I mentioned the technical debt loan that I withdrew last week when it came to linking EPIC to Poker. While I’ve been close a number of times to retracting this contract that I’ve tied myself too, it doesn’t come without taxes or at least taxing efforts.
With Web-Apps, I’m gathering that a lot of things are happening at the same time–or so they appear to be, but truly it’s actually happening asynchronously… It just feels like two things are going on at once. I feel like I’ve read through the code of examples I have, but I get lost and cannot always follow what comes first nor what causes step two to commence.
I made the unfortunate mistake of going to see Space Jam 2 two weekends ago. I’m not going to lie, i was actually excited for it and very hopeful that it would be as good if not better than the original. There was a lot of opportunity, but honestly it flunked. The boys enjoyed it though, so that’s what was most important.
And from that shift in topics, you might wonder if I should be the next all star champ, because that was quite a leap wasn’t it?
It may have been, but it had a purpose. Space Jam was set in Loony Town & “Space”. Space Jam 2 was set in the Universal Studios “Server-verse” being led by “Al G. Rithim”.
A couple days before we saw that, I set up the boys to watch Uncle Bob’s Programming 101 since they’d wanted to watch “Bobby” on tv and I wanted to review that one before possibly having my apprentice watch it.
When dealing with a computer, tasks often seem to take place at the same time, but in relative computer time, they don’t happen simultaneously at all. Everything has an order, and when working correctly, everything happens in that order.
In Space Jam 2, Lebron James gets digitized into the Server-verse. The movie was long–too long. That being said, computers process data significantly faster than we, humans, do. Events happened in the movie that would have taken humans years to accomplish–or truly would have resulted in an eternal loop due to the impossibility of actually playing basketball with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. In the relativity of a computer, however, these events might have taken a couple thousand milliseconds.
Computers can also multitask by way of threads. So to enhance performance, while waiting on one task to complete, a computer can start another task, and come back to said first task when the requirement is complete and the computer finds another break.
In the world of a web app, things seem to happen at the same time, but they don’t. They are asynchronous, hence ajax (asynchronous javascript & xml). But the roadmaps for the instructions are neither obvious nor intuitive.
I got stuck in a hole again today, where I kept on thinking I almost have it, and at one point I thought I did, but then realized, it still wasn’t right. Tomorrow, i shall ask for some help. Not because I can’t figure it out–i mean, i had it all working…with debt, but because I really want to know the right way to make it work. Right now, I can make it work, but I have ugly feeling that it’s just a really ugly way to make it work.
Rex and Leo are very different people and learn and understand and show emotions and sympathy in very different ways–just like any two different people would. Because they are both my kids and came very literally from within me, I find this fact–just how different they are–more and more interesting everyday.
Rex & Leo:
Dinner Plates:
I got Rex & Leo these new roadmap dinner plates that have a secret box with desert or a treat at the end of them. So when they sit down, they see their food in front of them, and they know exactly what they have to eat to uncover the box and enjoy their treat.
I was a little skeptical, but Rex grasped this concept and 100% followed the rules the first meal I used them for. I was impressed.
Rex has repeatedly asked for his “race” plate again for dinner, and each time I’ve used them, he’s eaten everything required before enjoying his treat.
They are nice plates, because they immediately communicate the expectations for reward.
Leo cheated. In his defense, he may not have fully understood right away, but he definitely understood by the end of the first meal. At the next meals, he still cheated–and he got good at it: he’d wait for me to look away. Unfortunately for him, Rex is a rule follower and informed the rule-make (me) of the diversion.
Remote Control Cars:
We pulled out some toddler-level remote control cars the other day.
Rex was thrilled and pushed all the buttons at the same time. He was so excited that he just didn’t have the patience to learn how to operate the remote, so would pick up the car to place it where he wanted it and then push both buttons at the same time and repeat.
Leo enjoyed the cars also. He was very calculating about the cars. He listened when we explained how they worked and how to operate them, and soon enough, he had nearly full control. In fact, when I showed up in the living room, he repeatedly “crashed me” and laughed.
As Leo did with the dinner plates, Rex cheated with the cars. He wanted to crash me also, so he would pick the car up and place it where he wanted it, and then push all the buttons. Then I’d move, and he’d repeat, so I worked with him a little bit to calm his excitement, and he too, in a short amount of time, grasped i/o of the remote control cars.
They are both very clever and smart little boys. They also learn differently and respond differently.
Rex knows there are rules and that they need to be followed, and not only does he follow them with full understanding, he will also help others to ensure that they are abiding by the rules. Rex has an immense amount of compassion and sympathy–he asks to see my owie from my surgery almost daily.
Leo wants things to work as he expects them to work, but he often doesn’t yet know what to expect. He gets frustrated when things don’t work how he wants them too. I don’t know about his compassion or sympathy levels yet as he is not even two, but I do know that he’s not really one for rules. He understands them and for the most part follows, but if you glance away, he might be out the dog door.
