When shit hit the fan
or why i'm behind with the site
First some few words (i'm a liar) about the wannabe design and contents of this site:the goal is to put all my interest in only one place and show to the world some nerd-developing skill.
My site needs some minimal administration (i'm lazy) and even less mantaining (i'm very lazy), but at the same time i want improve some of my less used skills, so i choosed to develop this mess with xml through xslt transformation.
In the beginning i was young & fool so my idea seemed to me really simple:
"I have only to write a cool css, some bright apple-style javascript transition effect, create a simple xml grammar, few xslt rules and *bang* the site will be on-line".
The moment of being
or when i become greater, and a litte less dumb
In a perfect world the xlst transformation will be performed by browser (don't start laughing now) so the procedure will be something like:Browser: "Hi server, i'm a browser, i wanna show the gorgeus Luca Ghinelli's site so gimme the *.php file".
Apache: "Sure my friend, but *.php tell me to give you this .xml. It's the page semantic structure"
Browser: "ok, thanks".
Apache: "and now take this *.xsl file, it's the rule to translate semantic into a renderable html page".
Browser: "ok, thanks."
Browser: "Here we go user, just 1/10billions seconds and I show you the page exactly as L.G. thinked it".
But this is an ugly world (you know) and we have *i don't know how many* browser each one with its bloody dialect, so if you want a nice result you cannot delegate the transformation to the browser side.
The old quest-giver man
or the perilous path to solution
A bit of googling later i've got the solution.Yeha sure, the solution...
Lots of software which need installation on server.
Naturally TopHost is ready to install that crap for my 10euros/year account.
So my thinking was:"Surely somewhere there is a php library which can take a .xml and a .xsl in input, chew them and spit out a .php ready for the browser".
Yeha sure, there is...
No, there isn't.
Nerd inside
or the true solution come from geekness
At this point I was at a crossroad:should I forget xml/xslt and go back to the old, dear mysql or should I must find another solution?
I'm going through the second way.
I'm writing the early mentioned php library
This task need blood&sweat so I'm behind with the site.
Conclusion
or "why are you doing this rubbish?"
Three big motivazion:- I'm a nerd and I'm working as a php developer (sure, I reckon on re-usability
of big chunk of this site).
- I've got an ego bigger than Godzilla so I want you to see the pics I take,
the things I write and the figure I draw.
And you must be grateful to me (ok, I was gone too far). - I'm also too lazy for use one of the shiny CMS you can find out of there.
Yes, lazy is right, I don't want to learn how other people think that I must administer my site. Far more easier develop this from zero.
Post Scriptum
or "didn't have you finished yet?"
A bit of answer.Why horizontal?
I seen the site www.horizontalway.com and I was flashed by this idea.
I think that horizontal is far more readable than any vertical layout, more natural and less exhausting.
Why only black&white?
It was an Andrea Bianchi' suggestion. He claims to be a web designer and lots of people believe to him.
Someome believe to this lie so strongly that pay him for this.
The same fool pay me too!
Why all this bloody english?
'couse italian is a dead language of course (before contradict this assertion think "how many people speak italian in the world?"). Moreover i like english.
I'm sure that this soliloquy is full of grammar mistakes, so if you want you can send me some bad words at info@lghinelli.it