I’m working on coding up a map application for Austin Stone using Google’s freshly released API. Before they released the API i had a map working that was plotting the locations of all the community groups at Austin Stone using a dynamically generated XML file pulling from a database that could accept regular addresses as input into the database and dynamically change them into lat/lng pairs. It was awesome. Like really, really awesome. Too bad it was in what i like to call a gray area of Google’s Terms of Service meaning, that it was probably (almost certainly) against Google’s TOS, but i had sufficient optimism/curiosity/desire to ignore that. Google’s API is almost completely incompatable. So now i have to redesign the system either rewriting the scripts or rewriting the interface to the API. There is however a third option, i can wholesale copy/paste the implementation of another site that had more invested in the Old Style over to the new style. Essentially put in a thick layer of glue. It makes me cringe, but i’ve spent about 4 hours now and i’ve just barely gotten it to the point where it displays some of the points from a static file, and IE has the balloons all kinds of broken. If you’ve ever seriously written software the idea of basically slaughtering an API to provide backwards compatability with a mildly illlegal, incredibly unofficial, hacked beta sounds about as appealing as eating a coke can. If you think i’m a ranting lunatic, you haven’t written enough software, to be fair neither have i to be talking like this. But i think i’ve trudged through enough write only perl scripts at Amazon and the net to at least have a decent picture of what this monstrosity of XSL, XML, PHP, SQL, Javascript and HTML would look like to anybody who didn’t lovingly craft it into what it is today: a non-functional hunk of crap.
In other news, WOOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!!!!!! If you don’t know why i’m so excited, then it’s ok you’re in the majority. But (as always) it’s getting better and better to be a Stoner Austin Stone Partner. Now excuse me while i go and huddle in the corner in the fetal position at the immenisty of the road(s) before me. If you’re now even more confused/concerned about what i’m talking about, it’s ok, there’s only somewhere between 2 and 6 people who could truly understand.
Amazon: So my manager is getting e-mails from other managers asking about my project daily. Also the number of e-mails we’re getting from sellers about the issue it will solve seems to have increased in frequency as well. Also the seller conference is the weekend after i’m done so i’m going to have to make a very difficult decision about whether to stay in Seattle and bask in the gratitude of 3rd party sellers (by which i mean get some free food and likely get yelled at for the percieved deficiencies in our system).
And finally, i was cruising amazon today, and i came across a book that somehow looked familiar. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
/0446532754/qid=1120196192/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-8368284-3732812?
v=glance&s=books Apparently Mark has really been dialin’ it in.
I’m so stoked, you have no idea.