Problems with CI's tutorials, both the all-text version and the sexy video one

[eluser]buffalobill[/eluser]
I posted the following message a few hours back as a response to Derek-the-Administrator's posting concerning tutorials and the like, and something tells me that that particular location was about as far away from 42nd & Broadway [42&B;was once the busiest intersection in NYC, maybe still is) as you can get, therefore I post it anew, but as a completely new thread, albeit, at the risk of thus working it threadbare :-)]. I should add that, with reference to the rant below, I did try and rearrange the folder path in the most obvious ways - by eliminating first the one sub-folder, then the other - but nothing helped. Anyways, I hope this problem gets more attention here, otherwise I will have to think up something more eye-catching [maybe a pornographic title?... note how the title to this thread has already inched a bit in that direction ;) ]...
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Dear Derek,

I wish that CI’s own tutorials, the written one and the video one on form validation, were as well-functioning as those to which you refer on wiki (I assume the latter are well-funtioning, I haven’t seen them yet, but I can report that the CI ones just mentioned aren’t!). The QT player required to play the video tutorials (one on the CI methodology in general, the other on form validation, I presume - it concerns creating one’s blogsite in 20 minutes) just doesn’t work, even after updating the QT player and rebooting my machine (the video has excellent audio properties, but no imagery!). W.r.t. the “written” [NB: text-only] form validation tutorial, there is a problem with the folder paths listed. One is asked to create PHP files and place them in an applications/views and an applications/controllers folder, depending on the type, or function, of the file in question, and then to try and access those files with an URL that looks like so: <http://www.mysite.com/index.php/form/> (if it is the file entitled “form” which one is attempting to access).

First of all, nowhere in the tutorial is there mention of the creation of an index.php file, and one’s website is certainly not born with such a file, even if it is PHP-ready, as is my site (I can easily access PHP files on my site, just not via the folder path suggested by the CI tutorial). And perhaps more importantly, the tutorial files do not seem to link in any intuitive way to mysite.com/applications/(view or controllers, as the case may be). But perhaps even more critically, the view file (viz., there are “view” files and “controller” files, each with its respective function… uh, I mention this for the benefit of novices like me : } ), which is supposed to introduce the form (i.e., the user-input form around which the entire tutorial centers), does not contain any recipe for creating a form, only a “Welcome to my blog!” message.

Now, I can appreciate that the creator of this particular “view” form may have considered that it wasn’t so important to actually create an input form with the file (entitled “blogview"), yet I contend that, paedagogically [NB: SP!], it is imperative to do so when the audience is purportedly the novice - and it is not as if the code necessary to create such an input form is all that daunting; omitting it, for novices, is a cardinal sin!

I can follow other online tutorials (the folder paths are designated correctly), but they don’t divulge the entire code - crucial bits are concealed; one has to purchase the product in order to gain full insight, which is what first attracted me to CI’s tutorial, because all the code seemed to be there for the beginning tutorial (although I would have liked for it to be complete, in the sense that it was a complete PHP-based form validation exercise, such that when one was finished with the tutorial, one had a ready-to-insert form validation code, replete with form fields).

Yours,
buffalobill [because his last name is cody ["cody" < "code", get it? | : - } ]

[eluser]buffalobill[/eluser]
I'm too sexy - uh, I mean silly - for my shirt! The mystery is hereby cleared up, and all in one fell swoop (I notice, by the way, that a number of wags have looked at this thread without commenting, and if they were in possession of sensible advice, they should have come to the fore and shared it... I just hate voyeurs!). Here's what I did. Since my QT (Quick Time) player was completely up to date, and since I received an error message from Apple every time I clicked on the CI tutorial to the effect that my player required some elements that simply were not available on the QT site (!), this got me to thinking that my version of QT was maybe not new enough to handle the CI video, so I downloaded the newest free version of QT, uninstalled the current one I was running, installed the new one, and went back to the CI site fully expecting to be able to play the tutorial video - and I was not disappointed!

Watching that video, suddenly all the mystery surrounding the folders paths evaporated like dew before the summer sun - in Idaho: they belong to the downloadable CodeIgniter program, they are part and parcel, in fact, of the CI file system hierarchy! Why didn't one of you squeaks have the balls to just say so?! (it doesn't say it on my profile, but Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" influenced me quite a lot in my youth, just like Ken Kesey's "Cuckoo's Nest", especially that bit about the zombies among whom McMurphy had to live on the psycho ward... ).

buffalobill

[eluser]Michael Wales[/eluser]
A) I don't know what the hell you are trying to say because of your horrible sentence structure, horrible spelling, and lack of grammatical common sense.
B) I only read the first 3 sentences because the post was to long and I honestly don't care enough to read the entire thing.
C) It's apparent you wanted to attack, no matter what anyone said. There is no place for that in this community - please take it somewhere else.

kthxbye

[eluser]Michael Wales[/eluser]
Took the time to actually read the post, I'll make another fancy list:
A) It's not our problem if the videos don't work for you, please don't blame it on us. Address the issues with your system or ask for help; fact of the matter is, they do work (although I believe they would be much more accessible if hosted on a video site [like Revver] and embeded).
B) You obviously know at least a little bit about php (you knew the application needed an index.php). Why would you not do some more research before claiming the tutorials don't work and outlining their faults? Maybe something as simple as visiting the TLD hosting the videos (http://www.codeigniter.com/) which hosts very large text reading:

CodeIgniter is an Open Source Web Application Framework that helps you write kick-ass PHP programs

[eluser]buffalobill[/eluser]
Whew! Where to begin? First of all, given that walesmd posted a second comment shortly after having posted the first, quite personal and rather vitriolic one, I will concentrate my remarks regarding the walesmd responses mainly on the second such response. I should also add that I had previously decided to return to this issue in order to point out that, in spite of my initial exoneration of CI (the "I'm too sexy/silly" post), there was still some residual criticism to be leveled at CI over the matter of the tutorials. But before I got around to doing that, I ran across the vitriolic comment from walesmd on my mail program (of course I have asked to be notified of responses to this thread), and having read the two comments from said member of this forum, I realized that I would have to address them as well.

In the following I will therefore briefly address the walesmd comments, then get on to my residual criticism of CI in this matter, linking it to what I feel is a general problem with many IT websites which offer free advice in the form either of text-only or video tutorials – which general problem itself is a subset of a much larger problem which might aptly be rubricized under the title: "Have CEOs, due to own IT ignorance – and which ignorance therefore spawns an unhealthy, guru-like idolation of webmasters and other IT experts – not delegated too much responsibility for the company's PR to the firm's CIO, especially given that for most businesses and organizations today, the primary interface with customers/with the public at large is the company's website?". Granted, a discussion of these larger-context problems would be more appropriate to TechRepublic or to the BBC World tech program, Click (formerly Clickonline) – and I will indeed bring them to the attention of both TechRepublic and Click – but it doesn't hurt to also plant the seeds of one's idea at the perimeter as well as at the center.

NB: For reasons of length, this posting will have to be broken into two parts, whereof this is Part One.

i) walesmd wrote: 'C) It’s apparent you wanted to attack, no matter what anyone said.'

To this I can only reply that the cited comment implies that I would have rebuffed any attempt from fellow forumists to resolve the problem. I believe that there is no justification for such a sweeping statement based either on my first or my second posting on this thread. In fact, my dig at those who had viewed the thread without offering counsel (the "voyeurs") was an attack on silence/passivity, aimed at encouraging someone to join the discussion and offer the counsel I sought. I might also add that I doubt whether walesmd is the right person to set himself up as spokesman for the CI forum community on matters of what is, or is not, appropriate tone (and I apologize if, in referring to walesmd, I should have used a pronoun reflecting the plural – given walesmd's accompanying ID-photo, it is possible that walesmd is a joint venture between Michael Wales and his girlfriend/wife).

iia) walesmd wrote (in the second comment, and note that I have taken the liberty to number these items as 1 and 2 in order to distinguish them from the A, B, and C of walesmd's first comment): '1) It’s not our problem if the videos don’t work for you, please don’t blame it on us.'

It is indeed a problem for CI – including the CI forum community, by association at the least, and quite directly if it leads to unnecessary and undesirable traffic on these pages – if users of the site in general (not to speak of newcomers to the site who are novices) cannot get the tutorial videos to play.

iib) walesmd wrote: '2) You obviously know at least a little bit about php (you knew the application needed an index.php).'

This I deduced from the URL alone, i.e., the proposed URL used to access the target file – it appears in the URL in question (as in the example above, where the target file was form.php: <http://www.mysite.com/index.php/form/>), although no further mention is made of it in the tutorial (I am referring to the text-only tutorial, of course, since I was unable at that point, as I indicated in my first posting on this thread, to access the video tutorials). Moreover, I could deduce that the index.php file was key, since, although a controller (view) file was used to call up the target file, that controller (view) file did not appear in the URL. Ergo, the index.php file surely served a pivotal function in triggering the controller (view) file which ultimately called up the target file. I believe that even Dr. Watson could have deduced as much!


iii) Regarding my residual criticism of the tutorials...

The fact that a user may be unable to access the video tutorials makes it essential that each tutorial format, whether it be text-only or video, be stand-alone, i.e., not dependent on the user being able to access both formats. One may counter that this is the perfect vision of hindsight, but I would argue that good foresight incorporates an element of hindsight, in the sense that one should, at a minimum, pose oneself the most obvious questions as to what precautions should be taken in the event that (a), (b), or © fails (and I believe, judging from the small amount of code that I have been exposed to thus far, that if-else loops are a regular routine in the life of a programmer/coder). Which brings us to the next level...

NB: I bite it over here, Part Two to follow (hold your breath, it won't take long!)...

[eluser]buffalobill[/eluser]
Part Two of Three (yeps, two ain't enough!)

iv) Too many techy websites today shunt users over to their forums (earlier it was to FAQs), as if that is a sufficient medium to handle any and every problem that might arise while using the advice, programs, etc. offered – with or without charge – by the company. I contend that while this may be the case for matters pertaining to more advanced (hair-splitting) issues, it is entirely inadequate – downright irresponsible! – as regards basics. An intelligent techy website, by my reckoning, would have a section devoted to novices that is entirely separated from the forums (one would see this highly highlighted link in one of the sidebar columns of the site, if not among the options on the horizontal menubar at the top of the page), since novices often don't know what they don't know, which is a way of saying that novices aren't really equipped, knowledge-wise, to sift their way through the forums, looking for a handle to leverage their respective problems. Which brings us to the really meta-level problem...

v) The boss ain't the boss any longer...

Once upon a time, bosses were bosses; they ruled the roost, deciding over every aspect of the company, although authority was delegated to the various lieutenants/department heads. Still, the boss kept a watchful eye on each and every task, and he was knowledgeable enough about all of the various aspects, or subdivisions, of the company to be able to discern whether the product delivered by the respective division heads was up to snuff or not, whether it got the job done, and that in a manner, or state of excellence, which contributed organically (i.e., in and of itself, as well as in unison, or in harmony, with the efforts of the other subdivisions within the company) to the firm's overall objective.

This is no longer the case as regards IT, for on this particular front, the CEO is so ignorant of IT – and what he doesn't know he is very loathe to learn anything about! – that he has delegated the entire subdivision relating to the firm's outward image, as well as the inner functioning of the firm's IT environment – to his IT guru, or CIO. And this is a major failing, for, although the average IT specialist "knows a lot about a little", he/she often lacks perspective, he/she is often unable to see "the big picture". There are exceptions, of course, and I have even run across a few myself, but they are about as frequent an occurrence as a Christmas parade in Baghdad. I think that the time has come for the CEO to take the trouble to learn enough about IT to be able to spot the IT failings in his firm, especially regarding the firm's outward "face", or interface with the public, namely, the firm's webpages. In short, it is time for the boss to take back his company!

To round out this sweeping accusation, permit me to offer a few examples...

Had the CEO at CI not been perversely reliant on his CIO, the problem with non-stand-alone tutorials would never have cropped up. This is precisely the sort of thing, a lack of organic coordination between the parts (or lack of "big picture" perspective), that a good CEO, not afraid of getting his toes wet on the shores of the IT sea, would have spotted. And that Apple message that I received about missing elements to my QT player that weren't available on the QT site? Well, a smart webmaster would instead have either replaced that message with the following, or have appended it: "Uh, dude [think of Homer's inimitable voice : ) ], maybe you should just chuck your dumb QT player out and install a new, smarter one from QT, eh Einstein? HA-HA!"

I run across similar problems online weekly, if not daily. A quick example: USAJOBS has farmed out many of its former functions to Monster.com, which a hacker has recently broken into. I receive emails concerning job offers from USAJOBS (well, now it is done by Monster.com). I just received an email from USAJOBS (curiously, but maybe not so curiously after all, not from Monster.com) explaining the problem, and suggesting that if one receives phishing emails, these should be forwarded together with header information to such and such an address, and a link was given explaining how to access the header info of emails. I clicked on the link (I once knew how to find email header info, i.e., IP address, but have forgotten), and when I arrived at the destination page, I was asked to choose my email application/program among those listed. Yahoo and Hotmail were there, as well as Outlook Express, Eudora, and several other email platforms, about a dozen in all, but my email program wasn't included (inbox.com), although USAJOBS had just sent the email to my inbox address! Heck, not even Gmail was listed! Only an IT nerd could have been so myopic as to omit such important details!!


NB: I bite it again over, Part Three to follow...

[eluser]buffalobill[/eluser]
Part Three (and final part)

A second instance of eyecrossingly baffling myopia that I have experienced with the USAJOBS' website is related to, or part of, the first instance. It has to do with the very fact that USAJOBS had farmed out this function...

I had been used to receiving job notices via email from USAJOBS for about 6 months when suddenly I received a similar email from Monster.com, a company I had never heard of, nor had USAJOBS mentioned the company at all (I was living in Europe at the time, on the way back to the USA, you might say). I immediately suspected phishing, so I sent an email to USAJOBS explaining the mysterious email from a certain Monster.com, which email sort of "looked like, smelt like, felt like" an official email that might in some way be connected with USAJOBS – but isn't that the very basis of successful phishing?! Imagine then my surprise when USAJOBS informs me that the emails are indeed valid, that USAJOBS had engaged Monster.com to take care of these services in future! And remember, in the 6 months that I had been receiving emails from USAJOBS prior to this, not a peep was made about Monster.com!! Who, but an IT nerd, could have made such a collossal error in judgement???!

I could cite you dozens of similar examples, from job application forms which require you to plug in the name and address of your high school, even though you have a PdD, or maybe only a master's degree – and maybe the latter dates back 20 years (meaning that you went to High School about 30 years ago!) – and quite apart from the fact that with a PhD or a master's degree, the HS diploma has become utterly, utterly irrelevant, you can't possibly remember the address of the school or when you graduated (and maybe the school has since been closed... it sometimes happens) to forms on websites with an international audience but where the form in question suddenly subsumes that you live in the US (one must indicate a US ZIP code, and one can only choose between US states... I received many such petition emails from JohnKerry.com when I lived in Europe, and although I could vote in US elections (and did/do!), I could not possibly remember the details of my last residence in the US) to forms which offer a myopically limited number of reasons for contacting the firm (intelligent forms always have an "other" option, with a textarea for an optional explanation of "other"), but I am sure that you, dear reader, could cite me even more eyecrossingly stupid examples!

Lastly [because even good things must eventually come to an end : ) ], I put it to you that when CI forum members read my first posting in this thread and do not recognize the problem of the path hierarchy I mention there – that is, when they do not immediately recognize that the reason why I cannot get the procedure to work is because I have not downloaded and installed the CodeIgniter program, it is because they fail to perceive the larger perspective. Of course, they may, like walesmd, have only read the first three lines before surfing elsewhere.

One last thing, if I may... there may have arrived other responses since I began this diatribe (actually there haven't, but I continue... ). I have deliberately stayed away from the site in order to finish off this posting, given what I feel is its importance, but also because I can't keep looking back and including everything that crops up in the interim, else I would never finish, and although some of you may enjoy this type of ramble, the majority of you probably don't (I have noticed that techies tend to write short sentences, often omitting punctuation, capitalization, etc., entirely!).


Regards,
buffalobill

[eluser]Michael Wales[/eluser]
I'm not even going to attempt to read all of that.

Welcome to the CI community, read the User Guide for the basics (which you definitely need a firm understanding of). Feel free to post here for help.

BTW: Lawyer-speak and a thesaurus do not portray an aura of intelligence, only ignorance.

[eluser]worchyld[/eluser]
Can't you just bullet-point this?

[eluser]buffalobill[/eluser]
To worchyld,

I don't have enough bullets in my belt for this : ). But seriously, this is not intended to be a staccato, bullet-style read, but rather, an essay. Granted, I may be slightly over the top with my use of commas, parentheses, and dashes, but the cadence here is deliberately intended to be the twisting and turning development of an idea, or set of interrelated ideas, not a list of non-interrelated, stand-alone elements. While I also admit that TechRepublic might have been the more appropriate forum for this kind of topic (and my role in this should be taken more as that of an agent-provocateur than a scientist delivering empirical evidence – for example, the fact that there may exist scads of poorly-formulated input forms out there does not necessarily mean that this is typical of input forms), I fully expected members of this forum to be able to take the essay form on board, even though one may be more accustomed to more clipped, geek-speak presentations here.

To walesmd,

If I may re-phrase your latest comment, one may indeed have the aura of a particular quality without actually being in possession of that quality. For example, I may exhibit the aura of ignorance without actually being ignorant (heh-heh). But I readily admit that as regards the nuts and bolts of IT, i.e., coding and the like, I am quite ignorant – worse, I fear that I am damned to never be able to wade deeper than to the ankles in this sea, partly due to lack of ability but mainly due to a lack of interest (but doesn't CI profile itself as a haven for those seeking easily-accessible, simplified code, in contrast to the usual such techsite with its geeky gibberish?). My only interest in learning even this simplified gibberish is to be able to put up, and maintain, a more sophisticated website than my current one, which is not interactive (I learned the minimal amount of simple HTML at the time – I didn't even get as far as tables! – to fix up the site, which was adequate enough for my purposes at the time, but things have changed, therefore I must wade a bit deeper).

I regret that no one so far has responded to the content – as opposed to attacks on my person (going after the player rather than after the ball, in football-speak) – of the three-part piece above. Are IT folk that over-sensitive w.r.t. criticism? And if they are, is that not an oblique admission that "the shoe fits"? Surely no one can doubt that there are scads of idiotically-constructed input forms out there. Why isn't the IT community itself the first to point this out and to appeal for a raising of the bar?

In closing, I hope to soon open a new thread on the technicalities of the CodeIgniter program itself, though I do not regret having ignited this discussion, even if the responses have so far been disappointing.


Yours,
buffalobill