…

Yup. That’s what Bill said. Now I don’t know what ‘PC’ standards’ are, but internet standards I’m familiar with. So by Bill saying this, it almost seems as though he’s telling you not to use Microsoft products, at least the ones that don’t support internet standards, like Microsoft Internet Explorer. I wonder if the ‘build or buy’ part was carefully worded. I not attempting to sound like a conspiracy nut, but I notice that it says ‘build or buy’ and not implement. It seems to imply that you can create your own system, or purchase one, but what about implementing what already exists and is freely available. Ok, my open source advocate badge is starting to show, I’ll stop now.

I’ll end with this: Dear local library, please get more decent books on tape for me to listen to. Thank you…

Drupal supports RSD, thanks to breyten. RSD is Really Simple Discovery, and is a way to help client software find the services needed to read, edit, or work with weblogging software…