I've been spending a fair amount of time on Twitter (@CjoelHarrison) lately... so much, in fact, that other elements of my e-life have been suffering. Case in point: this blog. In January of 2015, while I was establishing my presence in the twittersphere, I did not post a single blog. Possibly even more tragic, my playing time on Rail Nation has suffered tremendously. And don't even get me started on my lack of quality Steam time... I'm not certain when the last time I played Sid Meier's Civilization V was.
In any event, here I am once more heralding the latest iteration of my pet database project, Forty-Two. This may indeed be Version Seven; then again, I've not kept track, so it could be any number greater than three. This iteration, though, is different from previous ones: it was not necessitated by a hardware crash or a software glitch. Rather, it is simply a fresh start with a few ideas to make a (relatively) large dataset more organized.
So, I suppose the logical question would be this: why would a home user with no database training want to even try to build an Access database in the first place?
I suppose I could just write it off as an Aspie thing- a project that goes on forever without a realistic chance of being completed (I'm not sure that's exactly an Aspie trait!) It could be that I haven't learned MySQL yet, or haven't even tried NoSQL, and let's not even bring Hadoop into the discussion!
The reality is a lot more pedestrian. And practical: I want to know what I don't know.
In plainer speech, I want to learn how to build a small relational database from the ground up. I want this database to be useful to my family. And, possibly the most important reason for building the database: should anything bad happen, I'd like to have it as a record for an insurance claim.
So there, that's what drives me to keep on trying to build Forty-Two, the database that answers the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
The other side projects that have been taking up my time are coding. Professionally, I'm a programmer. The interesting thing about that is that even if I spent the majority of my time programming, the world would probably not recognize me as a programmer, because the tools that I use are very specialized and are more related to composition and layout than programming- and when we DO actually write some code, there is absolutely no way it con be confused with a Turing complete language. Still, some of these tools DO have actual programming, and to help myself to better understand these areas, I've taken to studying the Python language.
Gasp- it's official now: yours truly is studying Python.
print("That's all for now folks!")
Showing posts with label MySQL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MySQL. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
R, S, T, and other programming languages not generally spoken of in polite circles
I suppose I know a thing or two about the care and feeding of a blog. After 124 posts, I know a little, anyways- this blog has been read on six continents (over 40 countries!). One of the little things I think I know is that a blog post should try to have a clever title, a "hook". The content, of course, should also be interesting, or at least relevant. I've written a few pieces which I consider absolutely golden, and then there have been a few that were just plain... meh.
Today's title, though, explodes the bounds of known civility: of the folks who visit my blog, I believe only my good e-buddy Dr. Lee Baker will have the foggiest notions of what R, S and T are about (by the way- if you DO know anything about these languages, drop a comment and I'll be happy to give you and/or your website or firm bit of free web publicity).
As for me, well... I've actually got a copy of R of one of the PCs in the Secret Underground Lair. I've done about as much with it as I have with MySQL, which is to say, not much. R is a derivative, successor, or just plain newer version of S... seriously, I'm not making this up. T, however, is the oddball in this group. As I as thinking of a topic involving programming languages, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be an absolute hoot if there was a T programming language?" Well, be careful what you wish for- T is out there, it's pretty obscure, but it really does exist. Depending on your source, it's either an implementation of the Scheme language or Lisp.
The reason all of this is here is because I'm trying to get back into programming. I mean, part of my job title is "programmer", but what we typically do falls more into layout than anything, in most cases. And, being that the software utilized is expensive, it's out of the reach of "normal" humans, it's not just something one goes out and buys and gets good at. How expensive is it? Well, one could purchase several stand-alone copies of Adobe's CS6 for the same price as one license of what we use. So, I'm looking at a few languages that have a common characteristic, namely price. Of course, that price is FREE.
For those non-geeks out there, there is a plethora of high-quality software available- robust, well-supported and developed, and used in every sort of business, educational and scientific endeavor. R is one of these languages. I'm not sure that I'll ever use it, but it's on my radar. The language at the top of my list is Python- I hope to collaborate a bit with Mr. T in the near future on a Python project. Perl is also on my list, as well as JavaScript and Visual Basic.
And there you have it- I'm on record and on the hook now to start working on one of these languages.
On the data front, my Access form is partially rebuilt- I hope to have that up and running soon.
That's it- it's nearly 0600 local (GMT-5)
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
June 5, 2016 update: this was originally published on Sep 16, 2014, and is one of the 1st of what I hope to be an occasional series of blog updates- microblogs, I suppose.
Where am I at? Well, in case you missed it, the database had a catastrophic hardware failure, and it was not backed up. I'm still pretty much at "Hello, world" with Python 3, and although my analytical skill are vastly improved, my practical programming experience at work is only modestly improved.
On a sad note, Meerkat suffered her FOURTH flat in just over four years today. Fortunately, we carry one of those all-in-one emergency devices: air pump, jumper, lights and USB power supply. I know EXACTLY where and when it happened. There is absolutely no way I can avoid the tollway construction, and it is the cause of two of the flats.
Today's title, though, explodes the bounds of known civility: of the folks who visit my blog, I believe only my good e-buddy Dr. Lee Baker will have the foggiest notions of what R, S and T are about (by the way- if you DO know anything about these languages, drop a comment and I'll be happy to give you and/or your website or firm bit of free web publicity).
As for me, well... I've actually got a copy of R of one of the PCs in the Secret Underground Lair. I've done about as much with it as I have with MySQL, which is to say, not much. R is a derivative, successor, or just plain newer version of S... seriously, I'm not making this up. T, however, is the oddball in this group. As I as thinking of a topic involving programming languages, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be an absolute hoot if there was a T programming language?" Well, be careful what you wish for- T is out there, it's pretty obscure, but it really does exist. Depending on your source, it's either an implementation of the Scheme language or Lisp.
The reason all of this is here is because I'm trying to get back into programming. I mean, part of my job title is "programmer", but what we typically do falls more into layout than anything, in most cases. And, being that the software utilized is expensive, it's out of the reach of "normal" humans, it's not just something one goes out and buys and gets good at. How expensive is it? Well, one could purchase several stand-alone copies of Adobe's CS6 for the same price as one license of what we use. So, I'm looking at a few languages that have a common characteristic, namely price. Of course, that price is FREE.
For those non-geeks out there, there is a plethora of high-quality software available- robust, well-supported and developed, and used in every sort of business, educational and scientific endeavor. R is one of these languages. I'm not sure that I'll ever use it, but it's on my radar. The language at the top of my list is Python- I hope to collaborate a bit with Mr. T in the near future on a Python project. Perl is also on my list, as well as JavaScript and Visual Basic.
And there you have it- I'm on record and on the hook now to start working on one of these languages.
On the data front, my Access form is partially rebuilt- I hope to have that up and running soon.
That's it- it's nearly 0600 local (GMT-5)
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
June 5, 2016 update: this was originally published on Sep 16, 2014, and is one of the 1st of what I hope to be an occasional series of blog updates- microblogs, I suppose.
Where am I at? Well, in case you missed it, the database had a catastrophic hardware failure, and it was not backed up. I'm still pretty much at "Hello, world" with Python 3, and although my analytical skill are vastly improved, my practical programming experience at work is only modestly improved.
On a sad note, Meerkat suffered her FOURTH flat in just over four years today. Fortunately, we carry one of those all-in-one emergency devices: air pump, jumper, lights and USB power supply. I know EXACTLY where and when it happened. There is absolutely no way I can avoid the tollway construction, and it is the cause of two of the flats.
 |
| Meerkat receiving CPR (Car Pneumatic Resupply) |
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Why, 2K!
Well, it's been ten days since my last post... which, in the blogosphere, is the half life of an eternity, I think! Today's title is in commemoration (actually anticipation) of 2,000 views of this blog!
This makes me happy.
In addition to looking for a job, building Forty-Two, working nights, blogging, HTML5 and working on the Lego spreadsheet, I've also been doing some stuff on Twitter ( @CJoelHarrison ), and am looking at PHP, MySQL and Apache. I'm not sure as yet where the last three will fit into the general scheme of things, but I'm thinking that adding these last three to my software skills can only be good.
As far as blog data goes, I'm still amazed at some of the locations of my readers. When I first started out, I had a goal of at least one reader per continent by the end of 2013. As a writer, I'm not sure how much control I have over who reads, but I've tried to make it as interesting and universally appealing (within the constraints of being semi-technical at times) as possible. So, with five months nearly gone in 2013, I'm happy to say the last frontiers for readers are South America and Antarctica. Shameless plug: if anyone knows folks in either of these places, I'd appreciate a recommendation!
Finally, the database has grown by .5% since I last took a look at the numbers earlier in the month, and the Lego spreadsheet has not been touched. Most of the database growth has occurred in one table- Songs. As I'm getting deeper into this project, I'm finding that it is quicker and easier to take a single book or piece of music and extract all of the data, rather than working in the main table and going back and forth opening, saving and closing multiple tables many times over the course of an evening's work. That's the theory for today, at least.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
This makes me happy.
In addition to looking for a job, building Forty-Two, working nights, blogging, HTML5 and working on the Lego spreadsheet, I've also been doing some stuff on Twitter ( @CJoelHarrison ), and am looking at PHP, MySQL and Apache. I'm not sure as yet where the last three will fit into the general scheme of things, but I'm thinking that adding these last three to my software skills can only be good.
As far as blog data goes, I'm still amazed at some of the locations of my readers. When I first started out, I had a goal of at least one reader per continent by the end of 2013. As a writer, I'm not sure how much control I have over who reads, but I've tried to make it as interesting and universally appealing (within the constraints of being semi-technical at times) as possible. So, with five months nearly gone in 2013, I'm happy to say the last frontiers for readers are South America and Antarctica. Shameless plug: if anyone knows folks in either of these places, I'd appreciate a recommendation!
Finally, the database has grown by .5% since I last took a look at the numbers earlier in the month, and the Lego spreadsheet has not been touched. Most of the database growth has occurred in one table- Songs. As I'm getting deeper into this project, I'm finding that it is quicker and easier to take a single book or piece of music and extract all of the data, rather than working in the main table and going back and forth opening, saving and closing multiple tables many times over the course of an evening's work. That's the theory for today, at least.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
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