new Ceremony website + coat check

[B]

On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, dutin wrote:

> umm.... provider?  why don't you just use htdig on the local machine
> to provide for a onsite search feature that doesn't make it leave the
> site?  or just make a mysql dbase with the playlists and just use a
> query to that?

Using htdig is up to the programmer and site admin (read: "Boo").  The
idea of using a database for playlists has been tossed around a few times,
and certainly appealed to me (being a database admin and programmer by
trade).  But I think there are a few objections:

(1) Typing up playlists via a database front end is probably clunkier than
just firing up notepad.[*]

(2) Converting six or seven years worth of legacy playlists, not formatted
consistently, is a herculean task; so any search feature would probably
have to play nice with the old flat text playlists anyway.

(3) Effort vs. payoff.  The payoff of databasing the playlists (even
considering cool features like automagically hyperlinking artists' names
to their websites) may not be worth the expenditure of effort to bring up
and maintain a database.

Maybe my job has just trained me to be very overly suspicious of "gee whiz
cool" complicated solutions to simple problems.  ^_^


brian j. parker
dj, geek, & black-clad cliche

dj badtz  .  http://blackbadtz.lm.com  .  all that is wrong about music


[*] I know from experience because I pretty much did it for a while.
When I was handling playlists, every playlist I typed up had to go on the
web, out by email, and posted to usenet.  I wrote a Visual Basic program
that let me type in the playlists once and in the background created an
HTML file, a text version to email, and a usenet-ready version that I
could send out via the command line in Unix.[**] I had a lot more time on
my hands back then.  Ultimately, I found it to be of so little value for
the effort that I just went back to pico/notepad.

[**] I suppose that if I were to re-write it I would include a
LiveJournal-ready file, too.  I'm a loser like that.  I'd also flesh out
the features that created hyperlinks for each artist and compiled a list
of contact email addresses to which to send the playlist.  While I
was at it, I'd look into hyperlinking the "Remix Artist" for remixed
versions of tracks as well; and I'd probably integrate it all with my
existing BPM (beats per minute) database.[***]

[***] Ever heard of scope creep?  That's why I'm paranoid about "solving
problems that don't exist."  I should really be working right now...