I’m starting to develop a big application in PHP. It’s gonna be cool, and hopefully it’s going to do something that you guys have been wishing for. I’ll tell you more about it soon. I’ve also just started using Eclipse which is a great open source IDE. It supports Java out of the box, but you can also find great extensions like PDT, the PHP framework, and SWeDE, the Semantic Web Development Environment - for developing OWL etc.
Absolutely warranted Eclipse hype
I’ve totally fallen in love with Eclipse’s PHP mode. It is actually making it possible for me to develop large scale object-oriented applications by doing really pleasant things like keeping track of function names for me in an outline - and doing auto-complete on functions. This includes while working in classes - because you are setting it up to work across a whole project rather than just a file.
Not only does it do functions and member functions in it’s ‘project outline’ mode, it also shows you constants - which is quite useful, because they are supposed to be just that - constant.
Eclipse also saves your state when you shut down. Meaning that if you need to reboot, you can quit Eclipse, save your files and come back to them safe in the knowledge that they’ll all be where you expected them to be. This is highly pleasant behaviour, and having spent a year or so using text editors with windows splattered across my screen, that kind of pleasant is extremely welcome.
It also lets you keep track of a to-do list just by putting the word TODO at the start of a one-line comment. This means that if you are hacking away and real-life intervenes, you just jot down what you need to do next by putting in a line like this:
// TODO Load in XML file and read settings
And then Eclipse, upon the next save of your file, will pick it up and add it to your Tasks view. Of course, for it to be useful, you need to actually enter useful information - “TODO Fix all this bolloxed up code so it works” is not quite as useful as something which describes what actually needs to be done. “;->”
It also has the language reference built-in, although this would be quite a lot more useful if it were searchable (most of the time I know the function or class I want to call by name, and I just want to see what I need to do. But this certainly is nice - it means that I have to spend less time in my browser (or worse, walking to my bookshelf to retrieve a programming book).
Eclipse is easily extendable. I’ve got mine set up to work with PHP, OWL, Java, C and C++. There is also some support for Python, Ruby and Perl (among others). Oxygen is also available as a plugin. The thought of being able to do all my projects in one interface is definitely appealing - especially since you can set-up separate TODO lists (I’m hoping to do a MSc in CS next year, and so I’d set up one TODO for my university assignments and one for my Opiumfield code).
Why am I getting ready to go in to development mode? Well, that’s for later I’m afraid.
Wifi makes you money, but not how BT want you to think that it does
Incentive Magazine: “Experienced travelers are often creatures of habit who are looking for consistency, ease and simplicity in many aspects of their day-to-day travel activities. This is true whether or not cost is an important aspect of the travel. There is evidence that the Best Western open access policy is resulting in increased room stays from the road-weary Internet-hungry travelers… Proprietors can choose to become frustrated chasing road weary traveling Wi-Fi leeches from their properties or view it as a marketing opportunity. Best Western does not appear to have advertised or publicized their widespread convenient and free Internet access.”
Think of wifi as equivalent to lighting or packets of sugar. Neither make you money, but if you went in to a coffee shop that was completely dark and had no sugar, you’d probably not consider returning. Free wi-fi is a really good motivation for me to come and use your services - it creates goodwill and is likely to get people to come back and buy your overpriced coffee. “;->”
I’d love to know if there are any establishments near Charing Cross or Cannon Street stations in London that offer free wi-fi. I spend a lot of time in the former and I’d be most happy to come and buy a drink and surf the ‘net if I’ve got 45 minutes to wait for a train. Plus you’d help undercut the Internet cafés, who so badly need to be brought down a peg or two.
If you want to know why subscription doesn’t work, go to BT Openzone. Look at their price list. Would you pay that for wi-fi?
The first library I’m building is a class to enable a person to emulate Frontier commands in PHP. This is because I’m building an application to emulate a number of the server side functions of the OPML Editor, and it seems easier to simply recode some of the functions in PHP and make them available as a library. That way, when you come to something like “string.innerCaseName (string)”, you can type in “$f->string_innerCaseName($string)” instead. I’m building it as a class, because I’m not sure whether or not I will need to set variables within the class. The idea of developing this library is simple - put it up, let people work on it, and have it as an easy transition for porting UserTalk based scripts to PHP. Quite a lot of the commands in UserTalk have simple PHP equivalents, so in many cases it’ll just be calling the relevant function - sometimes it’ll require a bit more work.
Don’t they know eBay exists? And if the iPod isn’t in good enough condition for eBay, then you give it to a family member.
Norm Geras: “A snooty fear of the imminent collapse of reviewing standards? My God, my God, now that truly is belly-laugh stuff.”
