Community Member Profile

Recent Blog Comments By Ben Nadel

• Why NULL Values Should Not Be Used in a Database Unless Required

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 12:14 PM

  @Eric, I think we should just agree that there are no cross-the-board rules on this. NULL values are good when they add value. That is highly contextual - there's nothing about NULL values that is implicitly useful.... read more »

• Why NULL Values Should Not Be Used in a Database Unless Required

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 12:12 PM

  @Eric, By all means if you need referential integrity and foreign keys for things like "middle name", then you should use NULL values. In the applications I build, 99% of the time, I there is no meaningful difference between a NULL "middle name" and an empty string.... it simply add... read more »

• ColdFusion Query of Queries Unexpected Data Type Conversion

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 10:21 AM

  @Hiren, Nice use of cast.... read more »

• Why NULL Values Should Not Be Used in a Database Unless Required

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 10:17 AM

  @Mike, If you enjoy using NULL values, then go for it; from a technical standpoint, there's certainly no reason to not use them if you like them. All I'm saying is that I think a lot of times they don't add any business value.... read more »

• ColdFusion Path Usage And Manipulation Overview

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 10:12 AM

  @Sean, Did you ever figure out the "/" issue? Sorry I had no more ideas on that problem.... read more »

• Using ColdFusion's CFLocation Tag For Inline Image SRC Attributes

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 10:07 AM

  @Daniel, So, when a browser is making a HTTP request, does it read the headers and then potentially shut down the HTTP request if the ETag is a certain value? Or, is it actually making two requests: one for the headers and one for the content? From the FireBug network activity, it w... read more »

• Making SOAP Web Service Requests With ColdFusion And CFHTTP

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 10:05 AM

  @Dmitry, I'll have to take a look at that. Typically, I just use CFHTTP, but I check out more Java-based approaches.... read more »

• ColdFusion CFPOP - My First Look

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:51 AM

  @Delon, @Jose, Been following the thread (didn't have anything much to contribute - not enough experience with mail receiving). Did you guys get to the bottom of this?... read more »

• Thoughts And Goals For 2010

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:48 AM

  Yesterday at the gym, I hit a few sets of squats at 315lbs. I was in the 3-5 rep range with big Ken (one of the trainers) watching my form and depth. Said I handled it well. This is super exciting - I haven't squatted 315 in a looong time. I think I hit one rep like 2 years ago... but before that... read more »

• Defaulting To The Numeric Keyboard On The iPhone

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:46 AM

  @Henry, Ha ha, I liked your description. Yeah, moving the link to the top of the page is probably a good idea. I will do that.... read more »

• Javascript Number.toFixed() Method

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:44 AM

  @Bucabay, That's cool - I didn't realize that Javascript has a base() conversion method. That is super useful.... read more »

• Duplicate() Much Faster Than ColdFusion Query-of-Queries

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:36 AM

  @Craig, Thanks my man - glad you're liking the blog :)... read more »

• Be Careful When Including Images In jQuery Auto-Suggest

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:29 AM

  @Jim, I've only ever messed with the config in FireFox. Not sure what's available in the other browsers.... read more »

• ColdFusion 8 ImageDrawTextArea() (Inspired By Barney Boisvert!)

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:27 AM

  @Martin, It's been a while since I looked at this; but, I don't think I handled explicit line breaks because it just made the calculations harder. Perhaps in another version.... read more »

• Ask Ben: Parsing CSV Strings With Javascript Exec() Regular Expression Command

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:23 AM

  @Jens, Ahh, gotcha. Yeah, the textarea is probably gonna be safe cross-browser.... read more »

• How ColdFusion CreateObject() Really Works With Java Objects

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:22 AM

  @Dmitry, Word up - createObject() can do a whole bunch of things. It's probably one of the best updates to the language.... read more »

• Learning ColdFusion 9: Resetting Applications With ApplicationStop()

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:19 AM

  @Rocky, Yeah, I assume it will flush all application-scope variables when you can applicationStop(), regardless of where they are initialized. As far as the connectivity between application and session, I'm on the fence about this. It is clearly the existing behavior; but, do I like... read more »

• Ask Ben: Getting The Start And End Dates Of The Previous Week In ColdFusion

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:15 AM

  @David, It gets the last week. I goes back 7 days, and then finds the start / end of that week.... read more »

• Ask Ben: Selecting XML Attributes Given Other XML Attributes

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:10 AM

  @Tom, That's odd. Looks like a malformed XML problem. Make sure you aren't missing any of the ">" closing brackets or something.... read more »

• Delaying ColdFusion Session Persistence Until User Logs In

  Posted on Mar 19, 2010 at 9:09 AM

  @Peter, Sorry about that; sometimes my mail gets blocked by the other servers. Something about not having the right HELO handshake in my email headers or something. I need to figure it out, but every time I try to, it just seems very complicated.... read more »