PolarLava::Blog

A Matter of Time

I got up this morning, didn't go to school
Just sat around and played some tunes
Oh, don't be a fool, just take on your life
Don't live it for me or no one tonight!
Cause you'll have yours, and I'll have mine, it's all in a matter of time

The light grows dim as we live our lives
Each of us in opposite directions
It's just a matter of time, we'll read the signs
Lost obsessions

[Chorus]
As it all goes by in a matter of time
Living our lives out on a limb
You'll have yours, and I'll have mine
Life's sensation

There's a reason why, in everyone's mind
We all know they're not the same
With a half-cracked smile and a .45
You make it quite influential

[chorus]

Live your life to your advance
Take it to its fullest extent
Lay it all out on the line, 'cause you'll never die

[chorus]

10/1/1981
8:57pm

Reminiscent of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, today's fodder is "Shootout at Shoats Grocery & Package.  "I fought the law, and the law…" arrived in time to take my near dead ass to the hospital where I promptly died!

It seems in her effort to be a "cool mom", Sylvia Johnson might instead be known as a prison mom!

I've had a need at work to create some online documentation.  So I searched around and found PHP Doc System.  This software allows you to create documents by building a table of contents file and then you make "modules" for each page represented in the the TOC.  This isn't software for the average guy as it requires at least a basic knowledge of PHP in order to use it.  I'm not sure, but I think I have that covered —but feel free to argue otherwise!  Anyhow, I did some hacking on it to add a few improvements and also to get it to work with our stone-aged version of PHP that I'm currently strapped with at work.  (Another story unto itself!)  I sent these changes to the author, Alex King along with some ideas and suggestions regarding building a DB back-end system for it.  Alex was kind enough to reply and seemed generally accepting of my changes.  Of significance though was the DB back-end.  He lists this as something he'd like to add on the web site, and in his reply he seemed interested in, but only because he realizes that that this would simplify adding the  search functionality.  But he seems reluctant to do this as he wants a stand-alone search ability for the static pages.  A reasonable consideration I would say.

Since corresponding with Alex, I've made further changes to the code to meet my immediate needs at work.  But although I'm happy with what it churns out, it's less than ideal.  I've also been looking at the documentation for PolarBlog and although I think it is reasonably complete and contains lots of useful information, it's somewhat disorganized and unwieldy.  Thus I've been contemplating rewriting it, possibly using Alex's PHP Doc System.  This would be an improvement and also allows the ability to generate static documentation to ship with releases.  But I don't find this solution or any others that I consider "complete" enough to easily generate online documentation.  I don't want to rewrite it only to have to rewrite it again because I'm still not happy with the end result.  Thus I've been thinking…

What about writing a new system largely from scratch, but incorporating some of the concepts of PHP Doc System?  The analysis:

Pros

• DB Back-end
• Unlimited TOC element nesting.
• Easy search for dynamically generated content.
• Collapsible TOC elements.
• A good deal of good code reuse (or at least concepts) from the PolarBlog project.
• A desire to do it!

• Development takes time!
• Managing yet another project.
• Reduction in time available for my current projects.
• A reluctance to do it!

The Arms Race

Day after day, it's always the same
Someone's going against the grain
Paper brings word of another joining the chase
All out to be, the superior race
Lead, blood and tears, they bring up the rear, as the great gears of the war machines turn.

Some day they'll learn, we're all equal in some way, shape or form
But it'll be too late, we all know our fate
We're all going to die because of one's hate for another in that great arms race.

8/6/1981
12:25am