Overdraft Fee Survey

OK, I know I've been big on the surveys lately, but this one is really important to me.

As you probably know, there's been a lot of hoopla about the new overdraft fee regulations. Banks are no longer allowed to automatically enroll customers in what they call, "overdraft protection." To us common folk, we generally call them "overdraft fees" or "allowing you to spend money you don't have so we can screw you out of more money we know you don't have."

I started thinking about my history with overdraft fees and some things I learned from Dave Ramsey. I wondered, who really pays all of these overdraft fees that account for 38 billion dollars per year in revenue?

This survey intends to find out. At the time of writing, I had 84 responses and I need hundreds more. Please, take my anonymous survey and ask all of your friends to do the same. Here is the Overdraft Fee Survey:

Array Function to Recode Data in Google Apps Scripts

I went on my honeymoon with my beautiful wife last week and the week before. Having a little time off of work gave me the opportunity to get some work done :). I've been wanting for a while to develop a survey to find out what makes a good programmer.

I've been working with Google Docs and Google Forms to see what they're capable of. This spreadsheet posed a few difficulties. The primary problem was that I had a set of text values which needed to be recoded to numerical values from another range.

I wrote this array function for Google Apps Scripts in Google Spreadsheets to recode values based on an array of values.

Here's an example spreadsheet demonstrating the Array Data Block Recode Function.

Here's what the function looks like with a few tests:

function recode(data, values, valueColumnIndex)
{
  var  valueHash = {};
  
  // if the values are in an array, make a hash table
  if (values.constructor == Array)
    for (var i = 0; i < values.length; i++)
      valueHash[values[i][0]] = values[i][valueColumnIndex];

  else
    valueHash = values;
  
  var ret = [];
  
  // if the data are in an array, recursively recode them
  if (data.constructor == Array)
    for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++)
      ret.push(recode(data[i], valueHash, valueColumnIndex));
          
  else
    ret = valueHash[data] != undefined ? valueHash[data] : data;

  return ret;
}

var values = [['a', '1', 'I'], ['b', '2', 'II']];

print(recode('a', values, 1));
print(recode(['a', 'b', 'c'], values, 1));
print(recode([['a', 'b'], ['b', 'c']], values, 1));
print(recode(['a', ['a', 'b'], [['a', 'b', 'c']]], values, 2));

/*
Results:
1
[1, 2, 'c']
[[1, 2], [2, 'c']]
['I', ['I', 'II'], [['I', 'II', 'c']]]
*/

/*
Google Apps Syntax:
=Recode(A1:B3, D1:F2, 1)
=Recode(A1:B3, D1:F2, 2)
*/

Regular Expression Search Bookmarklet

I have an old website where I keep most of my bookmarklets. I'm planning on deprecating that site and just putting up some personal stuff (since I don't do what that site says I do anymore).

This bookmarklet is probably my most used bookmarklet. Basically, you enter a regular expression and each match in the page will be highlighted. It cycles through 16 color schemes to change the highlight color.

If you just want to install the bookmarklet, grab this link and drag it onto your bookmarklet toolbar in your browser.
Regex Search

If you want to use it on your mobile device, you can use my Mobile Bookmarklet Installer Bookmarklet (which, by the way, will install itself too).

I'm sure it doesn't work in IE, but I haven't tested it in a really long time. If you'd like to see what it would do in IE if IE didn't suck so badly, just click it.

If you're interested in the code, here it is!

// check to see if the variable searches has been defined.
// if not, create it.  this variable is to cycle through 
// highlight colors.
if (typeof(searches) == 'undefined')
{
  var searches = 0;
};

(
  function()
  {
    // just some variables
    var count = 0, text, regexp;

    // prompt for the regex to search for
    text = prompt('Search regexp:', '');

    // if no text entered, exit bookmarklet
    if (text == null || text.length == 0)
      return;

    // try to create the regex object.  if it fails
    // just exit the bookmarklet and explain why.
    try
    {
      regexp = new RegExp(text, 'i');
    }

    catch (er)
    {
      alert('Unable to create regular expression using text \'' + text + '\'.\n\n' + er);
      return;
    }

    // this is the function that does the searching.
    function searchWithinNode(node, re)
    {
      // more variables
      var pos, skip, acronym, middlebit, endbit, middleclone;
      skip = 0;

      // be sure the target node is a text node
      if (node.nodeType == 3)
      {
        // find the position of the first match
        pos = node.data.search(re);

        // if there's a match . . . 
        if (pos >= 0)
        {
          // create the acronym node.
          acronym = document.createElement('ACRONYM');
          acronym.title = 'Search ' + (searches + 1) + ': ' + re.toString();
          acronym.style.backgroundColor = backColor;
          acronym.style.borderTop = '1px solid ' + borderColor;
          acronym.style.borderBottom = '1px solid ' + borderColor;
          acronym.style.fontWeight = 'bold';
          acronym.style.color = borderColor;
    
    // get the last half of the node and cut the match
    // out.  then, clone the middle part and replace it with
    // the acronym
          middlebit = node.splitText(pos);
          endbit = middlebit.splitText(RegExp.lastMatch.length);
          middleclone = middlebit.cloneNode(true);
          acronym.appendChild(middleclone);
          middlebit.parentNode.replaceChild(acronym, middlebit);
          count++;
          skip = 1;
        }
      }

      // if the node is not a text node and is not
      // a script or a style tag then search the children
      else if (
        node.nodeType == 1
        && node.childNodes
        && node.tagName.toUpperCase() != 'SCRIPT'
        && node.tagName.toUpperCase != 'STYLE'
      )
        for (var child = 0; child < node.childNodes.length; ++child)
          child = child + searchWithinNode(node.childNodes[child], re);

      return skip;
    }

    // use the search count to get the colors.
    var borderColor = '#' 
      + (searches + 8).toString(2).substr(-3)
      .replace(/0/g, '3')
      .replace(/1/g, '6');
    
    var backColor = borderColor
      .replace(/3/g, 'c')
      .replace(/6/g, 'f');

    // for the last half of every 16 searhes, invert the
    // colors.  this just adds more variation between
    // searches.
    if (searches % 16 / 8 >= 1)
    {
      var tempColor = borderColor;
      borderColor = backColor;
      backColor = tempColor;
    }

    searchWithinNode(document.body, regexp);
    window.status = 'Found ' + count + ' match'
      + (count == 1 ? '' : 'es')
      + ' for ' + regexp + '.';

    // if we made any matches, increment the search count
    if (count > 0)
      searches++;
  }
)();

What Really Makes a Good Programmer?

I've been working on a series of articles about mainframe migrations. My next post upcoming will be talking about source code translation tools. It got me to wondering, what is a good programmer?

I decided that the best way to figure out what makes a good programmer is to ask those who have a history of working with programmers.

I've been playing around with Google Docs and this seemed to be another solid opportunity to leverage some new Google Docs features, specifically Google Forms. I know this particular one is a little annoying but Google Forms didn't really give me many options for entering these data so I apologize for that.

I really appreciate your taking the time to read my blog and to help me with my research. So, without further ado, here is the What Makes a Good Programmer survey.

OK, maybe a little ado. Be sure to read and follow the instructions. They're pretty easy and, I think, relatively clever little recursive instructions to get a lot of responses. Thanks again for your help with my informal study.

If you've already taken the survey, I've published the results. Please don't look at the results of the "What Really Makes a Good Programmer" survey until you've completed it.