re: randomization ... *snort*
Don’t get me started telling stories. I once had to fix a bug in some software that loaded all of the records from a file into an array for the sole purpose of counting the number of records in the file. The database had an integrated method that returned the number of records. And then it cleared the array and began reloading the records in order to update the contents of one field in each record.
*chuckle* I’ve written some things in LAMP because the shop required low cost (read free) and needed something quick and dirty. It was ... quick and dirty. Had to grit my teeth.
I’m a C-lover so we disagree there, but I am always open to other tools.
Yeah; sometimes the better/other 'tools' are really amazing, but you just don't know how to use them (I'm like that with FORTH; it's an intriguing little language... but I can't do jack w/ it yet). Ada's got a lot of great stuff in it (I'm still fairly bad at using it) -- but one thing that impresses me about it is that it was designed to be maintainable (part of the "programming as a human activity" ethos) and I think it really shows with the new Pre- and Post-conditions (which never go stale due to code/[annotated-]comment impedance mismatch), type-invariants (e.g. a point on a unit circle always has to have x**2+y**2 = 1; in Ada 2012 you can specify this [or even that the signature in a header is valid]), and the new qualitative statements for all and for some (e.g. there exists) all play together.
*chuckle* I’ve written some things in LAMP because the shop required low cost (read free) and needed something quick and dirty. It was ... quick and dirty. Had to grit my teeth.
When I was programming full-time (PHP) we were using LAMP; I'm not sure, but I think that (and maybe your use) might have been a violation of the terms for the free usage license.
Don’t get me started telling stories. I once had to fix a bug in some software that loaded all of the records from a file into an array for the sole purpose of counting the number of records in the file. The database had an integrated method that returned the number of records. And then it cleared the array and began reloading the records in order to update the contents of one field in each record.
Too bad; I actually like them -- there's a lot you can learn listening to stories. The Unix-Haters Handbook, for instance, was an amusing and surprisingly insightful collection of stories... despite its age it made some points which are still valid today: one of which is that trying to impose state on a system that was designed to be stateless is... troublesome. (This is why, IMO, HTML 5 [and CSS] is such a bad idea: they're trying to make HTML, which was designed to have content independent of the layout [leaving layout to the browser] -- IOW, they're trying to go directly against the whole idea of HTML.)