Monthly Archive for August, 2006

moment of truth

Published on August 30, 2006 in programming and work. 0 Comments by cflipse

Well, after about two months of solid work, with one other developer and a UI/graphics guy, we’ve managed to produce a webapp redesign for work. The system is basically a really big CMS, where the data gets fed to the database through some backend processing, and the producer side users are building the contents of various pages from those building blocks. It’s sort of like building up the pages of a newspaper site. At least, that’s the idea.

We demo today, which will basically determine whether or not we get to keep running with this little experement. At the moment it’s a very functional proof of concept. Covers all the basics, but … well, I wouldn’t call it robust just yet. Early demos have gone well, but this is the important one.

In all, I’d have to say that I’ve picked up a lot of Ruby on Rails knowledge, so it’s been a good experience in that respect, regardless of outcome.

I’m sure the demo will go well, but some of the guys havn’t gotten much sleep last night. Not much point in loosing sleep, what will be will be. And really, the demo will go well. Whether or not we get to take this beyond a proof-of-concept is, sadly, a matter of politics, and just a little bit out of my sphere of control. Hence, no sense worrying about it.

busy, busy

Published on August 17, 2006 in darksun and work. 0 Comments by cflipse

I’ve never been terribly good about writing to this thing, but this summer has been somewhat bad, especially if you consider how much time I’ve been spending immersed in new technology …

In the last two months at work, I’d have to guess that I’ve picked up a pretty strong working knowledge of Rails … still have hiccups, of course, but I’ve gotten a rather snazzy javascripty app put together for doing “news” page layout. It’ll never see the light of the ‘net, since the thing is intended to live on a private network, but it’s been a good workout, both of my Javascript skills, and my developing ruby muscles. So, yeah, really should be talking more about my experiences picking up that new langauge and platform. Whole thing is due for a set of demos over the next couple of weeks. The low pressure, “determine if we’re gonna keep funding the project” type of demo.

As for side projects, I’ve got a rewrite of athas.org in the works, which is going to be rails based. Really, I just need a couple of days without distraction. Once I get the “releases” section worked out and done, the rest is a cakewalk. Of course, those distraction free days have been kind of mythical. I’ll have a couple of days for it next week, I suppose — my girlfriend is getting knee surgury, and I’m taking some time off work (wonderful timing with the demos and all, but it’s been scheduled for a while).

And on the same lines, I’ve got an article due for Dragon magazine at the end of the month that I’m struggling with. It’s taking shape, but the constraints aren’t exactly what I’d call natural for the setting.

Other than that, my time has been tied up with the usual “summer” things — weddings, weekend trips, a bbq or two at the park … not much time for keeping up a blog. On the plus side, it also means that I havn’t had much time for keeping up with World of Warcraft … I think it might be safe to say that that particular distraction has finally let me go.