Thursday, April 24, 2008
What have I been up to?
1:41 PM Posted by: Craig Comments (0) Permlink 
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But since I have had a lot of off time, I have been learning, studying and playing with apache, mysql and php. I am even practing and playing with Drupal, a php content management system.
I still love coldfusion, but php is very nice as well. I just prefer not to do anything object oriented.
This blog used to be very important to me, just not sure if where I want to go, is where coldfusion is going.
I would love to see what new things coldfusion 8 can do.
Hope you all are doing well.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Hal Helms gets it right...
4:39 PM Posted by: Craig Comments (5) Permlink Back to Top
To me this is a sign of realizing that we don't need to be like other programming languages, to be a a solid application language.
And that's what I like, we're here to innovate, drive the market with what is our strength rapid-application development.
Now that does not mean in anyway we can't learn from other languages to improve our programming ideas and methods, but that should not be in an attempt to make us just a clone or copy, we have to stick to what we're about.
If you really want to code in Java, go ahead and do so, just stop trying to make coldfusion into java programming.
I feel we do have a lot to learn as an industry, to improve our training, to create common standards that we all learn from, then as we get more experience, develop our own way's and style's.
To me, I think this is a first good step to common sense, and focusing on what we're about, not trying to mold coldfusion into java which it's not.
Think about it.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
In pursuit of excellence
10:11 AM Posted by: Craig Comments (2) Permlink Back to Top
For me this road started in 1996, when I worked for a local isp as a tech support person, sadly it was not a very well run isp, but that is what gave me the opportunities for growth I sought.
I worked my way up from Tech Support, to Webmaster, to Hostmaster, and mainly it was because I was bored of just answering calls, trying to solve customer's problems, when my employer didn't care about the customer's just getting them off the phone as soon as possible.
So I started to read about HTML, Javascript, then I heard of coldfusion. I had gotten some training in setting up IIS, but to do actual web programming really intrigued me. I already had made my mark, by taking all our piles of training material, to create a html based step-by-step problem solving intranet.
I am a person who wants change, to desires for things to always improve, and life is not always like that, but sometimes you have to create your own opportunities.
So I started to bug the web design/development department of the isp, asking questions, what's a cfoutput, what's a cfquery...
Playing with access databases, eventually in time working my way up to SQL Server...and over time, my knowledge, skills and experiences kept expanding, but that's not what I want this post to be about.
I think that I had some weird expectations, that I would reach some level of skill/experience, where i could work for a good company that recognized my potential, offered training, and that I would have chances to grow with them.
But that may be the reality for some, but mostly a fantasy...
A lot of us have to work for shlocky companies, that slowly change, don't really care, just do the work, and that can really hurt our desire to do our job, if we're always the janitors of the web.
Which is not what I had signed up for.
For me, I want to be the best, not so much for the recognition of others, but to find something I can do with my life that I am proud of.
Success, Excellence, I feel is really a mental attitude, do you really care about your craft, even when other's don't?
Do you do what's right even if no one else agree's with you?
Can you stand to be alone in a crowd, and stand by what you believe in, even if no one agree's with you?
I've been reading a lot of Jeff Atwood's Coding Horror Blog, and DailyWTF, because they show where we and others screw up in our programming, and perhaps give us clues as to how to improve ourselves...
I think what kind of upset's me now, is a big lack of vision and clarity about where coldfusion is going?
I just don't feel that after this many changes of owners, anyone has a clear vision of what does coldfusion mean, what is it's future, and what is good for both industry and company..
I mean, for me, i focus on the core values of coldfusion programming: performance, documentation, commenting, variables, sql queries, project management.
But i just don't see much discussion on those topics anymore, instead it's what the trends are on, which are cool, but have we as an industry shown that as coldfusion programmer's we've mastered those basic core values?
I don't believe that is so....
Until we're Coldfusion Professional Programmer's, where when people pick both the language and the people to program in it, they will know they will get solid quality, that plans for long term as well as take cares of the short term..
Just my thoughts...
Friday, February 16, 2007
SQL Server Bind Variables
12:35 PM Posted by: Craig Comments (0) Permlink Back to Top
Basically a bind variable, means it treats the queries the same, in terms of performance/explanation plans, even though certain variables are different.
Now while cfqueryparam is always a good practice for preventing sql injection and protecting, I was not aware of how to do bind variables for SQL Server, until now.
sp_executesql
is a very powerful but limited dynamic sql building tool.
execute sp_executesql
N'select * from pubs.dbo.employee where job_lvl = @level',
N'@level tinyint',
@level = 35
Above is an example from http://doc.ddart.net/mssql/sql70/sp_ea-ez_4.htm
Notice how N is in front of each line, that is to force it to be nvarchar, because the stored procedure accepts only nvarchar, even though the fields in your table may just be int, varchar etc.
Secondly this allows 3 parameters
first parameter is the sql query
second parameter is the declaration of any incoming parameters
third parameter is the setting of those parameters
The problem is that if you have multiple incoming parameters, they all have to be declared on one line. The Sql query can be multiple lines but itself consists of the first slot in this stored procedure.
So if you want to not use up memory by caching a query, this is one way to improve performance, by taking advantage of the bind variables, capability.
BTW, if you want more tips on t-sql query optimization, I recommend that you check out this article.
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/transact_sql.asp
Labels: t-sql optimization
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
IE7 Breaks Relative URLS
10:03 AM Posted by: Craig Comments (5) Permlink Back to Top
How many of you are noticing bad links, bad images, bad forms, that just do not work in IE7.
Especially if you have a page that has search engine friendly url's.
Well in order for those to work you must have the BASE Tag in a specific spot.
BASE Element--Internet Explorer 7 strictly enforces the BASE element rule, as documented in the HTML 4.01 standard. We no longer allow BASE tags outside of the HEAD of the document. The standard specifies that the base element must appear within the head of the document, before any elements that refer to an external source.
Which means every coldfusion page has to have a base href in it. Which can be a tad difficult, if you have different development, production, testing or q&a servers.
It kind of makes me wonder if this was a necessary for IE7 feature. Or if any of you have had other IE7 issues.
