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Choosing a theme

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2005-05-20 10:43:16 - Graham Ellis

Graham puts his marketing hat on.

We're going great guns with the new C and C++ courses (Announcement) - a very logical extension as I probably know C even better than Perl or PHP - but we needed a theme.

What are C and C++? They're languages that form the bedrock on which other modern languages are built; neither of them is a recent language, but between them they allow current day programmers to reach heights they couldn't otherwise reach. Oh - and the two languages are closely related to each other too.

So we've chosen a picture of the supporting Ironwork at Clevedon pier. This Victorian Pier has been restored to full working order and is now in truely beautiful condition in spite of its great age. The two great vertical supports for each leg of the pier are tied together with thinner struts, and rise to support the girders or the walkway above, keeping strollers and the people who use the pier to board the "Waverly" and "Balmoral" when they call above the waves and the dangers of the rocks.


This is the comlete picture from which I "sampled" the chosen image - we use images that are 132 x 300 pixel as our theme images thoughout our web site, using a PHP program (I probably shouldn't say that today on a page about C) to do the sampling and add in a border too.

I also like this picture because it's taken in England, but with a view of Wales in the background and this represents our international business.

The complete pier, looking out over a choppy river Severn estuary. The Severn is a very active river - the water looks brown rather than blue in this picture, and somewhat choppy. A little further upriver, where it narrows, you can sometimes see a tidal wave - the "Severn Bore" ... as the tide comes in with such spead and ferocity.


This view of the pier head makes it look incredibly tall out of the water - and that's not without good cause. The river here has the second highest tidal range in the world, and in order for boats to be able to use the pier at any time, this great tall structure was built.