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Rick O

Member since Dec 11, 2008

Recent Blog Comments By Rick O

  • The Performance Cost Of Throwing Exceptions In ColdFusion

    Posted on Jul 17, 2009 at 11:59 PM

    Jose: I'd argue that exceptions should truly be reserved for "holy cow, I don't have a clue how to handle this" types of situations. They should not be used for easy-to-handle problems like missing attributes or basic error checking. It's a judgment call, and there aren't any hard and fast rule... read more »

  • The Performance Cost Of Throwing Exceptions In ColdFusion

    Posted on Jul 17, 2009 at 7:51 PM

    Heh, thanks for this. I fight this battle, primarily with OO-purists, enough that I end up coding up something like this about once each year. Now I can just point and say "Ben said so, and he's too nice to lie to you". Exceptions are expensive. They are supposed to be expensive, because they ... read more »

  • What Chinese Food Has Taught Me About Life

    Posted on Mar 26, 2009 at 12:44 AM

    I think you're missing something crucial here, though. Not only are you paying for chicken (quality), but you are also paying for the service. Maybe not table service, but service nonetheless -- the implied service contract is that when you place an order you will only have a reasonable wait. If ... read more »

  • OOP Philosophy: Invalid State vs. Invalid Method Call

    Posted on Mar 23, 2009 at 10:47 PM

    Why wouldn't you extend the Account class with a TransferAmountTo(Amount, TargetAccount) method? I'm having trouble rationalizing why a transfer (an action verb) would be an object, which are traditionally nouns. You wouldn't want to take that transfer, serialize it, and move it someplace else, no... read more »

  • Converting A Full CSS Selector To XPath Using ColdFusion

    Posted on Mar 13, 2009 at 11:37 PM

    I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't point out that you should talk like a pirate and use → instead of ==> .... read more »

  • Making My ColdFusion Tags More Consistent

    Posted on Feb 25, 2009 at 9:13 PM

    The problem with cfset is that there are only 3 of the 4 components. You can think of it as either an implied verb or an implied noun: <cfset y=x> translates as: "cfset [stored] y from x" -- implied verb or "[cfset] set y from x" -- implied subject Admittedly, the second seems like a bit ... read more »

  • Hal Helms - Real World Object Oriented Development, Sarasota - Day Two

    Posted on Feb 25, 2009 at 1:08 AM

    Blarg. This is why you don't comment at 1am. When I said "duck typing", I meant to say "method injection". I have no idea why it came out the other way. Cuckoo.... read more »

  • Hal Helms - Real World Object Oriented Development, Sarasota - Day Two

    Posted on Feb 25, 2009 at 1:03 AM

    Interesting. So how do you reconcile that with duck typing?... read more »

  • Making My ColdFusion Tags More Consistent

    Posted on Feb 24, 2009 at 3:40 PM

    Ack, Ben, can you unboldify that last comment? Sorry about that!... read more »

  • Making My ColdFusion Tags More Consistent

    Posted on Feb 24, 2009 at 3:39 PM

    Well, let me stop and reiterate definitions for each of those grammatical terms. Subject: The focus of the sentence. Verb: The action of the sentence. Indirect Object: The thing upon which the subject and verb are acting. Direct Object: The recipient of the action performed on the Indirect ... read more »

  • Hal Helms - Real World Object Oriented Development, Sarasota - The Cookout

    Posted on Feb 22, 2009 at 11:56 PM

    Thanks again for letting me crash your party. It was great to get out of my own little world for a while.... read more »

  • Using A Rough Box Model To Gather Near-By Zip Codes

    Posted on Feb 19, 2009 at 1:22 PM

    Todd- It's not exactly production-worthy, but here you go: http://code.google.com/p/nowrists/source/browse/ #svn/trunk/NoWriSts/where... read more »

  • Making My ColdFusion Tags More Consistent

    Posted on Feb 13, 2009 at 10:41 AM

    So it looks like you're doing subject - indirect object - verb - direct object ? I tend more to subject - verb - indirect object - direct object when I code. But as long as you are consistent, that's cool. My personal pet-peeve is the lack of consistency between YES/NO and TRUE/FALSE for attri... read more »

  • Using A Rough Box Model To Gather Near-By Zip Codes

    Posted on Feb 10, 2009 at 1:26 PM

    You could also argue that, in many cases, doing any of this on the db server at all is now a moot point. If you use the Google Maps API correctly, you can have it send an AJAX request with the Lat/Lon bounding box. No math needed! I wrote up some proof-of-concept code for this a while back: htt... read more »

  • Using A Rough Box Model To Gather Near-By Zip Codes

    Posted on Feb 10, 2009 at 10:47 AM

    Derf. Curly braces. Sorry. That's what I get for typing comments directly into the box and not testing them first. But you get my point.... read more »

  • Using A Rough Box Model To Gather Near-By Zip Codes

    Posted on Feb 10, 2009 at 10:44 AM

    I have to wonder how your performance would change if you built denormalized tables for common radius values. That is: CREATE TABLE Zip_50MI { start_zip INT NOT NULL, near_zip INT NOT NULL, distance_mi TINYINT NOT NULL } ALTER TABLE Zip_50MI ADD PRIMARY KEY (start_zip, near_zip) Then, run a... read more »

  • A Graphical Explanation Of Javascript Closures In A jQuery Context

    Posted on Feb 4, 2009 at 11:00 AM

    I second Brian's comment. As I was reading through the post I was thinking I'd have to find the same video. Pretty much all of the Crockford videos on Yahoo! are worth your time. Some of them get mind-bendingly complex, but they'll really open your eyes. Having said all of that, I'll also say th... read more »

  • Winners Of My 1,000th ColdFusion Post

    Posted on Jan 26, 2009 at 11:00 AM

    That is a truly twisted and inspired way to get a random number. I'm a little bummed that you couldn't work QoQ into it, but then I know you need to protect the image of your sanity with the community. Gratz on your kilopost.... read more »

  • Ask Ben: Removing Duplicate List Items While Maintaining Original List Order

    Posted on Jan 15, 2009 at 1:24 PM

    Ben said: "you can modify your example to use CFHTTP to pass in the list" Well played, sir. Well played.... read more »

  • Ask Ben: Removing Duplicate List Items While Maintaining Original List Order

    Posted on Jan 15, 2009 at 11:23 AM

    For your "How NOT to do it" file: <cfset strList="1,1,2,3,4,1,3,5,5,1,9,0,1"> <cfset q=queryNew("item,position")> <cfloop list="#strList#" index="j"> <cfset queryAddRow(q)> <cfset querySetCell(q, "item", j, q.recordCount)> <cfset querySetCell(q, "position", q.rec... read more »

I believe in love. I believe in compassion. I believe in human rights. I believe that we can afford to give more of these gifts to the world around us because it costs us nothing to be decent and kind and understanding. And, I want you to know that when you land on this site, you are accepted for who you are, no matter how you identify, what truths you live, or whatever kind of goofy shit makes you feel alive! Rock on with your bad self!
— Ben Nadel