Monday, March 25, 2002|
Brent talks about the similarities and differences between using Frontier and MySQL as the database behind web scripting. He does a very good job, too. One important point he left out (although it is somewhat implied) is that with Frontier/Radio, you only have to deal with one programming language to express your queries and code your output, whereas with MySQL, you have to embed a declarative language (SQL) within the programming language you are using to code the output. While you can get very good with SQL and not mind the mental context-switching back and forth -- in fact it can be fun at times -- anything more than slightly non-trivial SQL is going to cause you to test out the query in a different environment and then cut-n-paste the working query back into your code.
Of course, this is where the seasoned database hacker starts talking about views and stored procedures, but that's a completely different issue. |
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Okay, you knew it was coming. I'm a SlashDot moderator again. 4:45:37 PM  comments () trackback []
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Cool. The computer camp I went to is still around. Here's the web site. Going to the camp was a life-changing experience for me. I grew up in a very small town (~1000 people), and went to a correspondingly small school (my HS graduating class had 42 students), so my first experience of being around people that liked the same things I liked was that camp. We used Atari 800's for teaching and playing. There was a big Star Raiders tourney, I have to say I was knocked out after the second round. People brought computers from home -- there were Commodore Pets and CBM's, Radio Shack TRS-80's and Color Computers, and of course the Apple ]['s and ][+'s. An amazing time. Soon after that the VIC-20 came out, followed by the C64, and suddenly it wasn't rare to see a computer anymore.
Oh yeah, there was that IBM-PC, but most of the people I knew couldn't
afford it, or were already Apple people. It's amazing how Apple can
inspire loyalty. I wonder what that's about? I've certainly been an
Apple fan since picking apart Little Brick Out to see how it worked. |
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Wow. The guy is 15, and he was invited to be a committer on Darwin. My first hands-on experience with computers was back when the TRS-80 Model 1 was first out. My Mom would drop me off at Radio Shack while she was running errands, and I would spend all my time learning how to program. Yeah, I showed a few salesmen how the machine worked, but mostly what I would do was learn. I had to confine my explorations to those things that could be typed in quickly, because I could never save anything. Soon I was filling my notebooks with code doodles and all of my classmates were looking at me strangely because they didn't understand what the hell I was writing. I was 12. I didn't go completely hardcore until I was 16 and had gone to Computer Camp. And he is (or at least to be) a committer at 15. My hat's off to him.
It's very cool that people like Mr. Dobbie are getting such an early
start. I hope he doesn't burn out. |
Last update: 6/29/2005; 3:59:28 PM .
