Tag Archive for 'rails'

Day 3: Regroup

Published
by
Josh Kim
on September 14, 2008
in Personal, Project Ideas and Web Development
. Comments

After a normal sleep cycle, I returned to my computer to start cracking.

Of course, life threw its usual curveballs. After church, I had realized that my printer was being wonky. I also realized that NewEgg’s return policy on broken items sucks (you have to pay for shipping for sending it back), which makes me not want to order from them ever again unless it’s something like an.. xbox live 12+1 month card. (Which I didn’t get from them, because buy.com has it better. DO IT.) I’m probably continue to order from Amazon… I love everything about this company, from Prime down to its amazing return policy.

That took a while, then I had a couple hours of fun on the guitar as well as the 360. Eh, it was bound to happen.

Productivity

Then I buckled down. I realized all the physical needs of a human being, including sleeping and eating, really gets in the way of doing some productive work. I worked on and am still working on organizing all the web “properties” I have. I’m talking email addresses to AIM screen names to… you guessed it, domain names. Yesterday night, I did something I should have done a while back.

I finally bought joshk.im. Currently, I’m beta testing something called SweetCron, which is perfect for the purpose of that site. I have this strange feeling this might be a project I look forward to committing some changes to. Yes, even though it’s PHP… but it’s so well written! So pretty! I’ve never seen CodeIgniter code before, and it looks very very clean. I’m only used to seeing the insanity that is Symfony. It might just be that the guy who’s writing this thing, Yong Fook, is quite good. It was interesting to find out that SweetCron was going open source just as I found his blog a couple months ago. I really do hope for great things, if he’s reading this.

But alas, I may do something else with my newly acquired shiny domain name. I’m fresh out of ideas at this point, but I really wanted it to be a site for just that.

So What’s The Next Project?

I’m still figuring this out. I hope to have a list of my requirements for this project. Here’s a preliminary list:

  • Must not depend on advertising as the main stream of revenue
    • Basically comes down to freemiums or charge per use.
  • Must use Rails (if I’m doing a web project)
    • This is to learn Rails, btw… I’m not saying Rails is the end all for web projects.
  • Must be doable by “myself”
    • I’m sure I’ll be hitting up people left and right for help, but largely, it has to be my own.
    • It could be a source of pride, but I need to make sure I can do something on my own.
  • Must not neglect health of body and mind
    • This is like… uber important. Must maintain some kind of healthy habits.
  • Must blog daily progress reports, like this one
    • Accountability: So people can call me out. Important thing is to stay truthful.
    • You’re going to see lots of FAIL on this blog starting from… before this blog started to the day I die. I hope to see more WINs in the days to come, though.
    • Maybe, possibly, someone else is trying to do something like I’m doing. Maybe by doing this, I can find someone else who’s trying to do it his or her own way.

Sidepoint: Blogging Schedule

So I’m looking back on February 2008’s posts, and it seems like I stopped blogging like a madman after I found Twitter. Then this blog turned into, for lack of a better phrase, a Twitter archive. But before then, when I actually contributed to the world with some meaningful posts on the web… ugh… 2.0 market and on life in general, I would have multiple posts in various stages of completion.

I’m back at that stage. I have screenshots and halfway finished posts all over the place. I may need to slow down a bit, but I feel so energized.

I want to have these daily blog entries about the status of the “project”, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be doing some other random updates along the way. I have a feeling something about Rock Band 2 is going to get posted. Effing Braid needs to get a good review also. So many lovely post ideas…

Completely Random

Man, what the heck did I do with all this time I’m using up for the blog? I really have no idea. Must have been watching and playing things… Hmm. If I could have tracked all that lost time… but really, what’s the point then? What’s the point of being meta with things that you can’t change if you’ve already changed and are looking back?

Ah, the meta-life post. [Creates a new draft] I’ve deleted and rewritten this post so many times, physically, electronically, and mentally. ARGH.

Time to Start

Published
by
Josh Kim
on July 23, 2008
in HanMeta
. Comments

Sitting in front of my computer. 8 PM. I have the next 4 hours to rock out on any projects I would like.

Eyes hurting. Wrists burning. Ankles twitching. Whatever.

I really haven’t done a project in a while. It’s interesting to start up again.

Too many things swirl up in my mind. The biz hat. The dev hat. Do I have to wear both? I guess for a little while, I’m going to try and develop this thing on my own. It’ll be a good experience to see how much I know and how much more I don’t.

I have a large amount of past diagrams and outlines I’ve created, just for this moment. Months and months of planning. Just planning. No code. Just diagrams on napkins and dreams in my mind.

My skills in JavaScript is lacking, but I’ve already decided on jQuery as the library of choice. My skills in Ruby is lacking, but I’ve already decided on Rails as the choice (and even though I hear lovely things about Merb).

Stressing the Intro

I remember in high school, I was told to start with the body of the intro-body-conclusion style essays… That it helps somehow in the formation of the essay.

I could never do it that way. I had to just start. Start from the intro. Just start busting it out. Then an impromptu list would begin to form, out of thin air. I’d start formulating the arguments and throwing down the supporting points.

In that same way, I have to just start.

What’s really making me afraid is I’ve never written a book in this manner before. The fear is that I’ll be going down the wrong path.

No, I don’t want to hear about Rails not scaling. It’s not that at all. It’s the fact that this initial plan might somewhere along the line hamper the projects growth. The fact that, if I don’t position my first step correctly, I’ll sprain my ankle and miss out on the season to come.

But to run… even that marathon… I guess each step is a risk. All of life is a risk.

So suck it up. And be awesome instead.

Goals for tonight?

Start coding. Even one line will do. Just one. And then we’ll see where it goes from here.

Chances are, I’ll end up throwing that single line away anyway. Don’t think too much about the source management tool you’ll end up using, the bug tracking system you’ll end up working with, the browser incompatibility you’ll have to deal with…

Take a holistic approach. This is sometimes a problem of mine, and it applies for anything as big as this. I think that’s the way with a lot of people.

Sidenote: I have to understand that some of my weaknesses and downfalls are presented in the whole human race. I need to stop thinking that my problems are so much more important than others.

One line. Time to get cracking. Oh, that one line, and maybe a couple posts or something.

Rails & The Hype Cycle

Published
by
Josh Kim
on January 24, 2008
in Web Development
. Comments

It’s eerie. I feel it. I feel it in the feed posts I should be getting.

There seems to be less and less feed items about Rails in general. I don’t know… maybe it’s just me… Obie Fernandez says otherwise:

Simply browse the ruby links on programming.reddit.com or the list of over 2000 ruby-related links on DZone to disprove that lie.

But I don’t know… just this gut feeling that I can’t shake that there’s this feeling of meh-ness in the community.

A lot of things have been leading up to this point for me. Working with PHP at work and having Java as the core for StatusFix (although I’m not actually doing Java, but just being this near to it… makes me feel a bit different) is helping me see more and more that there really is no silver bullet, no matter how much I want it.

But that’s merely just an aside. The point of this post comes from Global Nerdy.

Rails Hype Cycle

It’s very likely that we’re in or very near the Trough of Disillusionment stage in the hype cycle when it comes to Rails. Makes a lot of sense, if you ask me. The way I see it, the hype has worn off. And thank goodness it has, because finally, the Rails community can get to work on making awesome things and stop defending or attacking other positions.

As a crazed extremist that has to have his way, I feel like I’ve still got quite a long ways to go in maturing as a developer/manager. New technologies will come and go, and picking the right ones… well, that’s the hard part. It’s almost like… the stock market.

FRICK, Focusing is HARD

Published
by
Josh Kim
on January 2, 2008
in Personal
. Comments

Seriously. I’m writing this as an effort to get me back on track.

At least, with working out, you didn’t really have to think. You’d count, and memorize. And push yourself to your limit. But there wasn’t any of this planning or thinking or critiquing…

Programming with the crew at HanMeta is FUN. But man, it’s freaking draining after a day of work at NCSA. I might be able to get a few hours in every night, plus all the other personal crap I have to do.

And just because it’s fun, it doesn’t mean it’s draining. I guess I signed up for this when I made HanMeta anyway. My eyes hurt immensely.

Yeap. That’s all that you’re going to get from this blogger today. Wee.

Another Weekend of Code

Published
by
Josh Kim
on December 11, 2007
in Project Ideas
. Comments

This past weekend was well spent, inside. Good thing I had enough food to last through the insanity that is freezing rain.

Definitely made some headway into what I wanted to do with the projects I have. Wrote some code, but mostly throwaway. Looked into a lot of the new Rails 2.0 stuff, but only to realize how little Rails I know period. Also added a third to HanMeta, and I hope to keep adding more people as time passes, and… you know… as I get grander ideas. I’m sure I’ll tap on some shoulders as time passes.

And hopefully, soon enough, LLC is in the future. Need a lawyer and an accountant… yikes.

And that’s all the update I have with regards to HanMeta. I have some nice wrist support gloves to aid me in my wrist painness and it feels like they are working.