This is the name of the new site backend I've been working on. Now, for anybody who's been paying attention I haven't written a web engine since Tetra 2. The last time I worked on it was sometime back in '05 I believe. Back then I was extremely proud of my little creation but I look back on it and think to myself "that is one bloated piece of crap". It really was. Over 2500 lines of code. In comparison my new engine is only one or two hundred lines of code and almost as powerful (or it will be).
From a design standpoint Purple Fusion is way different from Tetra. Tetra was built around an object-oriented core. From an interface standpoint this was very clean. However, it did lend to some slowdown and made adding new modules cumbersome at best. It also limited what you could do with a module (to a degree). The new engine completely throws objects out the window (almost, the main class is PurpleFusion and that's the only one) and goes for a scriptable approach. Each page is it's own seperate page script that makes calls for getting data, displaying templates, etc. This makes creating new pages incredible quick and eliminates redundant code. Here's the script for the front page:
<page title="Home">
<template:page_head>
<db:entries limit="15" sort="entry_date" order="desc">
<loop:entries>
<dblink:category_name table="categories" link="category_id">
<field:entry_date type="date" format="m-d-Y">
<field:entry_body type="standard">
<process:data>
<template:entry>
<end:loop>
<template:page_foot>
<end:page>
As you can see it borrows from SGML's tag structure. Because of the tag structure it's very human readable and makes for quick prototyping. I'm incredibly pleased with the way it's going right now and hopefully I'll have it running this site in a couple of weeks. Now that I think about it I could even speed things up by generating a cached version of the source code and just include that instead of parsing the page all the time. Yeah, this rocks.
Eh? Whatever :-P
Today, at roughly 4pm CDT, I return to my old job of cashiering. Am I excited? Am I looking forward to it? I'll just tell you one thing: I've saved out my hawaiian SpongeBob shirt just for the occasian (i.e. hell, yes). I just hope I remember how to work the stupid register :-P
In other news, I got the graphics tablet I ordered up on Wednesday and I must say, it is a thing of beauty (and hance a joy forever). Today's comic was colored and highlighted using it and I have to say it's probably one of the best things I've done so far. About the comic itself it seems that the style is finally coming together (i.e. I'm satisfied with it at the moment). I've already got Monday's comic finished and have ideas for a couple weeks to come. I'm so sucked into this at the moment I barely had time to finish coding the comic viewer. From now on all my updates will be done over there so if you want to keep up on the comics add that to your favorites (I'll add in an RSS feed sometime within a week).
Also, for those who may not have gotten the hint, I am now legally licensed to drive in the state of Oklahoma. The test was brief, but nerve racking and I was only coached on a couple of minor points. So to date I've driven twice on my own: once to take my homies to the library, and last night to take my homies to go bowling (my "homies" being Jeff and Chris). And despite the fact that money keeps slipping through my fingers I've got enough of it stored up to make a nice down payment on a car, so that'll be coming own the road fairly soon (if you'll pardon the pun).
Well, I've been up for way too long now and I need to get some rest if I'm going to be in decent shape for work this afternoon.
It's been a while since I've last blogged mainly because a) I forgot and b) I was in a deep blue funk. But now I'm feeling quite chipper for two reasons: a) I'm going back to cashiering again in May, b) I've been selected to join the ACC Site Improve Committee. For anybody who's paid attention, ACPD has been one of my major ongoing projects for the last two years. Now that I am officially connected to the site I'll be able to push it more and perhaps replace their existing flash editor with ACPD Online.
I have yet to call the DMV, however I have been driving again lately and I'm not as rusty as I thought. I WILL CALL TOMORROW!!! Okay, that's out.
Also, I have YAVP (yet another video project) of which should actually be seeing the light of day. However, I cannot at this time divulge any information aside from that it's the most expensive project to date. I have spent eighty whole cents on props (my gosh!). I may put the trailer up here soon, but I want to try to get the entire project finished. Also, I've been thinking of rewriting Ramboella and filming that now that I'm more buff than I was six months ago. More later...
Finally, before I go, I need to handle out gold stars. One to devusb for properly naming the "Vista blows", a play off of some lyrics in the Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie song "Every OS Sucks", and one to linkman2004 for getting the "winds of change quote" of which was uttered by Randall in Monster's Inc. (and again sarcasticly by Mike). Congratulations and keep your eyes peeled (hint: there's one in this post). Happy hunting, and happy belated Easter :-).
Today, with any luck, we'll get a whole mess of new info from Nintendo on the Revolution. Of course, I'll be at work :-P. But, the whole reason I post this (aside from the fact that I'm a Nintendo fan boy) is because of a little cartoon my bro found. Actually, that last part is very true. On a side note, the soundtrack is awesome!
This is sad, I tell you. I've got to go to work at 8am this morning and here it is almost 1:30am and I'm awake talking about how the Revolution will r0x0r. You can tell that I have virtually no life at all. I spent most of yesterday afternoon writing a little RSS feed generator to keep track of my ACC pattern stats. Albiet it was kind of fun, but a total waste of time.
Yesterday, I also tried out America's Army, a free game developed by, surprise, the Army. The basic training missions were okay (especially the shoot house), but after that things just died off (like learning how to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation :-P). It was informative, but things like that are best left to the classroom. The complete lack of any single player missions was what turned me off in the end. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything more coming from the Army, but games aren't supposed to be real life replicas of boot camp :-P. At least now I can tell these army recruiters who come to Wal-Mart "I played the game and I didn't like it."
Well, I really must try to get some sleep now. Just remember, nitro-glycerin is incredibly dangerous and unsafe to drink :-)
After writing a beautiful, heartfelt post on Blogger and having it lost because it was never able to upload the stupid thing, I am now using Wordpress. It's completely in house (i.e. on my server) and shouldn't have any of these inane issues. Now, on to that heartfelt entry :-).
Today, Friday, March 17th marks my official last day as a cashier. Starting at 4am on Saturday I will be an Overstock Manager*. Al I looking forward to it? Yes, yes I am. Not only is the cashier job driving me insane right now, but it'll be nice ot have my day back again. I plan on using the extra time to start working towards my GED. I hereby solemnly swear that I, Matthew Scott Hackmann will obtain my GED before May 1st, 2006. There, it's in magnetic bits, can't back out now. It really is something that needs to be done, and Wally World will reimburse me anything I spend on it too :-).
My emulator is coming along quite nicely, though there are more annoying hurdles to get over yet. I can basically say that Mario Bros. and Metroid are completely playable (last I checked). Zelda and Stringer (my two new scrolling test apps) are still buggy (like it's on the wrong table all the time), but otherwise everything is looking pretty sweet. However, I'm going to hold off for now while I pursue a new project.
My Uncle Dave (hey dude :-D) was nice enough to give me his old Handspring Visor (circa 1999) and that will be my new programming toy. The only thing I really have in mind for it right now is an app to take to bowling to score games and give statistical reports on the fly. Luckily Palm has all their development stuff opened up so that'll make it much easier.
I can now say I've played Doom on my iPod. Last week, while still swept up in the initial "wow! this is cool"-ness of the whole iPod thing, I installed Linux on it and played Doom. However, it was borking up music playback on the Apple side of it so I toasted Linux and have my music playing greatness back. I'm really getting into podcasts, my favorites being this WEEK in TECH (TWiT), RevoGaming.net, and Diggnation (gotta love Kevin Rose). Also, I bought an album full of SpongeBob goodness and the theme from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (for you old timers, the original Eagles version).
Well, I believe that's all I needed to say. Just remember, vote for Pedro and all your wildest dream will come true :-).