2016 Event Mash Up

Description

This app uses JavaScript to perform a basic "Name Generator" that displays a made up event based on a popular person/character and event of 2016.

THE APP

How it works

The JavaScript grabs the strings from the two input boxes. It checks to make sure that something has actually been typed in both boxes. If either is empty it tells you to get your act together and fill the boxes. I mean come on! Its a pretty easy request. It then finds the ASCII value of the Uppercase version of the first letter of the string and uses that value to access a circular array of predefined outputs. That output is spliced into a sentence and displayed on the page.

Its pronounced MehMehExVuhEEEEEEeee

Conception

For my first app I wanted something simple. I figured a Name Generator wouldn't be that hard and would also be easy to make reusable. One would just have to edit the outputs and they could make any name generator they desired.

Whilst thinking about name generators I was also thinking about 2016. It was a different kind of year. Lots of interesting world events and people. I wanted to use that somehow. Internet memes continued to become a more mainstream entertainment as they invade the sites even my parents use. I wanted to use that. So, I decided my name generator would generate an event for each user. It creates a mash up of a person or character from 2016 and an event or trend from 2016. So, if the 2016 US Election didn't make you lose your mind, maybe Ted Cruz doing a water bottle flip will.

I originally made this app as a Java Spring App and tried to put that on a page as an applet. As it would turn out, Chrome and Java Applets have had a steadily declining relationship. Chrome has been slowly tightening its security on Applets and required a sight to have a Certificate for the app even run. Suffice to say, it got complicated really fast. So, I dropped my Java App. You can still look at the source code here.

The early test phase

There are some differences between the original Java version and JavaScript version. As you can see in the picture. The original version only has one text input. It used the first character value for the first name and then search for a space. It used the character after the first space to for the last name. It wasn't perfect algorithm, but assuming the user only entered two names with space in between it was perfect. PERFECT I TELL YOU.

So, if last year wasn't crazy enough for you. Have some fun.
THE APP

Jon Brown's Stupid Blog for Jon Brown's Stupid Apps

Well, here it is. The beginning. The birth. The genesis. The first real post of any meaning. I think I'm supposed to tell you what this whole site is about and the goals I hope to achieve. How do I do this? Is it a stream of thought thing or should I have written an outline or had a brainstorming session?? I'm just gonna dive in head first.

I've made a huge mistake.

This is the blog for Jon Brown's Stupid Apps (.com). The full blog title is Jon Brown's Stupid Blog for Jon Brown's Stupid Apps. Jon Brown is me and the Stupid Apps are mine. The site is a host for my current and upcoming web projects that have little bearing on the world or my career. They are just for fun and my own experimentation. They do serve a purpose, but that purpose is solely for me.

About a year ago I decided to switch careers from Middle School Chorus Teacher to "something with computers." The main reason for this switch is that Middle Schoolers are the worst. There were other, more well-thought-out reasons, but I won't get into them here. Suffice to say, teaching wasn't "doing it" for me and I thought "something with computers" would.

This is a thing computer experts use.

The reason I say it like that is because, at the time, I just didn't know the right words for what I wanted. I had heard the terms programmer, software developer, software engineer, and others, but had not realized these terms can mean various things depending on who you talk to. In any case, I set out to rediscover coding.


I say rediscover because I had some training in coding from a course in MATLAB at Ga Tech. I knew some basic coding principles and had some markup language skills. I decided to look at some free coding resources and even took some Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). I paid for some certificates from those courses, but I had no sense of what I could actually do with the knowledge I gained. So...


I decided to just get a Master's Degree in Computer Science. It turns out that getting a Master's Degree in a field that is different from your undergrad is very possible. Most schools have ways for you to pursue a new track. I think they just want your money, but it worked out for me. So, here I am. One semester after playing catch up to the kids who already have Undergrad Degrees in Computer Science. I've take classes in Programming, Algorithms, Data Structures, and Databases and I STILL don't know what I can actually do with the information. It's time to just dive in.


Among other projects and experiments, I started this site to host my exploration of web development. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, Applets, PHP, Less, Sass, Bootstrap, Blogs, and basic writing skills will all be experimented on and posted on the site. I'll document my success and failures on this blog. I already have two apps up. I'll be posting about those soon.