Library | This page intentionally left ugly

There are coutless examples of dynamically loading libraries, but almost all of them follow a very rigid pattern. It’s very difficult or awkard to specify where you want the files loaded.

E.G. Maybe you need the library loaded into the <body> insted of the <head>.

I needed something really simple where I could specify where all the libraries are stored and then tell the loader where they must go via querystring (actually just the “?” part). In principle, this follows the same ideas I put together last year on building dashboards.

WARNING: The WordPress source code formatter really screws up things here and there (adding extra spaces, removing quotes, changing > to > etc…) Check for errors before using this code.

For this example, here is the convention (this all goes in the <head> tag) :
First the location of all the script libraries

<script type="text/javascript">
	var scriptDir = "../lib/shared/js/";
</script>

Then call the loader with all the libraries…

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”setup.js?head[lib1,lib2,lib3]body[lib4,lib5]“></script>

What does this do? Basically lib1.js, lib2.js and lib3.js are called into the head (note the “.js” extension and folder location is absent).

This is the same as calling …

… in the <head> tag and …

… in the <body> tag.

And here’s the script for “setup.js” :

// Get the head and body tags

// Find the first instance (index = 0) of the head tag
var he = document.getElementsByTagName(“head”)[0];

// Find the first instance of the body tag
var bo = document.getElementsByTagName(“body”)[0];

// Find all script tags
var j = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”);

// Find this file “setup.js”
for (var i=0;i -1)
{
// Get everything inside the “head[…]”
// portion separated by comma and put into an array.
var fh = f.match(/head\[(.*?)\]/)[1].split(‘,’);

// For each instance of a library, call the loader
for(var i=0; i < fh.length; i++) loadJS(l + fh[i] + ".js", true); } // If there are scripts going in the body tag... if(f.indexOf("body[") > -1)
{

// Get everything inside the “body[…]” portion
// functionality is the same as above
var fb = f.match(/body\[(.*?)\]/)[1].split(‘,’);

// For each instance of a library, call the loader
for(var i=0; i < fb.length; i++) loadJS(l + fb[i] + ".js", false); } } catch(err) { // Do nothing } } // Script loader function loadJS(p, h) { // Create a tag var s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = p; // If "true" I.E. it goes in the ... if(h) he.appendChild(s); else bo.appendChild(s); }[/sourcecode]

It’s amazing how a comment on poor customer service can eventually boil down to something like this. Especially since several of the following comments were made by, seemingly, educated women.

The saga of this unholy mess begins with an unfortunate, but rather expected, encounter Laura had with a less than standard librarian.

Please note: Librarian.

It wouldn’t nearly be as bad if the commenters of that post had taken a second read or even fell back on their “years” of training as librarians (as in dealing with strangers) and had some restraint in their explanations. Instead, they revert to (pseudo)intellectual bullying.

“madknits” writes :

As a knitter, and a librarian, who holds a couple of subject masters’ degrees, I know how to spell “definitely”.

As well, at the library where I work, all the librarians speak at least one foreign language, sometimes two or three. One woman has Russian, Hebrew and French. I have Italian and Hebrew. Plus damn near fluent ASL for dealing with our Deaf patrons. So I reckon we’re pretty well educated.

Congratulations! You are special! I don’t have any master’s degrees, nor am I a knitter. But I am highly trained in the fine art of BS detection. Apparently your master’s degrees didn’t prepare you for the real world where libraries are staffed by people like Laura’s bane. They didn’t instill any common sense in you either, apparently, since we all know know for a fact that all libraries are staffed with multilingual librarians with multiple master’s degrees. Shouldn’t you be working for the U.N. or something? Seems like you’re wasting your time trying to push around some poor woman on a random blog.

If this blithering idiot had actually worked at a library (any library) for longer than a year, she would have known how spectacular Thomas Jefferson’s misspellings and poor punctuation were. Did his words carry any less weight? Granted Jefferson didn’t have the best of luck as a young lad in the educational department, but what the devil does perfect spelling have to do with someone’s intelligence?

Some of the smartest people I’ve met were outright illiterate.

Colleen writes :

A librarian’s job is to try and figure out all the ways it might be in the catalog

Look… Up in the sky!
It’s a bird… It’s a plane… No! It’s Captain Obvious!!

when she asked you if it was one word or two, that was one way to do it. Her next question may well have been how you were spelling it. Save the snark.

Gosh!
If you hadn’t explained that to us, Colleen, we would have never known. Mind you, Laura goes into detail explaining what she said and what she heard albeit paraphrased. Alas, I see your love affair with words has not improved your reading comprehension.

Here is Laura’s conversation as she posted it :

me: Hi. I’m looking for a knitting book. I’m not sure who wrote it, but it’s called Wrap Style.

Librarian: Ok. I’ll take a look and see if we carry that.

librarian putters on her computer, clicking through various options…

Librarian: Umm..that’s not a book that exists. I can’t even find it on Amazon.

I’m willing to venture a guess that anyone with an IQ above room temperature would have looked for the word “knitting” somewhere there in addition to both “rap” and “rap style” since this person didn’t know anything about knitting hence didn’t know how to spell it. And before she started bobbing for apples on Amazon she should have looked up at least one result on Google to not look foolish…

Morandia writes :

I’m a knitter, but someone with absolutely no background in knitting might not get it right the first time. You have no idea how many times we get “I need a book – I can’t remember the title and author, but the book is red”.

Lookie here!
Wrap knitting

Spelling mystery solved with a 0.21-second query. And I’m not a librarian or even an assistant… I’m a bloody programmer!

And Abby writes :

But thank you oh so kindly for judging an entire profession by one experience.

Yes, Abby, she judges every profession by one experience.
Perhaps I should judge you by this one sentence… “I learned a little bit about CSS, which makes a lot of sense; it’s like normal HTML but with different symbols.”

Since I am to HTML and CSS what Laura is to knitting, I think I’m qualified to say… that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about either syntax. Even though I don’t know you, your history or personality, from that sentence alone, I’d say you are incredibly stupid. There! Judgement made. Nice “MySpace” angle on your photo BTW. I’m sure that makes you very “hip”.

Some of the comments were respectful and understanding. Several others, as you can see, were not and, in fact, were very thinly veiled assaults on Laura’s intelligence. I think Renee was the only librarian who gave a carefully considered, respectful, and detailed response. Thank you Renee!

Laura has since disabled commenting on the post (naturally).

For the record… This post is meant to be snarky.

This page intentionally left ugly

More steam!

Tag Archives: Library

JavaScript dynamic library loader

My educational penis is bigger than yours!