22 April 2015

Email Updates are Live

I’ve got email updates being sent out.  At least in theory.

They’re not pretty.  They’re just barely formatted.  But they’re being sent.

As of the time of this writing, they’re scheduled to run in the morning right after stats are updated.  That should be around 9am.  Each person should hopefully be getting a couple of emails: one for their race against me, and one for the race against themselves.

Get it?  Got it?  Good.

Category: Code, Hobbit Walk, Software Development | Comments Off on Email Updates are Live
15 April 2015

Email Updates are Coming

I’m close to having the email updates functioning.

I haven’t been very motivated recently to get this stuff done.  Dealing with chaos in the family, stress, and looking for a different job have all been consuming my time.  It’s one of those things where sometimes there’s so much to do that I just don’t want to do any of it.

Anyway, I’m hoping to have some emails being sent automatically in the next few days.  Stay tuned!

Category: Code, Hobbit Walk, PHP, Rant, Software Development | Comments Off on Email Updates are Coming
18 March 2015

More Insights on the Hobbit Walk

This is sort of in line with my previous post, as I was a little frustrated (with myself) that I’d not had any progress on the Hobbit Walk (there’s another reason, too).

Anyway, on to what I’ve found.

First, it’s a little frustrating to name a race.  Naming is one of the hardest tasks there is… well, besides cache invalidation.  I should be able to dynamically set the name of the race, because I’ve already stored the list of participants.  I kept teetering between dynamic versus static naming.  Ultimately, though, it seems like static (or maybe “arbitrary” would be more apt) naming.

Second, it’s nice to know who created the race.  Right?  That allows explicit listing of the races I’ve created, allowing “creator” permissions (like deleting them).  Maybe I’m waiting on the other person to accept (which I may not have considered yet).  Or I want to see all of my races, including all the ended ones.

Third, sometimes I try to normalize the data too much.  This one’s another tough one.  When I started working on TTORP, I had very non-normalized data: I wanted to get something up and running fast, so I just threw a bunch of arbitrarily-named fields in a database, all of which were just text… I was bit by this laziness later, because I had to pay the technical debt.

I found all kinds of other little things in the process.  Countless little nuances that I could spend all night enumerating, finding even more in the process.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I’ve made progress.  I’ve got more information in my test database, which will help me to visualize things.  At this point, unless I find more problems, I should be able to start spitting out some progress information in the very near future.  Stay tuned!

Category: Code, Health, Hobbit Walk, Software Development | Comments Off on More Insights on the Hobbit Walk
18 March 2015

Programming Isn’t Just Typing

There’s a lot more to programming than just typing.

Somebody once said, probably jokingly, that what I was doing amounted to nothing more than typing.  It might have been one of those things where they say, “I’m joking,” afterward to keep me from being offended.  The first time it was said, it was funny.  The next few times, it lost a bit of humor.  After more than a dozen times, I have a hard time faking a smile.

The point here is that programming follows the 80/20 rule: 80% thinking and/or planning, and about 20% actually programming.  The typing part is actually a really small part… of that 20% programming part, about 80% of it ends up being debugging and testing.

Category: Code, Rant, Software Development | Comments Off on Programming Isn’t Just Typing
2 March 2015

We Have Milestones!

After much waiting: there are now milestones!

Yep.  A bit of a let-down.  I know.  Sorry.

In creating the milestones, I noticed there were some things that were probably missed… setting up an order to the milestones (so I don’t necessarily have to insert them in the proper order), etc.  Nothing mind-blowing here.

I’m working on the code and associated SQL to figure out a contestant’s progress in relation to milestones.  Nothing exceptionaly difficult, just takes a little time to do.

But there are MILESTONES now, people!

Category: Code, Health, Hobbit Walk, PHP, Software Development | Comments Off on We Have Milestones!
19 February 2015

Beware the five o’clock stupids

My brain gets a little “squishy” after working on something for awhile.  Pounding away at the same thing gets a little monotonous.  Over.

And over.

And over.

And over.

And over.

And oevr.

And orev.

And voer.

Adn over.

And oevr.

And OVER.

AND OEVR.

AND OEVER.

ADN VEORE.

AND OEFER.

(see what I did there?)

Wait… what do you mean you can’t find /lib/std++.so?  WTF IS THAT?  Oh… shit…

At 5:00, relative to your timezone.  Stupid strikes.  BEWARE THE FIVE O’CLOCK STUPIDS.

Category: Code, Rant, Software Development, System Administration, Uncategorized | 3 Comments on Beware the five o’clock stupids
4 February 2015

Project Hobbit Walk: There’s a Database

That’s right, now Project Hobbit Walk actually has a database behind it.  And that database is actually getting data put into it.  Automatically.  Huzaaaa!

I’ve still got a bit of work to do.  But this is an incredibly important foundational piece of the puzzle.  With a single query, I can see how far everyone has traveled.

The only numbers I have to worry about are each user’s grand total, and their progress since the race against me started.  So it’s pretty non-complicated right now.  WOOO!!!

I’ve still got more stuff to do.  Here’s a pretty short list, in no particular order:

  • a URL scheme for showing race data:
    • for anyone (e.g. “/race/{id}/current”)
    • for all races of the currently logged-in user (e.g. “/races/”)
    • for progress on a specific race, up to a given date (e.g. “/race/{id}/20150104)
  • a URL scheme for handling open invitations (anyone can click it, sign up, and enter the race): (e.g. “/race/challenge/open/{id}“)
  • a URL scheme for handling user-specific invitations (only for a selected user, others get an error) (e.g. “/race/challenge/closed/{id}“)
  • some way to graphically show progress generically, without milestones
  • a way to show, graphically, progress with milestones (e.g. progress to Mordor)

Okay, that’s probably enough for now.  I’ll probably dream about this stuff now, since I’m thinking about it so close to bedtime… d’oh!

Category: Health, Hobbit Walk, Software Development | Comments Off on Project Hobbit Walk: There’s a Database
21 January 2015

Project Hobbit Walk: Yay, Progress!

I had a little time last night to hammer out some code.

I’ve got a database layout done basically done, so I can store data.   There’s already a script in place that will download a set of spreadsheets in CSV (“comma separated values,” basically just really simple text).

Now I need to get some more code written to interact with it, create reports, and send emails.  And eventually put in some “fun” text into those emails, like, “whoa, you overtook John last night by a staggering 3.45 miles! Hope you told him to eat your dust on the way by!”

I’ve spent some time figuring out how to layout the data, where the data comes from, what it looks like, and how to store what I need to make “Project Hobbit Walk” something worthwhile.  In order for me to consider the application truly useful, it has to do a couple of things.  For users (including me), it must:

  1. Be Intuitive.  Like picking up the controller for a game, and having every button and key combination work exactly the way you expect, so you can have fun right away.
  2. Stay Out of the Way. Once it’s configured, it can just stay out of your way.  No muss, no fuss.
  3. Be Useful.  Probably the most important part, it needs to show you what you want to know, and help motivate you to get healthier by gamifying life.
  4. Be Fun.  Seriously, it has to create enjoyment.

But let’s be honest.  There’s other considerations for me.:

  • Easy to Maintain.  I can’t spend all my time fixing/updating code, since that would keep me from moving around… I’d fall behind in all my races!
  • Easy to Get Started.  I don’t have time to walk every single user through the process of setting it up.  This goes hand-in-hand with the Be Intuitive part from above.
  • Help Pay for Itself.  I have a server that I pay for each month out of pocket; if this can generate enough money (through some hopefully innocuous ads) to pay for that, I’d have less stuff to worry about.
  • Grow On It’s Own.  There will hopefully be enough tools available that it’ll just grow “virally,” like users sending emails to their friends with messages like, “I challenge you to race me to Mordor,” or “I challenge you to climb Mount Everest with me.”

Let me know what you think in the comments below.  And a special thanks to all those that have signed up for testing!

Category: Code, Health, Hobbit Walk | Comments Off on Project Hobbit Walk: Yay, Progress!
19 December 2014

Project Hobbit Walk: Preliminary Ideas

I’ve got some data from a few other people, so I’ve been thinking about it.  And be sure to read the teaser.

The Basics…

I’m going to setup the system so each user can compete in multiple “races.”  I’ll automatically keep track of each person’s complete history, and I’m thinking each will get put into a separate race that will be just them.  So I’ll be in my own race, showing my own progress from whenever I first got data into the system.

Other Types of Competitions

There will of course be other races.  I might challenge my buddy “John” to a race that will start on January 1st, and simultaneously begin a race today with my other buddy “David” right away today.  So those are examples of one-on-one races, though there could be multiple participants: if another person wanted to jump into an existing race, they could, though they’d be at a disadvantage (but a marathon runner joining late in a race with a couple of geeks might end up having a much larger advantage).

Another race type would be pairs.  In the vein of Lord of the Rings, you know, like Frodo and Samwise.  Each pair would have their daily totals averaged… think of it like Samwise carrying Frodo when he couldn’t walk on his own.

For Now…

Right now I don’t have anything setup to automatically track progress.  I’ve got some spreadsheets that have been shared with me, but that’s pretty much it… so I’m probably going to send out emails manually, stating results.  I’ll refine them as I go.

Into the Future!

That seems like a quote.  Anyway, the initial races will be based on the Walk to Mordor from Nerd Fitness, which has milestones along the way that I can use.  I hope to incorporate an ACTUAL map from LoTR, with something that shows where each team is on the trail.  Because that’s awesome.

Once I’ve got that down, it’s time to open it up to accept ANY map.  I have no idea how that would work… but I would imagine I’ll have a lot more to go off of after I’ve done that with the LoTR map.

Are You Ready to Get Started?

If you’re interested in joining the fun, I’m accepting a limited number of participants right now.  Send me an email (if you’re privy to that info), or just drop a comment below, I’ll get to you as soon as I can. 🙂

Category: Health, Hobbit Walk, Software Development | Comments Off on Project Hobbit Walk: Preliminary Ideas
17 December 2014

Project “Hobbit Walk”: The Teaser

I’m working on a new project that combines fitness, programming, and technology (the last two seem a bit redundant… but whatever).

The project is based upon the “Walk to Mordor” post on NerdFitness.com.  Anybody that’s interested just needs to setup a spreadsheet on Google Docs that I can access, with some basic information:

  1. Date
  2. Steps
  3. Distance (in miles)

There’s a bunch of different ways to get that information logged… manually is an option, but I think that kinds sucks.  Not a big deal, but it’s a pain to remember, especially when you can use something like a Fitbit with IFTTT on a smart phone (or tablet) to automate that stuff.   More on that later.

If you’re interested, send me an email, say something in the comments below, or in some other way express interest to me.  I’ll send you instructions on how to get started.

The application is in ALPHA testing now.  Alpha testing means pre-beta… basically, that means that I’m still building it.  I’m letting a handful of people in right now.

UPDATE: see “Preliminary Ideas”

UPDATE: see “Yay Progress”

UPDATE: see “There’s a Database”

(if you wanna see all updates, in case I missed a link, check out the “Hobbit Walk” category).

Category: Code, Health, Hobbit Walk, Software Development | Comments Off on Project “Hobbit Walk”: The Teaser