Confessions of a Programmer

OK, might be an idea to start writing some goals for this application, before I get sucked into a black hole of endless development.

I can get a bit carried away sometimes.

Success! Just did a quick test of the IMAP functionality in PHP. Everything looks pretty straightforward so far. Now I know it’s possible, it’s time to start planning out the application.

Project time!

I have a plan. A grand plan. Basically I want to create a web app for my buddy Raz which will completely encapsulate his day-to-day business activities from a single point. Something along the lines of Salesforce, but more customised to his (and eventually my own) needs.

The first step, though, is to work out how to do webmail. It’s not that I want to create something that replaces, say, Outlook. More that I want something to work alongside Raz’s standard email application to organise important emails on the web. I want Raz to be able to select a client from his database, and view the entire email conversation history with that client.

Time to get reading.

Database design is already getting ridiculously complex. So many relationships it’s looking like a piece of modern art.

Each user has multiple photo albums, which can be liked or commented on. Each photo within the album can also be liked or commented on. The same will need to be done for videos, and pretty much any other content.

The DBAs at Facebook must be mental…

Interesting. I just had a quick read-up on foreign keys in MySQL. Turns out they can be implemented, but only using InnoDB tables (not the standard MyISAM).

Definitely worth looking into. I expect this site to have a shit-bunch of data being stored, so anything to help keep the integrity will help.

This is an interesting conundrum. Do I separate user information into two tables - one for the basic info and one for profile data; or do I just stick it all in one table.

There’s a voice nagging in the back of my head that I should split the data, but that seems like it would require lots of unnecessary JOIN queries in the application.

Seems to be a case of optimisation vs. security.

Just started on the database design. Obviously things are going to be changed along the way, but it helps to get a good start on these things.

It’s Friday night. I’ve had a beer, and I’m ready to code.

It’s been an intense week with all of the OI Community, and after spending the day with a young mum whose daughter has OI, I’m now more convinced then ever that we need to set up a proper online support network. The information just isn’t readily available for new parents right now.

In terms of coding, it’s a hefty-sized project. Aside from all of the social networking features, there is also the issue of classifying users. Do we even need to classify them?

Revoked Permissions now enabled.

Now I need a new task…

Basic logout complete. I still need to add code to completely revoke permissions as well (as per Facebook T&Cs).

Should be fairly straightforward…