John Dyer

Background

Over the past few weeks, I've seen a few WordPress blogs that pull in the last post from a commenter's website. I also saw a post from Mads about how to find semantic links on a webpage.

So, I mashed his code together with some code from the BlogRoll control and created an extension that goes out and looks for RSS feeds at the commenter's website and then pulls in the latest post. [side note: I wish I could say, "a half hour later ... ", but it actually took me a while to get it to work...]

It all happens asynchronously, so if you comment on this post, it'll take a few seconds for it to show up. Then it will keep checking every so often for new posts.

Example

Last year, I posted a JavaScript color picker and the post now has over 100 comments. Here's what it looks like with the extension running:

Download & Installation

• Download Commenter's Latest Post Extension
• The last post is wrapped in the following class so you can style it:
  

  <span class="commenterslastpost"></span>

• Sometimes the ResolveLinks extension interferes with this, so you might want to add the following code around the foreach loop:
  

  if (e.Body.IndexOf("href=\"" + match.Value + "\"") == -1) { ... }

Add a comment to this post to see it in action...

In the process of moving Dallas Seminary's content to iTunesU, I created a very simple application to edit site details via the Web Service API. It currently has the following functions:

• Add/Edit/Delete Sections
• Add/Edit/Delete Courses
• Add/Edit/Delete Groups
• Upload/Edit/Delete Tracks

There are a lot of things it doesn't do, like let you edit themes or add images to courses, but it is really helping us get started. Here's a screenshot:

You just enter your shared secret and domain name, press "Load Site Tree" and then right click on the various items to add/edit/delete.

And here's what it looks like in iTunes.

Download & Installation

• Download iTunes U Utility 0.1
• Requirements - Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0; PC only

Links

• iTunesU Support Site - Here's where I started
• iTunesU Java Library - this is much more fully featured and documented than my code.
• Woolamaloo - Rich Wolf's Mac tool which is much more fully featured than this tool. He also has a Windows app, but as far as I can tell it only lets you login.

My source code is very rough, but it someone needs it, I'm happy to provide it. Also, our iTunes U site is not yet public, but it will be in a few weeks.

From Keyvan Nayyari and Janko to Mads Kristensen and now to me comes a challenge to tell how I got into programming...

How old were you when you started programming?

I think I was around 14 or 15.

How did you get started in programming?

My friend and I made text adventure games.

What was your first language?

It was some form of BASIC.

What was the first real program you wrote?

By "text adventure game", I really mean lame spaghetti-coded ASCII choose your own adventure "games." My friend had most of the funny ideas and I did most of the programming. He's now in a crazy band in Austin, TX called Natchet Taylor, and I work at a seminary!

What languages have you used since?

ASP, PHP, C#, ActionScript, SQL, X/HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and all the rest...

What was your first professional programming gig?

When I graduated from college, I took a job as a youth pastor. I needed extra cash, so I got a job as as ASP programmer for http://www.texags.com/. At that point, all I had really done was build a personal webpage in college (with animated flaming gifs!), so I just learned everything on the job. It was great fun. In those days, I'd write everything for IE, and then fix it for Netscape. Funny how things change.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

Totally. There's always good work, and it really frees me up to be anywhere. I've made it through an entire masters degree since I could work whenever and wherever, and still be involved with friends and in ministry.

What is the one thing you would tell new developers?

I'll cheat and go with two:

1. Always, always, always have a signed contract with everything spelled out in detail and a 25-50% payment before writing a single line of code.
2. Release as much code as you can (to a blog or whatever). If your code is worth publishing, it means you probably did a good job, and would be something you won't hate to go back and modify later.

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had … programming?

I would have to say programming online education stuff with foreign language support. I have no idea what any of it says, but it's really fun to develop stuff that is used in a home in Dallas, a tent in the deserts of Iraq, in the Packers lockerroom, and in an underground church in China - and all of it not just to make a buck, but to make a difference in the world. That's rock-star coding.

Okay, I'm passing this on to Nathan Smith, Chris Merritt, and John Saddington. Have fun guys.