Custom Blocks

Fragment of a discussion from User talk:Blue
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No problem. You'll need to clear your cache when you're done, and you may need to wait for the server.

Blue (pester)01:19, 3 February 2011

Thanks again! I really need to study MediaWiki.

Тиранесcastrate rickroll, bescumber autobiographer?01:20, 3 February 2011

I do as well. Most if not all of what I know about it has resulted from kludges and begging Nx for help.

Blue (pester)01:23, 3 February 2011

I think you may become the resident "techie" as my CS classes so far have been useless for this sort of thing.

Тиранесcastrate rickroll, bescumber autobiographer?01:25, 3 February 2011

Oh dear. Me, resident techie?

Oh dear.

I know the basic structure of MediaWiki, but it is a gigantic body of code that only a masochist would try to go through entirely. At its core, though, is just a lot of PHP and a MySQL database. Wait -

"); DROP TABLE v_job;

- nevermind.

Blue (pester)01:43, 3 February 2011

Ugh PHP. I prefer C/C++/Java myself. In their infinite wisdom the curriculum this year consists of OS work(useful) and MIPS assembly(usefulness questionable for those of us who don't do embedded programming).

Тиранесcastrate rickroll, bescumber autobiographer?01:47, 3 February 2011

Java is next on my list of languages to learn, mostly because I want to do some Android developing. I would recommend PHP, though. One, it's free compared to ColdFusion and Microsoft's Asp, and two, Facebook and MediaWiki are written in it. And Web scripting is useful™.

Blue (pester)01:57, 3 February 2011

I don't have a Facebook(yet, people keep yelling at me to get one). Java's syntax is similer to C, and I'm buying an android phone is about a week(so I can write stuff on it) We could experiment together. But yes, web scripting is very useful.

Тиранесcastrate rickroll, bescumber autobiographer?02:23, 3 February 2011

If you're interested in Java and webapps both, JSP might be up your street. It has died a death fairly badly in commercial terms, but there's nothing stopping you grabbing Tomcat and playing with it. You'll probably learn better habits than PHP will teach you.

I can also strongly recommend getting good at embedded programming, though in most cases you'll be using a high level language like C/C++. Being able to write for memory constrained devices is a skill that's very much in demand, and sadly rare. If you want more serious playtime, I can heartily recommend buying a Chumby One. It's cheap, fun and is documented and hackable right down to the bare bones. It runs one of these and has nice handy pads for attaching an RS232 port to.

I would love a Chumby, but the paranoiac watches my bank accounts and I cannot buy one with cash.

Тиранесcastrate rickroll, bescumber autobiographer?14:55, 3 February 2011

Hah. Clearly you need a pre-paid debit card for all your money laundering needs.

My university issues one to all students. The problem is putting money on it. All transactions have to be explained to her. Or else.

Тиранесcastrate rickroll, bescumber autobiographer?18:19, 3 February 2011