Um, I'm Starting a Thread

Anna Gregoline | January 14, 2005
cause I can't find a thread! Scott, when is there going to be a search?

I wanted to post this article I found on kosher machines and remembered that thread we were talking about it...was it the religion thread and I'm just dumb? Sigh.

Scott Hardie | January 14, 2005
Yes, it was in the religion thread, which is already well on its way to making the header slideshow for 2005: (link)

A search page is one of many things I need to get finished. I don't consider it a priority, but since it's a fairly short thing, only maybe an hour to do, I'll see if I can write it this weekend for you. But you have to reply to FIN first. ;-)

I'll say this much, the new search page is going to be a hell of a lot faster than the old one, now that I have learned some very simple techniques from working in the industry, things that I happened never to learn when coding on my own. The old way, I would call up each and every comment out of the database, and compare it against the search phrase to see if it matched or not. There are currently 12,536 comments in the database, so you can see why this took upwards of half a minute to process. But, and I say this smacking my forehead, it's possible to query the database only for comments that contain the search phrase; in other words, I can pull out only the handful of comments that match, instead of ALL comments, and the page will load in a fraction of a second. I wish I knew that a year ago.

Scott Hardie | January 16, 2005
Well, the search form took longer than I estimated, because I kept adding additional options to the form itself, but it's done. Go nuts. (link)

For sake of convenience, you can also add a "search" bar to your extended navigation with your Account Options (at the very bottom). (link)

Scott Hardie | January 16, 2005
Additional comments:

I'm behind on my ten-best-films because this took longer than I thought it would, but no big loss. I really enjoyed writing it; it felt great to write actual code on this site again. I'll be back on track with the movies by tonight.

Also, the results are near-instant if you enter a specific search. The more results you get, the longer the page will take to generate. (It tracks results by reference number only, and then it has to go into the database for each number and pull out the title in order to show you something to click on. Thus, more results means more times it has to go into the database.)

It's fairly well tested, but in my experience, nothing helps you debug a page faster than opening it up to public access. Please inform me of any glitches you notice. (One known issue is that the alphabetical sorting of results is case-sensitive, but that's an issue with PHP that I'm not willing to take extra time to program around.)

Anna Gregoline | January 16, 2005
(link)

Amy Austin | January 16, 2005
Thanks for pointing out that Jews are every bit as crazy as Christians, Anna... I never knew.

Amy Austin | January 16, 2005
Awesome search features, Scott! And I really like having the nav bars A LOT! Thanks!

Anna Gregoline | January 17, 2005
Um, ok...that wasn't my point, but I guess everyone takes away something different. I thought it was an interesting article and pertained to that kosher discussion we had a while back but I didn't know what thread it was in.

Scott Hardie | January 17, 2005
I never thought that's why you posted the article, Anna (and I doubt Amy thought so either), but like her, I couldn't help but take away an impression that the Sabbath purists described therein are, well, to put it bluntly, extremely superstitious. If turning on the oven on Sunday is forbidden, how can a five-second delay make it legitimate? Five seconds, fine; four seconds, damnation? The behavior seems symptomatic of OCD (which I realize it isn't), such as turning on and off the lights so many times before it's ok to get in bed. What the hell difference does it make? Either it's ok to do the behavior or it isn't.

Anyway, it's insensitive of me to say these things about people who are trying to be good human beings, so I'll add that there are superstitious rules of the hair-splitting variety in every religion and nation, and that this article, with its brevity and superficial analysis, can't do justice to the time-honored and valuable traditions of the Sabbath; they can't help but come across as pointless frivolities.

Amy Austin | January 17, 2005
Ditto, Scott -- thanks for clarifying!

Scott Horowitz | January 17, 2005
It's not "superstition" as you guys say (I'm not offended, just clarifying), it's "law" to these people. According to the Torah, you are not allowed to ignite a flame on the sabbath. By flicking a switch, you trigger a spark... aka igniting a flame. However, in order for these people to be able to do stuff in the modern world, they have needed to adapt. Henceforth, the kosher stove and refrigerator.

Amy Austin | January 17, 2005
Right... "the modern world" -- hence, stoves for cooking. What, may I ask, did these folks do before stoves??? Seems to me that the only other option then was some kind of fire... obviously, involving a lot more work and/or "breaking of the law" -- so they either must have eaten a lot of cold/raw foods or gone entirely without! So... now that we have the LUXURY of stoves for cooking, how exactly does that "law" still apply??? I mean, forgive my utter lack of knowledge of Judaism or the Torah here, but I thought that the whole idea of the flame thing was to avoid work on the Sabbath? Then what exactly has the "kosher stove" changed... seems to me like a HUGE technicality in the scheme of things and some serious searching for loopholes, you know? (In other words, if they're going to use stoves at all, then all of that seems a bit irrelevant, doncha' think?)

BTW, I'm glad you aren't offended, and clarify away!

Erik Bates | January 17, 2005
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Amy Austin | January 17, 2005
I guess -- it just seems absurd to me... obviously, I don't believe that God has nothing better to do than to be concerned about burning stoves on Saturday. This is another case where I really wonder about the people in that faith... do they think that the rest of us are going to Hell??? And if not, then what is it that they think is important about such laws? I just find it puzzling.

Scott Horowitz | January 17, 2005
Exactly Eric. You light it before and it stays lit for the whole day of the Sabbath.

Erik Bates | January 17, 2005
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Scott Horowitz | January 17, 2005
It's you people that think we're going to hell... get it right. :)

Anna Gregoline | January 17, 2005
"behavior seems symptomatic of OCD (which I realize it isn't), such as turning on and off the lights so many times before it's ok to get in bed"

As someone with OCD, you're right - it's really nothing like OCD at all.

Erik Bates | January 17, 2005
[hidden by request]

Scott Horowitz | January 17, 2005
They shove a living snake up your ass.

Erik Bates | January 17, 2005
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Amy Austin | January 17, 2005
Right on!