Then you have to learn the (in the case of Drupal) byzantine and poorly documented API.
This is where I stopped using Drupal.
Well, sort-of. I also had a GPL issue where I had to keep arms-length from a proprietary system in order to integrate with a Drupal system, but mainly it was trying to make Drupal scale. I don't mean scale in the sense of multiple servers, but "scale" in the sense of keeping track of a system of sufficient size. At some point you've got dozens and dozens of modules of varying quality, everything is written in Drupal-ese PHP (two-two-two varieties of crufty functions for the price of one!), and a database that looks like a dog's breakfast. When it comes time to upgrade your Drupal core now you've got a fun game of whack-a-old-and-busted-module.
Drupal is great if your needs are simple or OTS. I still use it for such things. Once you cross a line of sufficient complexity, Drupal can certainly still work, and will get your site off the ground faster--but it's not necessarily better. You're just delaying the inevitable, which is you need a more formal look at your Web site's structure and design. The professionalism required to maintain a Drupal site of a certain size is nearly indistinguishable from that required to build a site from scratch using PEAR modules or something more robust like the Zend framework.
MySQL is well documented so that all the bugs are turned into features:
Mein Broder: So, in MySQL, when you exceed the maximum size of a TEXT column, does it throw an exception, or does it just truncate the data to fit?
Me: Well, it being MySQL, it will probably do something differently on Tuesdays than it does on the vernal equinox... but it probably will throw an exception and bitch about how you suck at data planning. Which is the proper thing to do, because who would want their database silently truncating data?
Mein Broder: In this case, I'd actually prefer it, 'cause otherwise I'd have to programmatically truncate it myself. These data aren't really that important, and truncating would be acceptable. It would be nice if I could be a lazy programmer.
Me: I think you're out of luck. But let's take a look:
MySQL Manual -- If you assign a value to a BLOB or TEXT column that exceeds the column type's maximum length, the value is truncated to fit.
Me: Astounding. Your desire to be a lazy, shiftless programmer has been facilitated by other lazy, shiftless programmers who have built the world's most rickety database management system.
And to suggest that they throw it out and replace it is like suggesting that they burn down their office building and buy a new one.
That's because it's practically the same thing. The IT landscape is littered with failed ground-up programming redesigns, many of which killed the company that owned them.
Which is not to say that it can't or shouldn't be done. But it is hard to do, and extremely hard to do well. Hell, just redesigning a Web site's look and feel can be a real bear. A manager is wise to look askance at any developer who insists that the codebase be rewritten from scratch. And the first thing the manager should look at is the developer's resume to see if he has ever actually rebuilt anything from the ground up.
Browsers should be smarter about that. Maybe if they remembered that certain hosts are down and so stop trying to load scripts from them? They could periodically retry unreachable script-hosts in the background and then ask the user if they wanted to reload all relevant tabs.
What does the unicorn burger taste like in this mystical land in which you live?
while McDonald's sells low to middling quality food super cheap
I'm not so sure that's true anymore. Last time I saw a McDonald's menu the combo means were pushing 6 or 7 bucks. You can get a much better burger from freaking Applebee's for only two or three more bucks.
McDonald's breakfasts are still pretty inexpensive, but their lunch and dinner menus are not cheap eats.
I think the fast-food franchises are due for a massive management overhaul. They depended too much on cheap gas to move unhealthy but cheap pre-processed food in bulk, and on customers who drove around all the time buying things. This worked for many decades, but it's no good now.
Why does it seem like Democrats are at least as effective at infringing on civil liberties as Republicans are, but never seem to get called on their BS to the same degree?
This always happens, whichever Party is in power.
Republicans have a good point with regard to a robust national defense. But as soon as they acquire power they go invade another country or something.
Democrats have a good point with regard to the government protecting people who may have fallen through the cracks. But as soon as they acquire power they start nanny-stating all over the place.
Actually, no. Wheat prices would find an equilibrium. That's what prices do. Somebody will grow wheat for some price. There will be fluctuations, but the market recovers quickly from such things--when it's not meddled with.
nor do they have functional incentives to purchase in patterns that will ensure future healthy food supplies
They're called "prices".
Successful farms do not need subsidies. That's why they are successful. Small farms that practice production diversity and such are in competition with huge factory farms that, BTW, receive most of the subsidy dollars.
Your problem is that you think that a political process can be "done correctly" instead of the much more likely "done politically".
Paying farmers to not grow crops, paying millions of people to hassle you with irrelevant paperwork, and then paying them again when they retire at 45 (and for the next 35 years)--not so okay.
If you're going to design HTML emails, you'd better use tables. CSS support in mail clients is spotty at best.
I suspect that most people use tables because either that's how their WYSIWYG editor does it or they tried to do it in CSS and ran into the multitude of problems doing something that should be simple but CSS makes excruciating. Reliably centering your container DIV is not perfectly straightforward, and that's about as rat-simple as you can get.
Because I'm a scientist. Students need to spend time outside of lectures, in the labs. It's where they learn the point of all the stuff taught in lectures - it's where we teach the craft.
What do you mean "we"?
Unless you're a foreign-born grad-student TA, "we" didn't teach all that much in the labs.
Re:Oracle was wanting its own OS
on
Oracle Buys Sun
·
· Score: 1
You exactly summed up the feelings I had when I heard the news this morning.
This is a better move than Oracle rolling their own Linux. Solaris/Oracle is a known and trusted arrangement. Were I Ellison I'd encourage skunkwork projects to integrate Oracle with cloud computing while big iron pays the bills. Also I'd sleep on a big pile of money and hire $5,000/night hookers to rotate the tires on my Ferrari.
Re:Postgres is looking better than ever
on
Oracle Buys Sun
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Their string comparisons are case sensitive.
8.4 has citext. Or you can make an index with lower() on the appropriate columns.
IMO it's preferable for software to not assume that "Helped my uncle Jack off a horse." and "Helped my uncle jack off a horse." are the same thing.
Your argument does not follow. Laws against robbery and mugging are to protect all people, strong or weak. You don't avoid prosecution of a robber if he robs a strong man.
It may be "sensible", but the problem is that people have a lot of differing ideas of what's "sensible". You've leapt from equal protection to social engineering, which the rule of law is not particularly good at.
Compare this to, say, the recent X-Files movie: not great, but it kept the spirit of the series alive and left open the door for a better sequel.
What?
X-Files: I Want to Believe, and I Believe This Movie is Shit.
I guess you're right, though. It did keep to the spirit of the series. All of the action occurred in pitch black shadows and all of the important character development was presented in inaudible whispers.
Slashdot Mirror
This is where I stopped using Drupal.
Well, sort-of. I also had a GPL issue where I had to keep arms-length from a proprietary system in order to integrate with a Drupal system, but mainly it was trying to make Drupal scale. I don't mean scale in the sense of multiple servers, but "scale" in the sense of keeping track of a system of sufficient size. At some point you've got dozens and dozens of modules of varying quality, everything is written in Drupal-ese PHP (two-two-two varieties of crufty functions for the price of one!), and a database that looks like a dog's breakfast. When it comes time to upgrade your Drupal core now you've got a fun game of whack-a-old-and-busted-module.
Drupal is great if your needs are simple or OTS. I still use it for such things. Once you cross a line of sufficient complexity, Drupal can certainly still work, and will get your site off the ground faster--but it's not necessarily better. You're just delaying the inevitable, which is you need a more formal look at your Web site's structure and design. The professionalism required to maintain a Drupal site of a certain size is nearly indistinguishable from that required to build a site from scratch using PEAR modules or something more robust like the Zend framework.
Yeah, capitalism has no interest in effective or stable civilizations.
MySQL is well documented so that all the bugs are turned into features:
Mein Broder: So, in MySQL, when you exceed the maximum size of a TEXT column, does it throw an exception, or does it just truncate the data to fit?
Me: Well, it being MySQL, it will probably do something differently on Tuesdays than it does on the vernal equinox... but it probably will throw an exception and bitch about how you suck at data planning. Which is the proper thing to do, because who would want their database silently truncating data?
Mein Broder: In this case, I'd actually prefer it, 'cause otherwise I'd have to programmatically truncate it myself. These data aren't really that important, and truncating would be acceptable. It would be nice if I could be a lazy programmer.
Me: I think you're out of luck. But let's take a look:
Me: Astounding. Your desire to be a lazy, shiftless programmer has been facilitated by other lazy, shiftless programmers who have built the world's most rickety database management system.
That's because it's practically the same thing. The IT landscape is littered with failed ground-up programming redesigns, many of which killed the company that owned them.
Which is not to say that it can't or shouldn't be done. But it is hard to do, and extremely hard to do well. Hell, just redesigning a Web site's look and feel can be a real bear. A manager is wise to look askance at any developer who insists that the codebase be rewritten from scratch. And the first thing the manager should look at is the developer's resume to see if he has ever actually rebuilt anything from the ground up.
What does the unicorn burger taste like in this mystical land in which you live?
It also sucks for the Web in general.
Google was so fucked that a lot of pages that had Google ads, or Google Analytics were slow to load or not loading at all.
Your sig has been OBE.
I wish Google would stop serving me AdSense-laden link-farm pages at the top of my search results.
I'd rather pay Lexis-Nexis a couple hundred bucks a year than fritter away my life tweaking search queries.
I'm not so sure that's true anymore. Last time I saw a McDonald's menu the combo means were pushing 6 or 7 bucks. You can get a much better burger from freaking Applebee's for only two or three more bucks.
McDonald's breakfasts are still pretty inexpensive, but their lunch and dinner menus are not cheap eats.
I think the fast-food franchises are due for a massive management overhaul. They depended too much on cheap gas to move unhealthy but cheap pre-processed food in bulk, and on customers who drove around all the time buying things. This worked for many decades, but it's no good now.
Obscure sailing joke == micro-lulz.
Ubiquity is a pretty compelling feature.
I mean, BeOS is pretty bitchin', but I'm not spending any of my time on developing applications for it.
This always happens, whichever Party is in power.
Republicans have a good point with regard to a robust national defense. But as soon as they acquire power they go invade another country or something.
Democrats have a good point with regard to the government protecting people who may have fallen through the cracks. But as soon as they acquire power they start nanny-stating all over the place.
More importantly I wish they had enshrined "shit-canned" into the Constitution.
Talk about a clear and unambivalent meaning. Pretty sure Ben Franklin used "shit-canned" on a daily basis.
Actually, no. Wheat prices would find an equilibrium. That's what prices do. Somebody will grow wheat for some price. There will be fluctuations, but the market recovers quickly from such things--when it's not meddled with.
Yes, monocropping is very risky. Insuring against that risk is not my responsibility.
The idea that without crop subsidies we'd all be starving in the street is hyperbolic nonsense.
Farm bills have almost nothing to do with stabilizing the food supply. They are payola to agricultural states.
They're called "prices".
Successful farms do not need subsidies. That's why they are successful. Small farms that practice production diversity and such are in competition with huge factory farms that, BTW, receive most of the subsidy dollars.
Your problem is that you think that a political process can be "done correctly" instead of the much more likely "done politically".
Roads and firefighters are okay.
Paying farmers to not grow crops, paying millions of people to hassle you with irrelevant paperwork, and then paying them again when they retire at 45 (and for the next 35 years)--not so okay.
If you're going to design HTML emails, you'd better use tables. CSS support in mail clients is spotty at best.
I suspect that most people use tables because either that's how their WYSIWYG editor does it or they tried to do it in CSS and ran into the multitude of problems doing something that should be simple but CSS makes excruciating. Reliably centering your container DIV is not perfectly straightforward, and that's about as rat-simple as you can get.
Paul Newman: a class act, and pretty smart, too.
I bet his obits were chockablock full of people calling him a "class act".
Ob: digital actors, can we resurrect William Powell and Myrna Loy first?
What do you mean "we"?
Unless you're a foreign-born grad-student TA, "we" didn't teach all that much in the labs.
You exactly summed up the feelings I had when I heard the news this morning.
This is a better move than Oracle rolling their own Linux. Solaris/Oracle is a known and trusted arrangement. Were I Ellison I'd encourage skunkwork projects to integrate Oracle with cloud computing while big iron pays the bills. Also I'd sleep on a big pile of money and hire $5,000/night hookers to rotate the tires on my Ferrari.
8.4 has citext. Or you can make an index with lower() on the appropriate columns.
IMO it's preferable for software to not assume that "Helped my uncle Jack off a horse." and "Helped my uncle jack off a horse." are the same thing.
Your argument does not follow. Laws against robbery and mugging are to protect all people, strong or weak. You don't avoid prosecution of a robber if he robs a strong man.
It may be "sensible", but the problem is that people have a lot of differing ideas of what's "sensible". You've leapt from equal protection to social engineering, which the rule of law is not particularly good at.
I have a feeling you only said that because you secretly hope she reads Slashdot and will now like you.
What?
X-Files: I Want to Believe, and I Believe This Movie is Shit.
I guess you're right, though. It did keep to the spirit of the series. All of the action occurred in pitch black shadows and all of the important character development was presented in inaudible whispers.