Kyle Mulka's Blog

Is it just me, or does this application act a little too much like Google Maps, perhaps to the point of using the same open source software called ka-Map and MapServer?

Can you see where I’m going with this, or no?

XMLHttpRequest and AJAX for PHP programmers

For anyone who may be following my thoughts on creating an away message aggregator as it may be called, here’s an article to support the thought.

For those that don’t care to read it, it basically says people in hollywood that work, or hire for short time gigs use iChat because of its feature to display all away messages together. So, a quick browse through the list would indicate if someone was in need of work or just finishing up a gig.

“‘Ninety percent of my work is given to me through a pop-up (chat window) on my desktop,’ said Simon Foster, 32, a freelance production coordinator living in Santa Monica, California.”

So, maybe my idea of creating an easier way to view away messages would have some use after all.

Wired News: Never IM in This Town Again!

So, I guess the name for the technology which Goolgle Maps, Google Suggest, Gmail, etc uses is called Ajax. Hmm… interesting.

The point of using Ajax to make web applications is to make them faster, and more snappy. When you use Ajax, you don’t have to reload the webpage to do a lot of things, and processing can be done on the client side.

This makes them more like desktop applications. The whole trend of web applications now is to make them seem more like native applications. You don’t have to “download” them, they just work when you go to the site.

On a side note, I think JavaScript is a really bad language for writing applications in. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was never meant for it. Rather, it was meant for little popup boxes and slightly dynamic pages. Of course, you can completely adjust the content of pages dynamically, but still, it’s pretty bad. Another reason it is bad is because all the various browsers don’t implement it the same way, so the developer(s) end up testing in several different browsers which is really annoying. There has to be a better way.

Maybe that way is Java, which actually isn’t related to Javascript at all. It is more of a real programming language like C++v except for the fact that it is not compiled to a natie application, it is compiled to bytecode which requires a Java Virtual Machine to run. However, this means it can run on pretty much any operating system that is used today.

Here’s some related links:

JSON-RPC-Java – JavaScript to Java remote communication
DWR – Java library
Ajax Wiki

Matt introduced me to Model View Controller, and it looks promising. In fact, it looks like the exact design pattern we have been trying to do from the begining of Mschedule. (after he joined that is) Basically, the main goal is to separate the application logic from the display logic. This allows for complete change of display without changing the back end. It also allows the application logic to be cleaner without all the html gunk or whatever you are outputing. Below is a list of links, basically for my own reference having to do with MVC as it is called.

php.MVC
J2EE MVC
Web-Tier MVC Java
Design Patters
Do you need MVC?
Ruby on Rails
PHP MVC Frameworks
Phrame
Struts

After a month of development, the project Chris and I have been working on is almost ready for public viewing. Yey! More details to come. Maybe I’ll even give you the link if you ask nicely.

Found this page accidently, and found it interesting. It has a very positive outlook on PHP’s future. A quote:

“PHP is very powerful and is designed such that it can replace awk, sed, UNIX shell, perl, “C”, C++ and Java.”

PHP HOW-TO: General purpose programming with PHP

I believe it! I’m using it now, and I love it, even if php4 doesn’t have all the OO features yet, it does have classes and basic methods, member variables, constructors, and inheritance.

Looks like someone had my idea and implemented it before me. But, it doesn’t integrate into LiveJournal or anything, and it doesn’t appear to do multiple line entries. But, I could be wrong as I haven’t tested it yet.

AIMBlog

Fresh from the minds at Google… They are offering a $4500 stipind to students for working on and releasing an open source project this summer. I’d love to apply, but I currently have an internship. Dang. Would this be worth losing my job over? I’m thinking probably not. But, if anyone else is interested, here’s the website:

Google Code: Summer of Code

Some other organizations that are willing to join, but may not be listed on the Google page:
Community Mapbuilder – they are developing an open source library of browser based mapping widgets
Our Media – Free hosting for media content

Also, I was in a chatroom with the contact person from Google. Here’s the transcript from the night of May 31st:
Transcript

UPDATE:

There are a whole bunch of new organizations. Almost triple what they had listed originally. Awsome.

Here’s a short list of AIM Bot Sites I’ve come across. I’m thinking about making an AIM to Blog and/or website interface, so this list is mostly for my reference.

• Run-A-Bot – lets you run your own bot? I haven’t tested it yet.
• Cyber Prank – Send an AI Bot to chat with your friends. They won’t know its not a real person. You get sent the transcript.
• Wired Bots – Company that specializes in making bots.
• Bot Depot – Forum for AIM Bots
• Joscar – Java Library for programming your own bot
• DiaWebLog – AIM Chatroom or IRC community blog interface
• algae LiveJournal AIM Client
• WebAIM – Web Based AIM Client