Chapter 7

Well, Chapter 7 is finally done. I wanted it to only take 4 days and it took 7. At this rate, there is no way I will make the September 1 deadline. Chapter 7 was (I thought) the shortest of the remaining chapters for the deadline, and it took 7 days! How do all of these other authors do it?

Does writing just come easier to them than it does to me? I thought I was a decent writer. Not great…I haven’t had an English class in 11 years, but good enough to write a book. I look at other writer’s books, though, and they all seem to be more thorough with their material. I want to discuss the XMLHttpRequest object and I write a couple of paragraphs, other writers write a page and a half.

Do I just not have what it takes to wax eloquently? Maybe not. I don’t have pithy introductions to chapters. No good anecdotes to share.

I just don’t know…

Including Resources in JavaScript

I have my bias towards Prototype, because I like the foundation it provides for creating other classes, and the built in classes and functions it has. But I do hear an awful lot about Dojo, especially recently. So do I go with Dojo or Prototype and its children (script.aculo.us, OpenRico, Moo.fx)?

script.aculo.us has a nifty little way of including resources so that not everything need be loaded all of the time:

_src_="script.aculo.us?include=xxxx"

xxxx is a comma delimited string of the components to load.

Now Dojo follows more of a Java methodology if I understand correctly (and I will admit, I’ve never actually used it…) Something like:

dojo.require('dojo.event.*');>

They are both pretty straight forward to use…my question is, which one is better?

Chapter 6

This chapter has been just a pain to write. I don’t understand it. I knew the material I was writing about pretty well. I just had to reference some text when it came to all of those tables. And, yes, there are a lot of tables in this chapter (16 to be exact), but that shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did. I am finally done writing it, and I have moved on to Chapter 7. Hopefully this will be easier. I need to write one chapter every 4 days to hit my next milestone on time. I figure that I will have to write between 100 – 150 pages to accomplish that. So about 6 – 9 pages a day have to be cranked out. (No problem, he says in his most sarcastic voice.)

I am greatly indebted already to my entire family for all the support they are giving to Sarah and me. I couldn’t keep doing this without all of you. Thank you!

Well, it is early, so I think I’ll turn in.

Stay of Execution

Well the wheels grind on at TechPhob, and everybody runs around like a dog chasing his tail. The IT department has received a stay of execution for now. That will change once the powers that be get their heads out of each other’s asses and try to come up with a decision.

Div man: I’m in charge, but instead of giving direction for this problem, as it is a Division problem, I’m going to defer until that certain project manager returns to the office.

IT group: Huh?

I guess the one good thing about your boss’s bosses being inept is that it really makes big decisions which affect you that much harder to make. They will put off a decision until at least the end of the week. They don’t know what to do with my boss. They have no cause to fire him, so I think they will try to make his life miserable so he will quit and save them the trouble.

They are just – well, stupid, really. It is amazing at how smart people can be so dumb. I can’t say it any plainer. All of these guys have Masters and Doctorates in some environmental science discipline. Yet they can’t see through the bars of their historical methods. They cannot see that just on the other side of their cages lays an easier way – a faster way.

But my boss hit the nail on the head while I was talking to him today. He said they don’t want to have it easier or faster. They bill by the hour, and if they go faster, they get less money.

Stupid TechPhob – and stupid government entities for not knowing any better!

Chapter 5

Phew! Chapter 5 is finally done. I do not understand why that was such a time consuming chapter to write. I knew everything I was writing about. There was hardly any research needed. It just seemed to take forever to write a script to test a chunk of code to make sure what I had written actually worked.

On the upside, this may be time consuming, but i am having a good time writing. In fact, I am having more fun with each passing chapter. And, on another positive note, I am halfway to my September 1 deadline…and…I am 1/4 of the way to being completely done.

I still need to speed up some. I’ll find a way somehow.