October 2018 - Project Immerse

October 29, 2018June 17, 2020

Data Structures & Algorithms II

This is part || of Data Structures & Algorithms using Javascript. I would like to give credit to freeCodeCamp.org for their series of videos covering this topic.

In part I we started off with a simply defining a few data types – an array and a string for storing data in memory. Then we used a “for-loop” to access and manipulate our data structures. Finally we came up with a sequence of steps to test whether a word was a palindrome or not. In part II now, were going to wrap up all that code into what we call a function object.

Functions are a powerful data structure encapsulating your algorithms. Functions also are a good example of “DRY” – Don’t Repeat Yourself.

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October 28, 2018June 17, 2020

Data Structures and Algorithms in Javascript – Stacks

Data Structures and Algorithms 1 - Stacks

Javascript is a language most developers either overestimate or underestimate – whatever the case, this is what makes Javascript special. Javascript is a dynamic language, it’s abstract and for this reason also prone to instability. Javascript in the last decade has provided developers with a place for inventiveness and innovation.

Lately I’ve been immersing myself into mathematics, physics, chemistry, philosophy and even linguistics. I found my premise to still hold true – that the universe is at a state of decay, of disorder, and mutation. It’s exactly because of mutation that we are able to manage disorder and chaos, so in a sense we are constantly trying to keep up with ourselves as we simultaneously and inevitably push forward into the future.

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October 26, 2018June 17, 2020

WPEngine, Nginx and htaccess

Redirects can get hairy sometimes – sometimes you get a nice clean canvas of directives, sometimes it’s messy and undocumented. Whatever the case, you’re dealing with an .htaccess file. One wrong move and you can crash your site
or worse yet a clients site. So before anything else make sure you have FTP access and you create a back up of their existing .htaccess file. Don’t even be tempted to do it through Yoast – even though they allow you to edit the .htaccess file right through WordPress. I’ve seen it happen and it isn’t worth it.

So you’ve got the .htaccess file – you’re going down line by line. It can look like a jungle at times – you’ll see caching stuff, some 301 redirects, some permission stuff.

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October 25, 2018June 17, 2020

The Genesis Framework

I’ve been running into the WordPress Genesis theme as of late. It’s not your standard wordpress theme when it comes to modifying template files. Genesis is actually a framework, that would be a better way to describe it. Genesis frameworks extend their functionality, allowing developers to customize their WordPress site.

The Genesis framework is built by Studio Press – I’m quite impressed with their work actually, it sounds like a solid framework I just need to learn more about it. So I dove right in – I scoured the internet for some learning material and a good list came up. This can only take you so far though – the best way to really learn is actually do it yourself, so that’s what I’m gonna do.

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October 20, 2018June 17, 2020

A Framework Author’s Case Against Frameworks

It’s the year 3018 for a programmer these days, yeah a 1000 years from now is what it feels like when my proclivities now involve constantly digesting new information not in seconds, but in hertz. Now hertz is the unit of measure we use to measure frequency. Since frequency is measured in cycles per second, one hertz equals one cycle per second. Where am I going with all this? Well what I’m really trying to say is that as we add more abstraction or more information to a particular thing, the more unnecessarily complicated it gets – and in some ways this ‘thing’ actually starts to become increasingly unstable.

This post is nice and light actually, it was an arbitrary find while I undergoing my usual subconscious bombardment of various programming concepts – namely, data structures, control structures and machine language. In this video A Framework Author’s Case Against Frameworks, Adrian Holovaty, the creator of Django gives a high level example of how frameworks can further complicate things for a developer.

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October 16, 2018June 17, 2020

UNIX: Making Computers Easier To Use

This post is a video review based on UNIX: Making Computers Easier To Use — AT&T Archives film from 1982, Bell Laboratories. Just like its titled thats how Unix came to life. Without its creators – Dennis Ritchie and colleague Ken Thompson, computers would not be better off with the Unix operating system. I was continuing the endless journey with programming in C but I stumbled upon one of those classics.

You would think these two brainiacs would be in some garage coding dungeon but nope, Unix was born at Bell Labs. I could just imagine both of them staying in late and hacking on some code. Well, that’s exactly what they did and now we have iOS, MacOS, Linux and Android – which all power a lot of devices we have today.

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October 13, 2018June 17, 2020

C Programming Part 1

I’ve been wanting to write a post about the basics of C programming language so here I am. We’ve heard it before from several or our nerdy colleagues – “Oh, I took a C programming class back in college, but I forgot all about it”. Well that’s because you obviously haven’t built many applications using C. To really know something in programming is to actually have done it.

I myself fall guilty of this – except I managed to salvage a C book at some random book donation. It was a super thick book, you just can’t imagine a C programming book being any other way. Its hardcover was in pastel yellow, inside was a pretty rough read. To be honest I only made it half way through the book, this was back in the mid 90s.

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October 5, 2018June 17, 2020

Linux Torvalds – The man behind Linux

Sometimes you read things, you see things and use things – and you’re just amazed by it, every creation has its creator. There’s an artist behind a painting I can point too. I personally think I would be missing out if I thought otherwise. Now hey, you can believe otherwise and say things just appear out of no where but you’re really cutting yourself short of some really good stuff. And if you want to really dig in deep into something, then you’d consider the mind behind the machine.

Yeah I know what you’re thinking – who names anyone Linus? Well replace that “s” with an “x” in Linus and you get the most powerful open source operating system that’s ever walked the face of this earth – LINUX.

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