Post by: brenden on January 27, 2016, 01:52:11 pm
So, it's been a hectic few months for the website! Long story short, a very talented developer (David Beck) pretty much built this site from the ground up, and after many years on the job he wanted to move on to bigger and better things. At the moment, he's full-time developing an incredible algorithm/program/whatever that's attached to Section Zero but goes much bigger than the UMAT. It's pretty groundbreaking stuff, but you guys will see in due time.
We had a lot of struggles finding a developer who could meet the demands of the ATAR Notes website, which has a lot of technology attached to it. We use SMF, WordPress, and custom code written by David. With all of these technologies interacting, we need someone who's extremely skilled and talented to even understand the way the pieces of the site are working together - let alone work with the site itself.
This made things difficult, because for a while we didn't have a developer, because our opinion was that it would be better to have no one and wait for someone that can give this community the love it deserves than to hire someone who just wasn't up for the job. This was even worse when we had server issues and things of that nature because it meant we had to scramble and hire niche server specialists from all over the place to make sure things were fixed quickly. We found Slydev a few months ago and he's been working really well with the site, and we're unequivocally excited to announce that he is now this community's official developer.
Most recently, he oversaw our transition from our old server to the same server hosts that Netflix use (woohoo!). However, last week for about a day the site had some more issues, which is seemingly impossible given that our server is now amazing. We've had a lot of people look at this stuff to try and diagnose the issue and we thought moving servers was the end of it. SlyDev made a breakthrough last week and started uncovering different issues. Little tiny pieces of custom code weren't optimal, and there was some relic code like the old 'forced redirect' code (which we disabled a while ago) that was doing funny stuff to the website. At the moment he's optimising all of that stuff to make the website essentially bulletproof. He's also been building the tutoring list, which is 99% finished, with the 1% delayed while he fully optimises the site.
Point of story is: this guy's amazing. We're crazy lucky to have found him and crazy lucky that he loves education and really wants to work with this community, even though there are more 'glamorous' things in the IT world that he could be doing. I'm introducing you to him now because I want you guys to communicate issues and suggestions to him directly. Keep in mind that he has a lot of projects to work on. At the moment, he's developing some pretty cool stuff that will split the website without anyone ever realising, so VCE people think it's a VCE-only website and HSC people think it's an HSC-only website (with only relevant content served to relevant audiences). This means he can't be at your beck and call :P. However, it means that when he has spare hours, he can look at what you guys would like done, see which suggestions are logically possible and then improve the site before your eyes. I think this is really exciting and I've wanted to introduce him for ages... It's going to make things a lot easier, and if you guys encounter issues, they'll be dealt with even quicker than before.
In this thread, you can chat to The SlyDev and he can chat to you. You can suggest little things or even point out things on the site that aren't as optimal as they could be, and he can add them to his to-do list (which he keeps organised quite religiously) and smash them out when the chance arises. Make sure you're nice to him and don't scare him away - we want this guy around for a while ;)
Oh and his respect count is running a little low. Make sure you shower him with upvotes and give him a huge welcome to the forums :).
Post by: qazser on January 27, 2016, 01:57:30 pm
Post by: pi on January 27, 2016, 02:00:12 pm
Where's this guy? Whats his real name btw?
I think every user is entitled to some privacy, but if it helps just pretend he sells 3D printed Nerf accessories while doing some IT on the side LOL :)
Post by: brenden on January 27, 2016, 02:02:06 pm
Where's this guy? Whats his real name btw?Haha he's about to post, just take a deep breath in and let it out slowly :P.
No one knows his real name. He's sort of like a Batman villain. He just leaves pictures of a sly looking fox everywhere he goes so you know that the SlyDev was there.
I think every user is entitled to some privacy, but if it helps just pretend he sells 3D printed Nerf accessories while doing some IT on the side LOL :)He's super well-prepared for the zombie apocalypse.
Post by: qazser on January 27, 2016, 02:05:00 pm
Haha he's about to post, just take a deep breath in and let it out slowly :P.
Suspect Brenden=SlyDev
Post by: brenden on January 27, 2016, 02:05:46 pm
Suspect Brenden=SlyDevMate I barely passed Further, if you think I'm proficient in 10+ languages you've gotta be dreaming.
Post by: Slydev on January 27, 2016, 02:06:11 pm
Hey all!
As you guys can tell the site has been a bit up and down for the past little while, that has mostly been me breaking and fixing things as I go in the hope to make atarnotes reach its potential as a website. Most of it is wibbly wobbly code stuff but it is getting there!
Over the next while I will be releasing some new functionality which I would love everyone's feedback on but in the mean time don't hesitate to let me know about any issues you guys are having and I will jump right on them. Also always keen to hear about new ideas or changes to the site which will be beneficial to the community to add to my, ever-growing, list.
Anyways I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts ;D
Post by: qazser on January 27, 2016, 02:08:40 pm
Mate I barely passed Further, if you think I'm proficient in 10+ languages you've gotta be dreaming.
Wouldn't be surprised. Passing Further is no indication of computer knowledge hehe.
I think every user is entitled to some privacy, but if it helps just pretend he sells 3D printed Nerf accessories while doing some IT on the side LOL :)
Why did you post this???!!! Now Euler is going to go around brandishing his modded nerf guns, and reign as meanest mod for another year.
Edit: And hey SlyDev, ur not very good at hiding your real name ;) Google provides all the answers :)
Edit 2:2 respect already!
Edit 3:How does he have 2 posts if he has posted once?
Post by: Darth_Pepe on January 27, 2016, 02:08:52 pm
I bet his respect ratio will be like 1 post: 200 respect xD
All aboard the respect-train, its gonna take off soon... choo choo
Post by: Slydev on January 27, 2016, 02:14:40 pm
Edit: And hey SlyDev, ur not very good at hiding your real name ;) Google provides all the answers :)
I haven't used my real name online in years, even on facebook I use an alias "Joey". I am curious as to how good your google-fu is (or more how much information google keeps around).
Post by: qazser on January 27, 2016, 02:18:32 pm
I haven't used my real name online in years, even on facebook I use an alias "Joey". I am curious as to how good your google-fu is (or more how much information google keeps around).
Initials: M.H?
Post by: Darth_Pepe on January 27, 2016, 02:19:01 pm
I haven't used my real name online in years, even on facebook I use an alias "Joey". I am curious as to how good your google-fu is (or more how much information google keeps around).
You remind me of icefrog, the developer of the massive pc game dota 2, nobody still knows who he is.
Post by: Slydev on January 27, 2016, 02:30:01 pm
You remind me of icefrog, the developer of the massive pc game dota 2, nobody still knows who he is.
Gaben would know, gaben always knows.
Post by: Darth_Pepe on January 27, 2016, 02:54:21 pm
Gaben would know, gaben always knows.
Gaben knows everything.. gaben is everywhere ( ͡ ͜ʖ ͡)
Post by: TheAspiringDoc on January 27, 2016, 04:00:00 pm
Post by: brenden on January 27, 2016, 04:05:42 pm
SlyDev's profile says he's done 4 posts but *plot-twist* he's done 3? ???(http://i.imgur.com/kTPkISr.jpg)
Post by: keltingmeith on January 27, 2016, 04:28:30 pm
Now Euler is going to go around brandishing his modded nerf guns, and reign as meanest mod for another year.
Implying this wasn't always my plan.
In other news, welcome to SlyDev! You da real mvp.
Post by: Slydev on January 27, 2016, 05:46:33 pm
Just letting you know that LaTex *will* be back soon. I'm just fixing a bunch of other errors that keep making LaTex fail. Once I fix those errors and fix LaTex, it should stop failing any time the site has a major change.
I am stripping out and recoding some legacy stuff that was really slowing the server down so it will be a little but of a bumpy road for the next little while but my top priority is to keep the forums running as best I can. Really excited to get some new stuff out but got to do my due diligence first!
Post by: literally lauren on January 27, 2016, 08:38:53 pm
Post by: brenden on January 27, 2016, 08:40:02 pm
This probably isn't as important as the LaTex stuff and preventing server kerfuffles, but would it be possible to remove the word/character limit for posts on the forums? I've noticed that there's a cutoff point around the seemingly random 62,593 character point including spaces, and there are some big resource compilation threads that have hit that already. It's probably an in-built thing, but figured it was worth a try :)Didn't even know this existed lol. I'll have a look on the admin section tomorrow, it might be something that I can fix by changing some SMF settings!
Post by: literally lauren on January 27, 2016, 08:46:32 pm
Didn't even know this existed lol. I'll have a look on the admin section tomorrow, it might be something that I can fix by changing some SMF settings!Ty!
It's odd because it works fine when you hit 'preview' but when posted, the long ones will cut themselves off ???
Even odder: the UoM subject reviews cut off at around 60,000 including some visuals and a lot of hyperlinks, but the English prompt thread can't even hit 40,000 and that's pure text, so idk what's triggering it...
Post by: Joseph41 on January 27, 2016, 08:50:47 pm
Post by: chasej on January 28, 2016, 02:18:28 am
Post by: Slydev on January 28, 2016, 03:41:09 pm
This probably isn't as important as the LaTex stuff and preventing server kerfuffles, but would it be possible to remove the word/character limit for posts on the forums? I've noticed that there's a cutoff point around the seemingly random 62,593 character point including spaces, and there are some big resource compilation threads that have hit that already. It's probably an in-built thing, but figured it was worth a try :)
I will look into it but I can bet it is a database limitation being a number that large.
Post by: heids on January 28, 2016, 04:43:58 pm
EDIT: Okay. It worked after I posted that link. I swear it hasn't worked on a number of occasions.
Post by: Slydev on January 28, 2016, 05:32:44 pm
Anyone else had issues with the notes? It says Server error 500 in Chrome, just complete blank in Firefox.
EDIT: Okay. It worked after I posted that link. I swear it hasn't worked on a number of occasions.
Yeah notes was down for the last 24hours, had the fix done as soon as I noticed it was down but it turns out our deployment software wasn't actually deploying. Notes will be going through an overall very soon as it is quite old functionality.
Post by: Alter on January 29, 2016, 03:40:17 pm
Example of what I mean - http://puu.sh/mNJqY/cc5a2a2144.png
Post by: qazser on January 29, 2016, 03:43:32 pm
This is very minor, but every now and then the blue blocks under a nat mod's name will play up and appear a different colour.
Example of what I mean - http://puu.sh/mNJqY/cc5a2a2144.png
Too observant
Post by: pi on January 29, 2016, 03:43:42 pm
This is very minor, but every now and then the blue blocks under a nat mod's name will play up and appear a different colour.
Example of what I mean - http://puu.sh/mNJqY/cc5a2a2144.png
That's not really a bug, it just means they still have Vic Mod permissions in those boards. Brenden will need to individually fix those up, from what Nina used to say, it's a huge pain to do hahaha
Post by: brenden on January 29, 2016, 03:44:41 pm
it's a huge pain to do hahahayeah... SMF just wasn't built for this millenium... LOL
Post by: Alter on January 29, 2016, 03:46:16 pm
edit: @brenden: I'll give you 10c to upgrade to xenforo xx
Post by: heids on February 02, 2016, 11:12:53 pm
- list
- like
- this
- where
- no
- bullet
- points
- show
[Though they show when I'm previewing the post...]
Post by: qazser on February 02, 2016, 11:16:56 pm
Ooh, sometime could we have dot-points fixed up back to how they were pre-site-layout-change? It really annoys me having a
- list
- like
- this
- where
- no
- bullet
- points
- show
[Though they show when I'm previewing the post...]
-Why
-Don't
-You
-Do
-This
Post by: keltingmeith on February 02, 2016, 11:19:12 pm
Makes sense. Couldn't that just be fixed by removing the Vic mod user permissions from a user once they're nat mod? Or would that make it more confusing in terms of finding a moderator for a specific section because they disappear from the mod list? From what I understand, there's no real power that nat mods can't exercise that a sub forum-specific mod could. I suppose it doesn't really matter too much.
edit: @brenden: I'll give you 10c to upgrade to xenforo xx
The issue is that the moderator stuff is built to each forum, not to the person. So it's not as simple as taking away vic mod for the person, you need to go into each board individually and change their user moderation settings.
Post by: Aaron on February 02, 2016, 11:21:22 pm
edit: @brenden: I'll give you 10c to upgrade to xenforo xx
Yes please
Post by: heids on February 02, 2016, 11:22:26 pm
-Why
-Don't
-You
-Do
-This
I do, but it doesn't work well for chunky paragraphs in each dot point, and besides, Lauren still keeps using that failed list feature so all her mammoth posts become unreadable.
Post by: literally lauren on February 03, 2016, 08:59:48 am
I do, but it doesn't work well for chunky paragraphs in each dot point, and besides, Lauren still keeps using that failed list feature so all her mammoth posts become unreadable.Did I break something? I probably broke something. Please don't eat me.
Incidentally when I checked posts via profiles it comes up fine:
(http://i.imgur.com/moXMH6d.png)
... ah the mysteries of the forums ::)
Post by: Slydev on February 04, 2016, 05:54:12 pm
Ooh, sometime could we have dot-points fixed up back to how they were pre-site-layout-change? It really annoys me having a
- list
- like
- this
- where
- no
- bullet
- points
- show
[Though they show when I'm previewing the post...]
I think that will be somewhere in the stylesheet, will see what I can do....hoping bringing it back doesn't break lists somewhere else (lots of menus and buttons use the list element because HTML is weird like that)
Also:
Forum avatars and attachments are now working!!!
Let me know if you guys have any more issues!
Post by: Slydev on February 04, 2016, 08:55:57 pm
What programming language did you begin to code with and consider yourself most fluent with?
And what language is ATARnotes and Section Zero primarily written in?
uh begin? I guess that was 'basic', as I grew up I got interesting in programming games using 'blitz basic' (though had read books on basic that for some reason were in our house) but I also started on the basics of websites 'html and css' though I was not very good at it back then (in fact I hated making websites more than anything, my dad made me make some for his companies). Eventually I hit university and dabbled in Java and C++ then I started on the real web languages (and also Adobe Flash's AS3 which is useless now)....That is PHP, Mysql, Javascript (and eventually Jquery).
Atarnotes uses HTML, CSS, Javascript(jQuery/Ajax) for the front end and then the backend is PHP/MYSQL. The forums side of the site is made by SMF but as I am finding has a lot of custom code and the rest of the website is actually highly customized wordpress. We also use bootstrap for responsive, which is standard for almost any website now.
I would say I am most fluent with PHP I really enjoy backend coding though really I love the whole web flow from Frontend to back and building interfaces.
PHP actually is a kind of crap language lots of annoying issues:
- A lot of cases will give the same result if a variable is NULL, FALSE, 0 or '' (an empty string) which can be confusing sometimes.
- Some of the naming conventions are weird for example there are lots of functions that are 'function(needle,haystack)' while others are 'function(haystack,needle)' which makes it hard to remember which is which.
Someone did a better rant than me here: http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-php-singularity/
PHP is however very popular on web still (though Javascript is starting to make an apperance with things like angular and jsnode). PHP has a low skill entry so there are a lot of bad programmers so lots of the work I do is fixing bad code, its not fun but it is a dirty job that pays well.
I hope that answers your questions, if anyone is more interested in learning about programming (specifically web) let me know I am happy to at least point you in the right direction :)
Post by: Aaron on February 04, 2016, 09:08:49 pm
uh begin? I guess that was 'basic', as I grew up I got interesting in programming games using 'blitz basic' (though had read books on basic that for some reason were in our house) but I also started on the basics of websites 'html and css' though I was not very good at it back then (in fact I hated making websites more than anything, my dad made me make some for his companies). Eventually I hit university and dabbled in Java and C++ then I started on the real web languages (and also Adobe Flash's AS3 which is useless now)....That is PHP, Mysql, Javascript (and eventually Jquery).
Atarnotes uses HTML, CSS, Javascript(jQuery/Ajax) for the front end and then the backend is PHP/MYSQL. The forums side of the site is made by SMF but as I am finding has a lot of custom code and the rest of the website is actually highly customized wordpress. We also use bootstrap for responsive, which is standard for almost any website now.
I would say I am most fluent with PHP I really enjoy backend coding though really I love the whole web flow from Frontend to back and building interfaces.
PHP actually is a kind of crap language lots of annoying issues:
- A lot of cases will give the same result if a variable is NULL, FALSE, 0 or '' (an empty string) which can be confusing sometimes.
- Some of the naming conventions are weird for example there are lots of functions that are 'function(needle,haystack)' while others are 'function(haystack,needle)' which makes it hard to remember which is which.
Someone did a better rant than me here: http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-php-singularity/
PHP is however very popular on web still (though Javascript is starting to make an apperance with things like angular and jsnode). PHP has a low skill entry so there are a lot of bad programmers so lots of the work I do is fixing bad code, its not fun but it is a dirty job that pays well.
I hope that answers your questions, if anyone is more interested in learning about programming (specifically web) let me know I am happy to at least point you in the right direction :)
It's nice to have someone else talking about programming on here as well! Hi-five.
Post by: Slydev on February 04, 2016, 09:17:37 pm
It's nice to have someone else talking about programming on here as well! Hi-five.
Aww yeah *high fives*
Post by: cosine on February 04, 2016, 10:33:16 pm
I want to pursue a career in medicine, as I have grown up my whole life wanting it, but developing, programming and coding has always been a passion of mine, you never know when you might just be working, or even better, creating the next hit website, like ATARNotes, which makes the actual process of developing exciting. So my question is, is it possible to program as a hobby, through self-teaching methods etc? Apologies if this is not supposed to be in this thread, but clearly there are some others who share the same passion!
Thank you Mr. Sly
Post by: heids on February 04, 2016, 10:40:27 pm
Slydev, I have a question for you my man.
I want to pursue a career in medicine, as I have grown up my whole life wanting it, but developing, programming and coding has always been a passion of mine, you never know when you might just be working, or even better, creating the next hit website, like ATARNotes, which makes the actual process of developing exciting. So my question is, is it possible to program as a hobby, through self-teaching methods etc? Apologies if this is not supposed to be in this thread, but clearly there are some others who share the same passion!
Thank you Mr. Sly
I'm not Sly, or a programmer in any way, shape or form (three brothers and a dad is four programmers too many in one family!) but it's not that hard to self-teach, and I've done a little on the side myself [though I would only ever be a bad programmer that would make messes for good programmers to fix :P]. Try Codeacademy and w3schools for starters, and you'll get surprisingly far as long as you dedicate the time (like I don't).
Post by: cosine on February 04, 2016, 10:42:47 pm
I'm not Sly, or a programmer in any way, shape or form (three brothers and a dad is four programmers too many in one family!) but it's not that hard to self-teach, and I've done a little on the side myself [though I would only ever be a bad programmer that would make messes for good programmers to fix :P]. Try Codeacademy and w3schools for starters, and you'll get surprisingly far as long as you dedicate the time (like I don't).
Thanks Sly, oops I mean Bangali (kidding, of course xD)
Thing is, I already know the basics, have designed a couple websites myself too. But like, I was wondering how to get 'Sly' level, you know, a website that holds high traffic, and has such a complex user interface. Any ideas?
Thank you :)
Post by: brenden on February 04, 2016, 10:53:55 pm
Slydev, I have a question for you my man.Feel free to ask Sly questions in this thread - he's a cool guy and actually doesn't afraid of anything!
I want to pursue a career in medicine, as I have grown up my whole life wanting it, but developing, programming and coding has always been a passion of mine, you never know when you might just be working, or even better, creating the next hit website, like ATARNotes, which makes the actual process of developing exciting. So my question is, is it possible to program as a hobby, through self-teaching methods etc? Apologies if this is not supposed to be in this thread, but clearly there are some others who share the same passion!
Thank you Mr. Sly
Post by: Slydev on February 04, 2016, 11:54:49 pm
Thanks for the reply
I'm glad you've been able to make a living out of programming :D
That boat sailed for me when I realized all of yous are so dedicated and spend your spare time doing stuff like this
e.g. making ATARnotes!?!?
Web is huge at the moment and will be for quite so time, I am very fortunate to have a career doing what I love to do. While I do work for myself I am really loving it at Atar, everyone is chill and fun and they really make me feel valued.
Slydev, I have a question for you my man.
I want to pursue a career in medicine, as I have grown up my whole life wanting it, but developing, programming and coding has always been a passion of mine, you never know when you might just be working, or even better, creating the next hit website, like ATARNotes, which makes the actual process of developing exciting. So my question is, is it possible to program as a hobby, through self-teaching methods etc? Apologies if this is not supposed to be in this thread, but clearly there are some others who share the same passion!
Thank you Mr. Sly
Well a doctor with programming skills isn't a bad thing, could be a niche in itself. My father is a doctor and wanted me to work on some stuff for him, no idea what half of the stuff he was talking about was. I think there could be value in knowing the jargon.
Anyways I am also mostly self taught, when I went to uni the curriculum was really a bit behind and I learnt a lot of things that I never used again, I don't think I got taught a lick of PHP so I had to work it out myself. The most important things to keep in mind is this:
- Your code can always be better, seek to improve don't get stuck in your ways.
- Code legibility is super important, even if it is just personal you might need to look back at old code.
- Don't re-invent the wheel, if there is something out there that does what you want it can be a lot quicker than doing it all yourself.
- Try to enjoy the coding, find what it is about the whole process that you are passionate about.
- Don't feel ashamed for googling solutions, no-one really knows how to make regular expressions anymore.
- If you come across code you don't understand in a language take the time to learn how it is written, you can learn tons that way.
Thanks Sly, oops I mean Bangali (kidding, of course xD)
Thing is, I already know the basics, have designed a couple websites myself too. But like, I was wondering how to get 'Sly' level, you know, a website that holds high traffic, and has such a complex user interface. Any ideas?
Thank you :)
Work up from the bottom. Programming is, when you break it down just small logic operations all working in unison. No matter how big it gets it is still essentially the same. Obviously the larger a project gets the more dependencies and factors and wibbly wobbly time stuff you have to keep track of but its just building on the same principals.
If you know some PHP I would suggest trying out a framework, they bring in some really powerful tools and make programming a lot easier. Laravel is a pretty hot PHP framework right now. (http://www.fetcher.com.au/ is a site I built in the codeigniter framework)
Funnily enough some really large sites are being built on wordpress now so learning how to make plugins would be a huge advantage. (https://theright.fit/ is one of the sites I helped to work on end of last year).
Once you feel confident in even basic skills, level up, get a job at a web development company and experience the industry and the project process first hand. For me I did that for 3 years then quit and decided to run my own show, after that people I knew (and people they knew) needed jobs and I started to take them on freelance. I hope one day to start my own web development company but who knows! Still learning industry, dealing with clients and managing the project (scoping, deliveries, testing, etc) are all important skills that you only really get by being hands on. Learn your strengths and weaknesses and surround yourself with people who make you feel valued and challenge you to improve yourself.
Feel free to ask Sly questions in this thread - he's a cool guy and actually doesn't afraid of anything!
Bad code scares me, some code I have seen makes me wonder what people were thinking when they made it. Then again I am sure I have put out my fair share of bad code. Oh and clowns, they are creepy.
Post by: heart on February 05, 2016, 12:04:45 am
Thanks Sly, oops I mean Bangali (kidding, of course xD)
Thing is, I already know the basics, have designed a couple websites myself too. But like, I was wondering how to get 'Sly' level, you know, a website that holds high traffic, and has such a complex user interface. Any ideas?
Thank you :)
You could also undertake a concurrent diploma in informatics if you wanted to :) https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/view/2016/D-INFO
Post by: brenden on February 05, 2016, 01:03:37 pm
Post by: Slydev on February 05, 2016, 02:15:19 pm
It will all be inline so equations will appear on their own line centered in posts, this might mess with some formatting on old posts but I think this makes for a cleaner and easier to understand format.
I braught back the 'latests posts' on the homepage but it is super slow so I will have to rethink of how I will approach loading it (will probably be an ajax call), still got a big list of things to do so will just keep at it!
Post by: brenden on February 05, 2016, 02:21:57 pm
Okay so latex should be working for fancy math equations! We are using a new system for this which renders the equation in the page instead of trying to create and load an image. You can right click on these for more info (and to get the code). This should be backwards compatible with all older tex code however there might be some small issues so if you find any let me know.YAAAAAAAY
It will all be inline so equations will appear on their own line centered in posts, this might mess with some formatting on old posts but I think this makes for a cleaner and easier to understand format.
I braught back the 'latests posts' on the homepage but it is super slow so I will have to rethink of how I will approach loading it (will probably be an ajax call), still got a big list of things to do so will just keep at it!
Post by: Orson on February 05, 2016, 02:24:21 pm
Okay so latex should be working for fancy math equations! We are using a new system for this which renders the equation in the page instead of trying to create and load an image. You can right click on these for more info (and to get the code). This should be backwards compatible with all older tex code however there might be some small issues so if you find any let me know.
It will all be inline so equations will appear on their own line centered in posts, this might mess with some formatting on old posts but I think this makes for a cleaner and easier to understand format.
I braught back the 'latests posts' on the homepage but it is super slow so I will have to rethink of how I will approach loading it (will probably be an ajax call), still got a big list of things to do so will just keep at it!
Hey there Sly! Welcome! I've been messing around with some programming (VB.Net, but I've also been doing some web design with simple HTML/CSS), and I was wondering how people actually learn to apply code. Sure codeacademy teaches me what a loop in PHP is, but I have no idea what it actually does, where to use it, and why it exists. Any tips on learning techniques? Anything at all that could help? How did you begin?
Thanks so much mate!
Post by: Slydev on February 05, 2016, 03:04:32 pm
Hey there Sly! Welcome! I've been messing around with some programming (VB.Net, but I've also been doing some web design with simple HTML/CSS), and I was wondering how people actually learn to apply code. Sure codeacademy teaches me what a loop in PHP is, but I have no idea what it actually does, where to use it, and why it exists. Any tips on learning techniques? Anything at all that could help? How did you begin?
Thanks so much mate!
Hmm that is a tricky one to answer. I would say when it comes to learn WHERE to use certain code is in looking at other peoples code (though helps if the code you are looking at is not terrible).
The syntax is kind of like lego bricks, you are told what they can and cant do and have to work out where you want them to be used depending on what you are building. It is about experiencing the scenarios of where you might need to use different things and getting used to that.
I am sure any university/online course would cover good examples of this, but as where to find online I am not as sure. The best thing is to come up with a small project and see if there is a tutorial on how to do that, this would help with the idea on how to approach things.
To answer the question more specifically a loop is used when iterating through something (generally an array). So say we queried the database for all forum users, we would then need to use a loop to go through them all, some psudocode would be like this:
[users] = [query all users]
foreach([users] as [user]) {
[print out user]
}
This code would iterate through each user and print them out one at a time. That is what you will mostly use loops for but there are other contexts.
Post by: Slydev on February 08, 2016, 02:58:01 pm
Added in 'Show unread VCE' and 'Show unread HSC' links so that your unread feed isn't cluttered up with HSC/VCE forums that don't really have any bearing on your existence! SACE and WACE peeps have got to up their presence if they want the same special privileges though :P
As always if something isn't working as intended let me know here or at our 'AN problems' thread Here
Post by: heids on February 12, 2016, 04:23:39 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/dtypu0G.png)
http://atarnotes.com/free-hsc-tutoring also returns the same, and sometimes the homepage (atarnotes.com), but at least it sometimes goes through.
Post by: brenden on February 12, 2016, 04:43:49 pm
The links to the blog under VCE and HSC don't work - but the blog hasn't worked for me except on very odd occasions for a month or two anyway.Clear your cache and go again? I've never had problems with any of the three pages :S
(http://i.imgur.com/dtypu0G.png)
http://atarnotes.com/free-hsc-tutoring also returns the same, and sometimes the homepage (atarnotes.com), but at least it sometimes goes through.
Post by: heids on February 12, 2016, 05:24:41 pm
Clear your cache and go again? I've never had problems with any of the three pages :S
Nah, did that, also tried on a different computer and browser - they still don't work. Anyone else got this problem, or is it just me, my internet, and my clicking skills? :(
Post by: brenden on February 12, 2016, 05:34:29 pm
Nah, did that, also tried on a different computer and browser - they still don't work. Anyone else got this problem, or is it just me, my internet, and my clicking skills? :(Not sure if this explains things, but the URL I get when I click the button is:
http://atarnotes.com/blog/?state=VIC
It looks like yours is missing the forward slash after 'blog'?
Post by: heids on February 13, 2016, 12:10:49 am
Not sure if this explains things, but the URL I get when I click the button is:
http://atarnotes.com/blog/?state=VIC
It looks like yours is missing the forward slash after 'blog'?
Nope, that link doesn't work either...
Post by: keltingmeith on February 14, 2016, 01:26:38 am
Is it possible to get that to filter based on state, like the buttons you gave to us? Or even to be able to allow us to pick which forums feature down there? (obvs if it's too hard, minor issue. I can just use the "show unread posts" button more. :P)
Post by: Slydev on February 15, 2016, 12:22:16 pm
The links to the blog under VCE and HSC don't work - but the blog hasn't worked for me except on very odd occasions for a month or two anyway.
(http://i.imgur.com/dtypu0G.png)
http://atarnotes.com/free-hsc-tutoring also returns the same, and sometimes the homepage (atarnotes.com), but at least it sometimes goes through.
Hmm this could be a DNS setting issue on your end. I will investigate but I have not run in to the same problem on any network yet so it is hard to work with. Are you getting a 'retry for live version' button in the top right?
Yo Sly, I love to use the "Recent Posts" section at the bottom of the main forum page to go through threads, the problem is that it's getting half-filled with the HSC threads and I'm missing a bunch of VCE and common threads as a result! (and I'm assuming the issue is bigger for our HSC friends, with that part being swamped by VCE posts)
Is it possible to get that to filter based on state, like the buttons you gave to us? Or even to be able to allow us to pick which forums feature down there? (obvs if it's too hard, minor issue. I can just use the "show unread posts" button more. :P)
We are brainstorming some ideas for state based forum display. For now try using the 'Show unread VCE posts since last visit.' button if you don't want to see the HSC stuff. (I know it isn't quite the same but should do for now).
Post by: heids on February 15, 2016, 04:26:15 pm
Hmm this could be a DNS setting issue on your end. I will investigate but I have not run in to the same problem on any network yet so it is hard to work with. Are you getting a 'retry for live version' button in the top right?
I blame everything on that error message which tells me my end is fine and it's all your fault :P Nope, though I remember getting that button the times when AN's server was clearly at fault (that was a 503 error iirc and this is a 502/504 error, 'bad gateway').
Post by: Orson on March 23, 2016, 02:35:08 pm
Where would you reccomend someone to start learning web dev? (Except codeacademy). Do you know like all of the languages used for web dev? HTML, CSS, JS, PHP? Do you use Ruby or RoR?
Post by: Slydev on March 23, 2016, 04:12:51 pm
Hey Sly,
Where would you reccomend someone to start learning web dev? (Except codeacademy). Do you know like all of the languages used for web dev? HTML, CSS, JS, PHP? Do you use Ruby or RoR?
Hmmm, I am mostly self taught, when I learnt there weren't many online resources, now there are so many it is hard to say which one is best. Either way it should at lest be free or close too! I used 'lynda' for a bit when we had a subscription at my old work but I don't think it had too much more info than what I already knew. For most languages you just need to learn what you can do and go from there, PHP for example has the complete syntax online which you can use for reference any time:
(Example the 'stringtotime' function http://php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php)
You can also just ask questions like "how do I convert a string to an integer PHP" you will most likely get a good detailed response, mostly on stack overflow. It is a double edged sword though, I have seen people get the solution then copy paste it in to the code without really knowing what it does. For every line of code you copy you have to understand 100% of it otherwise it will lead to issues in debugging down the track.
I know a lot of the languages but not all of them! There are new ones every month it seems too. The problem is there is so many that there is no advantage to knowing them all:
(http://www.commitstrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Strip-La-maison-de-stacks-650-finalenglish.jpg)
(More 'hilarious' dev comics here: http://www.commitstrip.com/en/)
So I mostly know and use the following:
HTML
CSS
MYSQL
JAVASCRIPT (Jquery as well)
PHP (Codeignighter and Yii2 Frameworks but looking at learning 'laravel' framework too)
The other popular coding languages for web are:
.NET (Microsoft's one)
Ruby (and the ruby on rails framework)
Angular/JSnode (Javascript frameworks which are quite new and gaining in popularity for both frontend and backend but IMHO still has a little while to go.....waiting on angular 2 to show up)
Ruby is really really cool from what I hear but I have never gotten a job offer for ruby so no point learning it. Basically I stick with PHP because SO MUCH of the web is PHP (Here is a breakdown http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_language/all) showing 82% of websites are PHP.
The thing with web work is that most of the work is maintaining and fixing older websites. It is only when you get a cool new startup project that you can play with new stuff, which depending on the projects budget might not make it viable to have to learn a new language and use it for the project. It is all about finding the best solution for the client NOT about what is the coolest new thing or programming language you like most.
So do I know ruby? No I don't. Would I like to? Yeah I would. Will I learn it? Probably not unless I get a contract that has it. While in uni it is great to play with these things in reality you have to go where the money is.
Some people do stick to their guns though, I have a friend who is a full on linux guy, he makes his websites in a custom wrapper for Python and talks about how amazing it is. The problem is that if he gets hit by a bus then no-one is going to be able to work on that project which is not great for risk management at all :(
I hope that helped to answer your questions and give you a bit of context to my answers :)
Post by: Slydev on April 04, 2016, 04:14:43 pm
New Notes:
http://atarnotes.com/notes/
This is a complete rebuild of the notes system from the ground up with the old data imported. It should look and act basically exactly like the old one, now that it has been remade in a much cleaner way it has a lot more potential and will be looking at a version 2 down the track based off everyone's input :)
Tutor Listing (Beta!):
http://atarnotes.com/tutors/
This is an old page that was removed about 6 months ago, it is designed for users to use their existing Atar accounts to make a tutor listing specifying what tutoring services they are offering for subjects in location and times and rate. Like notes this functionality has been completely rebuilt in an effort to move away from the legacy code and system. I am hoping that now this page is back it will start to replace the 'looking for X' boards (e.g. VIC Wanted) making an easier to use and browse system for users to offer and find tutoring services. Though are at the stage where we need people using the system to see how it is received and what it is missing.
Quality of life changes:
Lots of small quality of life changes over the website, speed optimizations and legacy code removal. This work is about as fun as it sounds but really helps to clean up the site and make it run a lot quicker. Plus helps a lot with ongoing development and avoiding conflicts.
Anyways as always let me know how you all go with these tools, any feedback is appreciated and will be considered in ongoing development of the website. I have a huge list of things to do and have been wanting to get into but been caught up with optimizing the speed and methods of the existing site. I am for the most part happy with that however there is always room for improvement and things that I might have missed.
Post by: zsteve on June 23, 2016, 07:17:57 am
Just a minor suggestion here with the implementation of LaTeX on the forums, it seems that any equations we write automatically get rendered on a new line, consequently some posts look pretty bad. Back in the old days, they were rendered to image and then inserted inline. Would it be possible to fix this?
For instance:
To get the area of a circle, we multiply
Post by: heids on June 23, 2016, 09:04:48 am
Post by: qazser on July 04, 2016, 04:11:20 pm
Could ya put the blog as a tab in the nav bar. With notes, forum, articles, calc. The blog has heaps of good info but it feels neglected in a way.
Post by: stolenclay on July 11, 2016, 12:27:59 am
I'm also wondering about the LaTeX situation that zsteve described above. It would be great if there was a tag for inline display and a separate tag/option to make it centred display!
Another thing that's a bit strange is the cell margins/padding for tables. Pretty sure not many people use them, but whenever I put tables in my posts there seems to be no margins at all. For example,
Code: [Select]
[table][tr][td]Cell[/td][td]Cell[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]There's no margin here>[/td][td]<there[/td][/tr][/table]gives| Cell | Cell |
| There's no margin here> | <there |
Thanks for all your work so far!
Post by: Stick on July 11, 2016, 02:01:01 pm
Okay so a couple new things that I would really like users to play with and test out:
Tutor Listing (Beta!):
http://atarnotes.com/tutors/
This is an old page that was removed about 6 months ago, it is designed for users to use their existing Atar accounts to make a tutor listing specifying what tutoring services they are offering for subjects in location and times and rate. Like notes this functionality has been completely rebuilt in an effort to move away from the legacy code and system. I am hoping that now this page is back it will start to replace the 'looking for X' boards (e.g. VIC Wanted) making an easier to use and browse system for users to offer and find tutoring services. Though are at the stage where we need people using the system to see how it is received and what it is missing.
Anyways as always let me know how you all go with these tools, any feedback is appreciated and will be considered in ongoing development of the website. I have a huge list of things to do and have been wanting to get into but been caught up with optimizing the speed and methods of the existing site. I am for the most part happy with that however there is always room for improvement and things that I might have missed.
Is this actually happening or is it still in test mode? The page appears with no listings and I wasn't aware of the page because there's no tab anywhere.
I was actually going to raise this at the end of the year but the removal of the tuition board hurt me a bit in terms of getting students this year. I received far fewer requests from ATARNotes (and I only have one student from the forum this year) and I was forced to put up listings on other websites for the first time - yes, I used to only list on ATARNotes and I would still fill up all of my places. To make sure it wasn't just me I checked with a couple of other people who were experiencing the same difficulties, and some of them have reduced their activity on this forum because they felt their contributions were no longer valued (i.e. the respect that they had accumulated via helping out started to become a bit meaningless) - drastic in my opinion, but it's happened. A lot of the time when I got requests in the past the user (a student or a parent) had found the directory from a google search and deliberately signed up to the forum to contact me, and after starting work with them I encouraged them to stick around and become a part of the community themselves. I think getting this tuition board back as soon as possible would only be a benefit to the community to make sure our experienced members stay and also to grow the community with new members. :)
Post by: literally lauren on July 15, 2016, 05:43:51 pm
Hey Slydev!
Just a minor suggestion here with the implementation of LaTeX on the forums, it seems that any equations we write automatically get rendered on a new line, consequently some posts look pretty bad. Back in the old days, they were rendered to image and then inserted inline. Would it be possible to fix this?
For instance:
To get the area of a circle, we multiply, our radius squared, by
Courtesy of Joey, we now have \(inline\space Latex\) for all you Maths nerds.
Using [tex ][/tex] will still give you the new line version,
But doing \ (this\) should render inline \(like\space so\) :)
Post by: notjefffree on July 17, 2016, 06:55:08 pm
Just wanted to say that if you need any help with the design elements of this site, I'm here for you! Or even if you wanna completely refresh the design of this place, I'll be there to help.
Complete newbie (only just registered) but found this place really useful before, so want to give back.
Cya around mate!
Post by: jamonwindeyer on October 12, 2016, 12:37:09 am
(http://i.imgur.com/BMNrCAO.png)
Post by: elysepopplewell on May 29, 2017, 05:55:42 pm
Post by: Joseph41 on May 29, 2017, 05:56:27 pm
For the past two days I've had trouble using the Quick Reply option. When I quote someone, it moves my screen down to the Quick Reply text box, but doesn't actually insert the quote. If I open a "reply" and then insert the quote, it's fine. But just thought I'd point this out! :)
Had this on and off also. Seems to be a bit of a random thing!
Post by: jamonwindeyer on May 29, 2017, 08:28:27 pm
Had this on and off also. Seems to be a bit of a random thing!
Also experienced this - Refreshing the page works for me most of the time (or just doing it the old way)! ;D
Post by: Wales on June 01, 2017, 10:18:29 am
Also experienced this - Refreshing the page works for me most of the time (or just doing it the old way)! ;D
Just want to add something I've noticed as well. If you decide to quote something far larger then the quick reply box it doesn't auto expand to it from my experience. I did find out how to make the box larger but it's still a bit weird how large quotes aren't expanding the text box.
Post by: Wales on June 08, 2017, 09:18:11 am
There's all the other Marist College's but not Marist Catholic College Penshurst
Post by: S200 on June 21, 2017, 05:46:13 pm
Is there a reason why my preview on the quick reply brings up random gibberish??
It isn't any code that I know!!
Here's a sample.
"HM! *0v7:3ӏXPr;oR(l`P2 ٖc-Lv7-2x>S dm&EL( Z+Vׯ1 Xzޞ.S[*> ϚPgR LV5ā}Z5ƌ`q"uLs{ R9O,cw>G1LM kΆ1qŇBec` eВ$6PJTк) JuI䥴{Ӧnlk} }DƟ y8 (UB|Y\Yjr+RvAz@y (-Igi_ u;L?**EKR$Z9㾋(E<1CmN_n]j'+d"X&iL!wA9EV]jOw]I0 Ė}NEmßzƐG㸟Fl$ ?,L#r7CGP7G Sh#/()c1UsAݩm.>\>a q`EΛA.d_ C[F-X',i,梑p/*_ y"{n8UBI][, !xk!u0:XK/ӈ% el*',',usZؕGJt5Q</nS |^p |68ox EkNxsGRT] <h+6כeǹ_)/(3UAרE,b. ]3̞Ȱld 93ƽԟlWH>ӄIG>[i9rT J:)9mm am!\x2l=6I 4Vsk; Wm]&e*xU\8@ 5R_:^8d'w\'VYQ&Eq@<bГؒ投S-^M& "
Is this a WIP or is something Broken??
Post by: Aaron on June 21, 2017, 05:55:14 pm
Post by: S200 on June 21, 2017, 06:55:43 pm
What are you typing into the quick reply? LaTeX?No, just a normal reply, rarely using emoji and BBcode or anything..
When I try to preview it to see if I did get the code or emoji right (when I use it), that garble shows up...
Post by: technodisney on May 02, 2018, 03:03:33 pm
When on the ATARcalc part of the site and you click on either "User Terms" or "Register" it links to "https://vce.atarcalc.com/terms-conditions/" and "https://vce.atarcalc.com/forum/index.php?action=register" instead of "https://atarnotes.com/terms-conditions/" and "https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?action=register" which of course leads to a 404 page.
Also a random question. What forum software do you use?
Post by: Aaron on May 02, 2018, 07:37:38 pm
Not sure if this is a good place to post this but I have noticed a minor bug on your site which is probably easily fixable and is probably of very little priority.
When on the ATARcalc part of the site and you click on either "User Terms" or "Register" it links to "https://vce.atarcalc.com/terms-conditions/" and "https://vce.atarcalc.com/forum/index.php?action=register" instead of "https://atarnotes.com/terms-conditions/" and "https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?action=register" which of course leads to a 404 page.
Also a random question. What forum software do you use?
Very easy to fix.
SMF is the forum software used. You can easily identify this via the footer. It is a very.. interesting forum software, that's for sure.
Post by: RuiAce on May 02, 2018, 08:09:43 pm
It is a very.. interesting forum software, that's for sure.Is that how you're sugarcoating your resent to it?
Post by: Joseph41 on May 03, 2018, 02:00:40 pm
Not sure if this is a good place to post this but I have noticed a minor bug on your site which is probably easily fixable and is probably of very little priority.
When on the ATARcalc part of the site and you click on either "User Terms" or "Register" it links to "https://vce.atarcalc.com/terms-conditions/" and "https://vce.atarcalc.com/forum/index.php?action=register" instead of "https://atarnotes.com/terms-conditions/" and "https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?action=register" which of course leads to a 404 page.
Also a random question. What forum software do you use?
Thanks for this - have notified Slydev, and it'll be fixed. :)
Post by: technodisney on May 03, 2018, 08:37:10 pm
Thanks for this - have notified Slydev, and it'll be fixed. :)
Ok.
And if I notice any other bugs on your site where would be the best place to report them. On this thread?
Post by: RuiAce on May 03, 2018, 08:43:32 pm
Ok.This is just my recommendation, but PM the admins. It'll most likely be spotted a bit earlier that way
And if I notice any other bugs on your site where would be the best place to report them. On this thread?
Post by: technodisney on May 03, 2018, 08:46:01 pm
This is just my recommendation, but PM the admins. It'll most likely be spotted a bit earlier that way
Which admin though? Or is there a message all admins button hidden away somewhere?
Post by: RuiAce on May 03, 2018, 08:50:01 pm
Which admin though? Or is there a message all admins button hidden away somewhere?Any of them tbh. But if you need an option, these days Joseph41 and jamonwindeyer are the most active.
Post by: jamonwindeyer on May 04, 2018, 08:15:18 pm
Which admin though? Or is there a message all admins button hidden away somewhere?
Totally fine to report bugs here :)
Post by: Alaska_Young14 on May 22, 2018, 09:44:26 pm
Suspect Brenden=SlyDev
😂