Many, Many Things
This will be my 30th entry. That’s a lot. Twenty-five thousand words is enough to fill a small book, too. I added a small block that displays the site statistics using a PHP script I whipped up in about half an hour. It’s really amazing that only a year ago I struggled with simple control structures (functions that say if “this”, then do “that”) and I now am so proficient that I can do ten times that level of programming in so little time.
It seems Mr. Larsen (the parent of a friend who knows Mr. Trapani, the technology guru at my school) read my cry for help (I didn’t have an email address or phone number and was unable to contact him otherwise). I first met Mr. Trapani on Tuesday when I was called out of geometry. He’s a really nice guy, just a bit weird at times (he said he has ADHD or something like that). So we talked a bit, and then I helped some kid pry a VHS tape out of a VCR.
Wednesday I came in early in the morning to talk to him, and he got me out of my 6th period class (Spanish), so that I could be in his web development class for a day. I was promptly put to work plagiarizing (or just “copying”) another high school’s post-graduation bulletin for use on the CSHS website for the counseling department, and that was fun (in a nerdy sort of way). I also met another web developer, Eric Kearns who seems like an awesome person, though he’s a bit overworked. (Mr. Trapani runs a tight ship.)
So I worked on the post-grad thing yesterday afternoon and again this morning, and probably again tomorrow morning, if I can get in there early enough. I don’t know what I’ll be doing once that’s done, hopefully some scripting work (Mr. Trapani has plans for some kind of “e-learning portal” where students and parents can review grades and communicate with teachers). All I can say is that this is certainly a good step toward being part of a collaborative project, rather than just doing my own stuff. Trapani also said he’d talk to my PE teacher, Mrs. Young, about getting me out of class 2-3 days a week to work on things. I also have some high school credit that I got after my first Europe trip (though I don’t know how much) which might become helpful next semester.
Though the good certainly outweighs the bad, I noticed some things about the way the website is run that I was not so happy with.
First, it’s running on Microsoft IIS server software or something like that, not my native Apache. I’m not complaining about the fact that I’ve never used IIS, just that Apache is much more stable and compliant with plugins like PHP, not to mention the fact that it’s open source, free, and not a Microsoft product.
Second, the students that I saw working on it were all using FrontPage to edit web pages and such. Again, not what I would use, for the sole reason that I taught myself how to hard code websites, so I need something like Notepad or an equivalent. (My favorite is Crimson Editor.) I actually do have a copy of FrontPage 2002 that I got for Christmas last year, but it collects dust because I never use it. I’m actually thinking of donating it to Mr. Trapani’s tech lab, providing that he needs it. Really, the bottom line with FrontPage is that it works fine for static HTML, but it isn’t the most standards-compliant, and I don’t believe it generates XHTML code, which is the stricter and newest version of HTML. Also, the very worst part, FrontPage is yet another Microsoft product, meaning that it favors other Microsoft products, such as ASP, PHP’s chief competitor.
Finally, no one seemed to be educated in server-side scripting, meaning that I might end up as the lone programmer. It is quite possible that I just haven’t met anyone who knows PHP yet, but I was quite alarmed when, in the web development class, Mr. Trapani showed some students an article or website or something that was about ASP (!!!), and they all responded as if ASP (and PHP) were only for smart people. In other words, none of them knew either language. Not good, because I’ll have no one to work with, but also somewhat good, since I won’t have to try to cooperate with another programmer (and we programmers can be quite sticky about such things as naming conventions and syntax).
So here’s a quick list of things I’ll need to try and change (I can work in just about any environment, but I think an Apache configuration would be best.)
To Do List - CSHS Website
- Move from an IIS (or other) server to an Apache server (on Linux?) with MySQL and PHP installed
- Change site from static HTML to dynamic PHP files served through a Smarty templating system.
- Figure out how to connect between PHP and Integrade Pro, the grading program, so that grades can be exported to the e-learning site (via email?).
- Implement news posting and user system. (Forum?)
- Stream daily video news announcements.
This obviously is a pretty ambitious plan, and there’s little chance of getting everything accomplished anytime soon. I’m not sure how attached Mr. Trapani is to using Microsoft products, so I might have to convert him to open-source. That will make things easier.
Anyway, that’s enough about that. Tomorrow night I go to my friend Dylan’s house for a Halloween party. We’re going to have an Almond Joy war, among other things. Also, I went over to Sonoran Trails after school with Jim and Dylan to see some of my old middle school teachers. There’s nothing to say about that except that all the kids are really short.
That’s about it, I think. I’m still no closer to getting Photoshop or the Macromedia Suite after spending $7 to pay my iTunes bill and $25 on books from Barnes and Noble.com. I really needed something new to read.
I’m sorry this entry sucked. It was pretty much just a compilation of stuff about Mr. Trapani and the school website. It could have been better. I could have flamed the current school configuration a lot more (sorry, Mr. T.), but I tried to restrain my fingers. They’re tired enough, anyway, after typing 7,000 keys for this entry.
Eggplant.