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Mar. 21st, 2002 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravencallscrowsEver have an idea which pops in your head just when you're trying to go to sleep, and you know it'll be hopeless to try to continue to do so until you act on it in some way?
No, this didn't have anything to do with sex. I'd probably feel greatly relieved if it had, but no such luck. Nope, i'm way to much of a damn geek for that.
What crept into my conscious and wouldn't let go was an idea for an LJ tool. Presently, each user can create a list of interests, and from your profile (or anyone else's, for that matter), clicking one from the list brings up a listing of other users who have indicated the same interest (unless it's such a widely shared one that the system returns that there are too many to list). Unfortunately, there isn't (that I know of, at least) a way to run a search for people who share two or more interests or who have one interest but not another.
So, at midnight last night, instead of actually getting to sleep, I'm thinking about how a list of users with a common interest would get generated, and all I can think of is that each user's profile is stored as a database table, and that clicking on a particular interest simply runs a query and returns the usernames for everyone who's interests include that particular one.
So this, in turn got me thinking- if it's running a query already, why not run another query against the results of the first query, which would make possible the Boolean operators- so that you could search on things like:
Polyamory AND Seattle
Paganism NOT Wicca
Thelema OR Ceremonial Magick.
So anyway, 12:30, i'm scribbling away on what amounts to a one-page spec for a little tool which would allow for such multi-term queries. Mind you, i'm not a programmer- i read code with reasonable aptitude, but don't actually really write it; and in general i hate databases; and here i am spec'ing a client-server tool to run queries against a remote database, and may actually work at doing enough coding to create one.
As i get spare time today, i'll probably pick through the developer section on the LJ site and see if i can glean enough information to have any idea where to proceed from here, or if it'd just be too much of a stretch to bother with.
Damnit, why can't i think about sex at times like this? I'd feel a lot more normal then.
No, this didn't have anything to do with sex. I'd probably feel greatly relieved if it had, but no such luck. Nope, i'm way to much of a damn geek for that.
What crept into my conscious and wouldn't let go was an idea for an LJ tool. Presently, each user can create a list of interests, and from your profile (or anyone else's, for that matter), clicking one from the list brings up a listing of other users who have indicated the same interest (unless it's such a widely shared one that the system returns that there are too many to list). Unfortunately, there isn't (that I know of, at least) a way to run a search for people who share two or more interests or who have one interest but not another.
So, at midnight last night, instead of actually getting to sleep, I'm thinking about how a list of users with a common interest would get generated, and all I can think of is that each user's profile is stored as a database table, and that clicking on a particular interest simply runs a query and returns the usernames for everyone who's interests include that particular one.
So this, in turn got me thinking- if it's running a query already, why not run another query against the results of the first query, which would make possible the Boolean operators- so that you could search on things like:
So anyway, 12:30, i'm scribbling away on what amounts to a one-page spec for a little tool which would allow for such multi-term queries. Mind you, i'm not a programmer- i read code with reasonable aptitude, but don't actually really write it; and in general i hate databases; and here i am spec'ing a client-server tool to run queries against a remote database, and may actually work at doing enough coding to create one.
As i get spare time today, i'll probably pick through the developer section on the LJ site and see if i can glean enough information to have any idea where to proceed from here, or if it'd just be too much of a stretch to bother with.
Damnit, why can't i think about sex at times like this? I'd feel a lot more normal then.
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no subject
Date: 2002-03-21 12:19 pm (UTC)Damnit, now I'm gonna have to learn how to form and pass SQL queries appropriately.
no subject
Date: 2002-03-21 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-21 12:22 pm (UTC)Did enough poking around in the developer's area to verify that most of my initial guesswork about how things worked, predicated on seeing the results and knowing something about client-server relationships, was either correct or close enough to be roughly functional.