<img src="http://www.ubbdev.com/columns/tackaberry/art/uzine/watercooler.gif" style="border: 1px black solid" align="left" alt="featured programmer">
Interviewed by: tackaberry
Interviewee: Greg Hard





We cornered Greg Hard by the office water cooler and spoke to him about his background and UBB "Hacking".

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
Hey Greg, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. When did you get into the UBB/UBBDev scenes?

Greg Hard:
Lets see, I bought UBB in 1998 for a local site. I started deving 2 years after, so I guess mid 2000.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
Um...your registration date says, Feb. 2000, guess that's close enough.

What's your programming background?

Greg Hard:
I have small/moderate experience in Perl, I have some experience programming in PHP, and I can do a small amount of C++, not enough to do much with. I also know ActionScript, HTML, Javascript and CSS.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
What was the first hack you wrote?

Greg Hard:
The first hack i wrote wasn't public. It was custom status for my own board in 1999.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
What is your favorite hack?

Greg Hard:
UBBNews

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
Which hack, not written by you, is your favorite?

Greg Hard:
Anything that brings out the "duh, why didn't I think of that" concept, like UBB Accelerator.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
What was the most difficult hack to write and why?

Greg Hard:
Most of the hard hacks i did originated for version 5. I can't really say...

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
Alright. Besides UBB hacks, what kind of programming have you done?

Greg Hard:
Verious perl scripts, an actionscript for my site, some php scripts. Most used to make my sites better and easier to use/manage.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
What kind of programming are you getting into lately?

Greg Hard:
I am getting into using microsofts C#, just for fun.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
Lol. What's your definition of a 'killer application'?

Greg Hard:
An application that is really cool, and either helpful or fun.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
If you were going to start a new never-done-before hack today, what would it be?

Greg Hard:
Ouch. A tough one. Something that was announced before -- UBB CMS. (Content Management System) or an RDBMS conversion for UBB.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
Those would be nicel! What advice can you give to the newer generation of code hackers?

Greg Hard:
Think Big, Start Small, Do Outragious. Use tools available to you. Examples would be modules or programs like ultraedit.

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
What are some of the helpful web resources that you use?

Greg Hard:
I live at Perl.com, webmonkey and php.net...

<font color="#006699">UBBDev:</font>
Thanks again Greg. Keep up the great work.