More Facebook Musings
Change is the Only Constant
Quit complaining that Facebook changes things. Embrace the new. When web developers work hard all day on a new feature only to have the community poo-poo it – for a site that’s free to begin with – it feels crappy. I know from experience. You don’t like it? Fine. Go build a better one yourself.
Web Nerds are Funny
But looks aren’t everything! (rimshot) In regards to “English (Pirate)”, people seemed surprised that ‘the people behind Facebook have a sense of humor’. Of course they have a sense of humor! Do you think they could put up with all the pithy complaints if they didn’t?
Don’t be Surprised! Web developers, in general, are hilarious. I’ve noticed that the level of hilarity seems to be relative to the level of skilz.
Mutual Friends?
Do you ever see a ‘Suggested Friend’ and think, “who the heck is that?” Then, to get a feel for who they are, you look at your ‘Mutual Friends’, and you think, “who the heck are these people?” 
Happens to me more than I’d care to admit.
LOL
Finally, for the love of all that is Holy, please stop commenting solely: “LOL” or “LOL!” or “LOL…” or all of the lower/mixed case versions thereof. Can you please think of something better to say? If that’s your only comment, just click the ‘i like this’ link already.
“And posting ‘me too!’ like some brain dead AOL-er”
— Weird Al Yankovic
I’ve made it my personal policy – in chat or otherwise – to never type LOL unless I have actually LOL’d. I’ve never ROTFLOL’d. Well, not over a stupid comment on chat anyway…
Of course, Facebook could address this in code… (I’m sure their code is much more advanced than this, but you get the idea)
// jkeeler would do it better. $comment = preg_replace('/LOL([\.\!]+)?/i', '', $comment); // check for an empty comment after replacing the lol if('' == $comment) { // and so on ... }
Just sayin’… Oh, and Joseph Keeler, as I said, would do the regular expression much better than me, or anyone I know. He would have addressed “LOLOL”, “looool”, and so on and so forth.
As a nerdy aside…
The e modifier makes preg_replace() treat the replacement parameter as PHP code after the appropriate references substitution is done.
— PHP Manual – preg_replace
Holy crap! I had no idea! How cool is that?!
