Look before you Tweep


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7 responses to “Tweep

  1. A Tweet is 140 characters long because the database field is a VARCHAR (140) to contain that many ASCII representations. A “tweep” by the nature of it needing to be stored as an image file would not have a character limitation. Instead, one might limit the size of the tweep by the size of the image file to be stored in the BLOB field, or in a textfield as a BASE64 representation. The paradigm is different as one would expect from a paradigm-shifting medium. (:

  2. Er, Munk, was that in English? :-§ (confused smiley)

    Anyway, I just wanted to say I liked the triplets (like couplets, but with three lines…)

  3. Oh.. um, a BLOB field is for Binary Large OBjects, or non-text things like images. BASE64 encoding is a method for converting non-text binary objects into text representations (it’s also used to send images in email, since email is a text-only transport mechanism). If you’re storing data in a relational database table, you generally need to decide how much space you’re going to allocate to each record. This is why Tweets can only be 140 characters long – that’s how much space they’ve allocated to each record. It’s an odd number, though – they could have easily made it 256, but not any longer than that because that’s as large as a VARCHAR or CHAR field can be.

  4. I like the idea of Tweeping. It should be encouraged. There’s a place for longer typecasts (pausing to look westward towards Mesa), but the brevity of, say Awkward Engineer, keeps me coming back for more too.

  5. RichardKeistler

    What a coincidence! I used to use the term BSO to stand for bullsh-t odor. When someone was being less than honest I’d say I was smelling BSO. Your term is nicer. BTW like the SM-9. RK/TXX

  6. This is my first visit to your blog and *I LIKE*.
    Tweep is an apt term for short bursts of typing. I think you’re onto something good!

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