Vanilla
Posted by Jonathan Ng | Filed under Technical
Vanilla is a bulletin board system/forum. Call it what you want, but vanilla is what it says, vanilla. I like it coz it’s really simple and unique. Here’s what’s different ’bout Vanilla:
Discussions and Categories
In Vanilla, threads are known as discussions. Instead of having a hierarchy of boards, it keeps thing simple by grouping discussions into categories. It’s got 3 tabs as navigation: discussions, categories and search. It’s great for simple forums, but doesn’t work out for larger forums like lowyat.net forums. Discussions could optionally be tagged too, but moderators would have a tough time tagging each discussion properly.
Whispers
No, I’m not referring to pads. Whispers is Vanilla’s take on personal messages (PM). Instead of having an email like inbox of your PMs, you whisper your message to someone in a discussion itself. Your whisper will appear in the discussion, only to your target user. A potential use of it is to keep to require users to keep their one-line comments into whispers.
Add-ons
Many of Vanilla’s additional features come from extensions. It’s sort of great since you could pick only the extensions you need, keeping you forum nice and clean.
Go take a tour of Vanilla here, or jump straight to it’s community forums to get a feel of Vanilla.
Tags: vanilla
Sem Break Reading List
Posted by Jonathan Ng | Filed under Personal
My exams aren’t finished yet and I already have a reading list.. here they are in reading priority:
- Design Patterns Java Workbook, John Metsker
- Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion, Mike Mason
- Algorithms and Data Structure (using research and reference material from Monash), L. Allison
Basically, I plan to briefly go through ADS since we’re taking it next semester. However, the priority’s with design patterns. Since we’re gonna be coding out our project next sem, I think knowledge of design patterns will help me a lot. As for Subversion, duh~ all programmers should have basic knowledge of version control.
I don’t know how much I can cover, since I have only 3 weeks, so it’s gonna be pretty intensive. But hey, “studying” in such a way, with no real pressure is pretty fun. Good luck to me, and thanks again Jinny ;-)
Tags: life
Mom, I Lost My ATM Card
Posted by Jonathan Ng | Filed under Personal
My friend Kee Woon managed to borrow a bunch of pass year questions and Pendidikan Moral notes, so yet again, I ended up being in charge of photostating it for some friends. When I went to collect it at the photostat shop, I got a little “surprise”. RM 153. Damn.. So I toled that fella that I’d go “press money”, and that was when I realized my Public Bank ATM card was missing. Crap..
I had to walk back home, borrow 100 bucks from s00kwei, then walk back out to the photostat shop. I must have droped the card on my way home the last time I made a withdrawal. Thankfully, I have another Maybank ATM card so I guess I’ll have to use that till I go back to Ioph come this sem break. Sigh, guess Dad’s gonna give me a long lecture again..
Got my OOAD mid-term test 2 today, didn’t do as well as I expected. Incidentally, Jinny said she had some old OO/UML stuff “for give-away”. Sigh, people cover like in year 1 or 2, now only we cover. Problem is, she’s in Sunway, while I’m in Setapak, and we both don’t have cars. Hope Jeffrey can help pick up the notes from her, since he staying at Subang Jaya. I really need to read up on some UML examples..
I was chatting round last night, and realized that UTAR and Monash Computer Science students took “Data Structures and Algorithms” in year 1, sem 1. I’m only taking it next sem, which is year 2, sem 2. Sigh.. I should consider myself lucky. Jeffrey said that his course didn’t have that module. I don’t say this often in my blog, but that’s just “fuckin’ chun”. What kinda Comp Science course is that? Jeff says he’s gonna complain to the course supervisor. Good luck bro..
TARC “Computer Science and Management Mathematics” and “Computer Science and Statistics“.
Drafting a Forum for Tarcians/Programmers
Posted by Jonathan Ng | Filed under Technical
While chatting with Jeffrey yesterday night, the idea suddenly came up to me: why not set up (yet another) forum? This semester has made me (here and here), Jeffrey, Regina, Eu Hua (to a certain extent) realize that there’s so much more us students need to do to be competitive. There’s just so much to learn. But sadly, there isn’t a proper place for us to discuss our ideas, share our learning experiences and help each other along the way..
Fact is, there’s a bunch of Tarcians (taking computer related courses like ISE and Comp Science) who are half-geeks. They have a passion for technology and programming, and are willing to learn. This is the bunch who do better in programming, and will probably be benefit a lot from such a forum. Read the rest of this entry »
Links
Posted by Jonathan Ng | Filed under Technical
It’s been like weeks since the last time I posted some links for y’all.. but here you go, though most you my friends hav already seen these:
- Pesonality traits of the best developers - title says it all, pretty good read.
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - an online full-text of the 6.001 course at MIT. It’s a pre-requisite for Computer Science courses at MIT.
- Perils of JavaSchool - by Joel Spolsky. It’s a long artilce and many miss the gist of it.
Perils of JavaSchool
Here, Joel Spolsky whine about the current state of Computer Science graduates, who are only trained in Java and nothing else.. the point he’s trying to make is seen in the following excerpt: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: general programming, links
