Professor's Coding Corner
Enough is Enough! I am sick and tired of trying to read tutorials and forum threads where it takes me hours to wade through the jargon, trying to figure out whether the article contains the information I'm looking for.
It would be nice if SOMEWHERE [1] there was information about coding that was intelligible to those of us who are 'amateurs', and not 'computer geeks'.
A little personal background: In a sense, I am an amateur that is in the business of designing websites for my friends and others. Although I just started doing this a few years ago, I am not an amateur in programming -- just in the relatively new languages being used on the internet.
Back in 1964, I took a graduate course in 'Applied Mathematics', which had a weekly laboratory session in which we learned the basics of FORTRAN II. I loved it, in spite of the hassle of having to use a punched card to input each line of a program, and having to wait a week to see the results of my efforts.
Although most of the jobs I have held in the past 40 years have had nothing directly to do with programming, I have managed to keep my hand in, and it has been an ongoing 'hobby' of mine.
The result: Recently I have become enamoured with the capability of Perl and Javascript to do just about anything I want to do in scripting 'interactive' web pages. The problem is that it is nearly impossible to find information about the techniques I want to use that is not couched in almost impenetrable language. I have had to 'translate' the information I find into a form that I can understand.
So I have decided to publish some of the results of my efforts, with two goals in mind:
1) To provide a source of easily-understood information, and to pass along advice to other 'amateurs' and help them avoid some of the pitfalls that I have fallen into.
2) To provide an example for other writers. It's not that hard to say something in a way that can be clearly understood.
About the Coding Corner: No attempt will be made here to provide a 'complete' introduction to Perl or Javascipt. There are many of those out there on the internet, and I have provided lists of references to some of them are comprehensible and that I have found useful on the Links Pages.
Also, I do not claim to be the only writer out there who can explain things clearly. Two others that I have found extemely useful are Will Bontrager and Boogie Jack. Both publish newsletters which I read faithfully.
Two types of articles are posted herein:
1) Code Snippets - These are bits of code that I have used in my scripts that 'get the job done'. They are presented with instructions on how and where they may be used, without much of an explanation about how they work.
2) Tutorials - I have often used code scripted by others, without looking too deeply into how it works. These tutorials are the result of my efforts to understand the reasoning behind the code.
Remember - None of the things on this website will do any good unless you're willing to put in some effort. Even the best explanations are useless unless you take the time necessary to work them out in your mind -- and experiment with the code on your own website.
[1] When I use CAPS in my writing, I am not shouting at you. I simply use it as a way to stress a particular word or phrase, much as one does when speaking.
