Post Date: 5/18/2007 9:05:12 PM Message: Well something quite convenient has occurred just recently. It would seem that the question that has stumped me about the design for the backend for these last two years has finally been answered. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized that the answer came to me and I was quite stunned by it. The answer lay hidden in the explanation to a concept that I have (over the years) had difficulty grasping; I refer to object-oriented programming (OOP). From the beginning, Josh had learned that computers and the internet was mostly made up of scripts that came together a working application (and the like [at least in simple terms]) and so I had learned to do what I do thru function-oriented programming where a set of functions perform a task (and complex system is built upon simple functions). The problem with this is that as everything in the systems is interconnected and dependent on each other, to change one thing means to alter ten other things and so on; this just happens to be a very scary thought because of my experience with such dilemmas. However OOP designates that almost everything is an object that can be modified independently from anything else and brought together using some application (hence the term modules). RSS feeds are a good example to use in this case where the feed itself is merely raw data and using a parser to interpret the data we are able to mold it into however we wish to see it and present this data as well as connect it to other systems without any need to alter the source. I'm not certain if I'm explaining this properly, but at this point I don't care too much 'cause it makes sense to me; all the same I guess I leave it there.
Anyway, the purpose of this long explanation was that I've found the answer I have been searching for and plans to move forward with Sam/Nin are now going into effect (and I mean effective immediately). However, my comrades have decided to get lost in their own little worlds and this will prove to be only slightly more difficult. All I'm saying is: "folks you can expect to finally see something.(!)"
