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June 14, 2003
Trackback
OK Seth, I've added trackback to the blog. I don't fully 'get it' but enjoy...
Posted by aland at 11:38 PM
June 13, 2003
Project ListManager
ListManager is a new project that Seth and I are developing.
It's fairly simple in concept. A simple database of "Items", each item has a category associated with it.
When we're done with it (the web application and the various clients) it's going to be a monster...
We have a few different client / use cases envisioned.
The first is fairly simple - think of it in terms of a simple book database, where you just enter the title (with or without author) of a book you want to buy, read, borrow, etc. Or a CD, or a movie, or a birthday, etc. An "Item" can be anything the user wants it to be.
Each item has a Category associated with it. The Category can be either a root "Item Type" (e.g. Book, CD, DVD, Birthday, To-Do, etc.) or a Hierarchical type (e.g. Book::To Buy, Movie::To Watch, Movie::To Watch in Theater). Hierarchical types will come in handy later.
I have a very nasty (not yet HTML-ified) project description set up at http://www.aland.us/software/ListManager/ and I will be converting the description to HTML, fleshing it out with respect to implementation details, and hopefully starting to write the code, soon.
(The basis for this project is that I wanted to write a Struts (http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/) application. I wanted something simple. And Seth and I got a little crazy discussing the ListManager project I'd mentioned to him.)
The premise here is that I'll write an MVC Struts application, and expose the Model as Web Services. Seth and I will then build interfaces to the Web Services that will allow us to query and modify the database for a variety of purposes.
One of these purposes is a Bookmark Manager. This will be implemented in a fairly simple and straightforward fashion (to start). One of our Categories will be "Bookmark", with an indefinite number of subcategories. Then, we can write a client for each platform of interest (MacOS X, Windows, Linux) that will query the database for all Bookmarks associated with our particular user, format them in such a way that we can open them individually or en masse (using tabs in Chimera, Safari, Firebird, or some other modern browser). The beauty is that the web application (List Manager) does not have to know about any of the more interesting and complicated functionality that the "Domain Client" (e.g. Bookmark application) is going to provide. It has a simple task: Serve "Items" to clients.
That's enough blithering for now. It's late and I'm tired. More info when some actual coding has been done!
Posted by aland at 12:33 AM | Comments (3)
June 10, 2003
I'm Unemployed!
My last day at the company formerly known as Genuity was last Friday, June 6th.
This is not a bad thing. I'm getting severance, which means I can relax for a bit. I can work on some of my programming projects. I no longer have to be 'on call' which just makes EVERYONE happier...
That's the good news. The bad news is that it means I have to look for (and FIND) a job, at some point in the next month or three.
I have a few prospects - places that are hiring for C/C++ or J2EE developers, where I would like to work. But I don't have anything much lined up. I'm ok with that, at least for now.
If you know of any employment opportunities for a software developer with a lot of systems administration experience, let me know!
-=Alan
Posted by aland at 5:44 PM | Comments (0)