Bigger Than I Thought

After programming some really neat new features, I built the structure for the Marine Biology section. To my surprise, it ended up being larger by page count than the Artificial Reefs section, which I always thought was second after Dive Sites. So far, the total is 925 pages, including these blog posts.

After setting the Biology section, I found that the natural sidebar menu cutoff level for that section is one deeper than Dive Sites and Artificial Reefs. After applying my massive intellect ( ha ha ) to the problem for a while, I came up with a neat solution. It works on a per-page basis, can be used alongside the global setting, and took all of ten lines of new code. That's how I like to program !!!

I've seen a lot of foreign programmers who think that the best solution to any problem is to drown it in as much code as possible. That is so wrong, although it is an excellent way to fleece the client. Ten lines, that's all it took. And another ten minutes to make the necessary database entries. Then I set the global cutoff one deeper, and everything works great!


I have found no correlation between good visibility and anything else at all. Calm seas certainly don't hurt, but the worst visibility I have ever been in was with a 1-foot surf on the beach. There is however a very good correlation between bad visibility and storms, which is why a single hurricane can end the season.

Other factors which influence visibility are: algae blooms, spawning seasons of some invertebrates, which can fill the water with tiny swimmers, jellyfish ( yes, so many you can't see through them, luckily they don't sting, ) other divers churning up the bottom, and just plain gunk in the water. I don't know how to predict most of these, except to say that if you dive a lot, sooner or later you will see some good visibility. Sometimes in the ocean, the visibility will be different in different depth layers. I have seen the viz go from 3 ft on the way down the anchor line to 20 ft on the wreck.