SELECT TOP 10 * FROM table_name WHERE some_logic
SELECT replace(column_name, '-', '') as [New column_name] FROM table_name WHERE some_logic
UPDATE table_name SET column_name = replace(column_name, '-', '') WHERE some_logic

What is this all about? well, today while coming up with some technical requirements for the project one of my colleagues said we should only support Internet Explorer. I walked in late to the meeting and caught him mid-sentence so I asked what that was for since our applications are 100% cross-browser. Now, to his credit, this is an application that used to require IE as its only player but the version we are running these days don’t have this limitation. I argued that we should not require IE for our users when the application also supports Firefox and Safari.

His response to listing IE as the only supported browser was to limit the number of variables when we have to deal with technical support questions. A valid argument but it is not 1991 anymore and we need to make sure that we support all of our users not just that use a specific platform. Specially when the technical choices we have made support multiple platforms. I agreed to take all issues with non-IE browsers but I know that won’t be a problem. I would be far more concerned about the user having the proper media player installed and updated than having the proper browser.

UPDATE mt_entry SET entry_allow_comments=2 WHERE entry_blog_id = # AND entry_allow_comments = 1 AND entry_created_on <= DATE_SUB(CURDATE(), INTERVAL 7 DAY)

The time-consuming aspect of this kind of research is the time I have to spend becoming familiar with the syntax, functions and overall code strategy which WP provides. I have succesfully used MovableType (MT) as the CMS behind a couple of projects so I feel very comfortable with that package. However, I need an alternative for the project I have in mind and WP appears to be a good candidate. The project site will be very basic with only a couple of sections being heavy on the "dynamic" aspect. I hope to spend some time during the holiday break getting to know WordPress a little better.

Some links for future reference: Wordpress as a CMS, A complete CMS and WordPress 1.5 as a web site CMS

<script type="text/javascript">
    function backToTop() {
        var x1 = x2 = x3 = 0;
        var y1 = y2 = y3 = 0;

        if (document.documentElement) {
            x1 = document.documentElement.scrollLeft || 0;
            y1 = document.documentElement.scrollTop || 0;
        }

        if (document.body) {
            x2 = document.body.scrollLeft || 0;
            y2 = document.body.scrollTop || 0;
        }

        x3 = window.scrollX || 0;
        y3 = window.scrollY || 0;

        var x = Math.max(x1, Math.max(x2, x3));
        var y = Math.max(y1, Math.max(y2, y3));

        window.scrollTo(Math.floor(x / 2), Math.floor(y / 2));

        if (x > 0 || y > 0) {
            window.setTimeout("backToTop()", 25);
        }
    }
</script>

<a href="#" onclick="backToTop(); return false">back to top</a>

This will attempt to create a native object first, which will work for IE7 and other browsers, and only attempt to create the ActiveX object as a last resort.


var xhr;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
  xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
}
else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
  xhr = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
}


Since I don’t want to just believe the hype around RoR, I would like to put a small application together and get a first hand look at the framework. However, RoR is not the only framework getting some attention these days. Model-Glue has been picking up fans as well among the ColdFusion community. There are some PHP frameworks that are also gaining some steam by riding the AJAX train and applying some lessons taken from the Rails camp. So, I would like to put a sample application and port it across these frameworks as a learning experience.

I would also like to become more familiar with these frameworks. I have found the organization they provide, a key factor in getting a stronger grip on the whole object oriented programing paradigm. However, the regular semester starts in less than a week so our experiment will take a short delay before we get into any development. This might be a good time to get some of the design decisions made and look a little more into Cake (a PHP framework) and get some reading done on the Ruby book.

Saturday morning I caught "Unit Testing Java with Jython" by Stuart Halloway and "Killer Web UIs" by David Geary. The Jython presentation was interesting for two reasons: we are not doing as much unit testing as we should be doing and it is python. I know that we need to increase our testing habits but I am not sure that our team could handle python, despite the recommendations other developers made. Killer Web UIs was a great presentation on Tiles and Sitemesh. Instead of comparing the frameworks to each other, Geary took an example and demonstrated how to accomplish the objective with each one by itself and at last with both combined. It was a truly learning experience and I will take a closer look at tiles after watching his presentation.

The evening sessions included what I probably think was the most attended presentation of the weekend. Ben Galbraith took on ~100 developers and live-coded an AJAX application. There were a couple of little bugs but nothing that could not be solved by the entire group. I attended the presentation because I wanted to hear what he had to say about the technology. The implementation is the easy thing at this point in time, there are other issues that need to be investigated before we decide to deploy AJAX applications everywhere.

On Sunday I attended "Lightweight Development Strategies" by Bruce Tate, "Introduction to WS-2005" by Ted Neward , "Extreme Web Caching" by Jason Hunter and "Introduction to TestNG" by Andrew Glover. The first couple were mostly discussions about the current state of technology and sort of looking into the magic ball. Jason’s presentation on caching was fantastic. He explained some of the caching strategies shared by Yahoo’s Mike Radwin and I have to say that most of them were trivial, easy to deploy and so simple that you ask yourself how come you never thought of that yourself!

Jay Zimmerman announced that NFJS DSSS will back to Phoenix in July of 2006 and I plan to be there. During the conference I was able to have some conversations with Ted Neward, Jason Hunter and Andrew Glover. It was great to hear what they had to say on technology and non-technology topics, after all they are human!

Both presentations by Dave Thomas on Ruby were great, his style and personality help as well to get the point across. A little interesting note is the fact that not only is Dave presenting Ruby at a Java conference, but the fact that the room is full is even more impressive. Some people left before the RoR presentation but I am sure they walked away interested enough to give Ruby a look in the future. His RoR presentation ran out of time but he made his point and it was loud and clear: RoR will have a place in the IT shop in the not so distant future.

He asked to get together with him to look over his testing approach or any other questions we might have. I took him up on it and we are going to take a look at his approach to test-driven development on Rails. I might also ask him about his thoughts on how to best take an already developed application and migrate it to RoR. I would be really interested in his thoughts in doing so.

Overall it was a good first day, I wish I could’ve attended the intro to AOP with AspectJ presentations but hopefully I can pick up that material from the presentations. Tomorrow (7/30) morning I am planing on checking out the unit testing with Jython from Stuart Halloway and Killer Web UIs from David Geary. The afternoon is still up on the air for now. More updates tomorrow!

This year I will be catching a couple presentations on Ruby as well as some about test-driven development. Instead of focusing on our platform, I would like to address our actual development methodology. I will post more details about the presentations that I actually end up attending.