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Jon Hartmann

Member since Jan 16, 2009

Recent Blog Comments By Jon Hartmann

  • Question: Reconciling One-Way Data Flow With Browser-Based Navigation

    Posted on Sep 28, 2016 at 11:45 PM

    Having links is good, at least where links make sense, and Angular and the rest can use links to urls attached to routes in most cases, it's just "easier" in most cases to not build a link, so developers don't.... read more »

  • Question: Reconciling One-Way Data Flow With Browser-Based Navigation

    Posted on Sep 27, 2016 at 9:44 AM

    Sounds like poor or shortcut development, depending on the situation. Routes and History API controls can be used to allow normal browser interactions and use of "real" links where necessary.... read more »

  • How To Store Arbitrary And Transient Attributes With Your User Data

    Posted on Jan 15, 2014 at 11:47 AM

    @Ben + @Aaron, Yeah, Aaron's example is pretty much what I'm saying, although his version is restricted to recording timings, where instead of having an something like "occurredAt" with a type of "date", I have a "value" column with whatever type is "any". Th... read more »

  • How To Store Arbitrary And Transient Attributes With Your User Data

    Posted on Jan 15, 2014 at 10:25 AM

    You're still thinking horizontally when talking about making an "intro_video_viewing" table... what happens as you add more info about viewing the video? More columns. What happens when you need more info about some other aspect of your site? More tables with more columns. Try this: User... read more »

  • Dumping Out The CGI Scope Does Not List All Available CGI Values In ColdFusion

    Posted on Oct 11, 2013 at 3:57 PM

    @Aaron, I'm with you; I absolutely hate that CGI gives back empty strings. Its essentially a unique behavior that goes against all documentation and language expectations.... read more »

  • Dumping Out The CGI Scope Does Not List All Available CGI Values In ColdFusion

    Posted on Oct 11, 2013 at 10:18 AM

    This is also the reason that the CGI doesn't throw errors if you request variables that don't actually exist. If you ask for CGI["OMGTHISISBAD"] all you get is an empty string, not some kind of undefined error.... read more »

  • Most CSS Floats Can Be Replaced With Relative And Absolute Positioning

    Posted on Oct 2, 2013 at 9:37 AM

    Give credit where it's due :) Once something is absolutely positioned, there is no way to force containing elements to hold it; its not useful for say putting to columns next to each other with a footer below, unless you know the exact content of the columns. For the situations you describe, yeah, i... read more »

  • Providing A Return Value In A JavaScript Constructor

    Posted on Sep 5, 2013 at 9:17 AM

    I can possibly see this as a way to create an object that lets you use the "new Something()" syntax as a constructor but allows "private" methods through encapsulation, but what other use-cases would you have?... read more »

  • The User Experience (UX) Of Rating Things

    Posted on Aug 14, 2013 at 3:42 PM

    @Joe, You're right that an N/A response may be appropriate in some cases, depending on the survey and question. If I'm trying use a one-question rating to gauge a product though, I'd think that you wouldn't be interested in someone that doesn't really have an opinion. I also think of it this way..... read more »

  • The User Experience (UX) Of Rating Things

    Posted on Aug 14, 2013 at 1:47 PM

    Sorry to keep jumping in, but this thread got me thinking and I threw together this demo: http://jsfiddle.net/8n88z/1/ Needs graphical assists like replacing the "1 star" text with stars (or merging the two bars into 4 big stars you select/slid between). I could also see showing only t... read more »

  • The User Experience (UX) Of Rating Things

    Posted on Aug 14, 2013 at 11:44 AM

    @Joe, That is terrible... 7.5 is a 75% satisfaction rating which is practically unheard of in online retail let alone your situation: http://www.foreseeresults.com/news-events/press-releases/us-holiday-eretail-2012-foresee.shtml... read more »

  • The User Experience (UX) Of Rating Things

    Posted on Aug 14, 2013 at 10:29 AM

    @Ben, Yeah, its a good topic... what does a rating really mean? I sometimes get why companies want to do the 1-10 system, but in the end its how that data is used that matters. I like your example of the movie interest because as an end user you can interpret more than a single view off the data. I... read more »

  • The User Experience (UX) Of Rating Things

    Posted on Aug 14, 2013 at 10:09 AM

    I always think of this cartoon any time I have to give a rating: http://xkcd.com/1098/... read more »

  • The Anatomy Of An INNER JOIN Query In SQL

    Posted on Aug 5, 2013 at 2:14 PM

    Yeah... After checking in SSMS, it looks like my suggestion of Nested joins is going to execute the same as joining them all and sorting it out in the WHERE clause. That optimizer man... its pretty slick.... read more »

  • The Anatomy Of An INNER JOIN Query In SQL

    Posted on Aug 2, 2013 at 10:00 AM

    Kate, I don't have a SQL Server install handy to check the execution, but I'm 99% certain that if you're joining 2 tables through a third, say A to B to C, and you know that you only need results where C.Date IS NULL then you want to filter that out in the nested JOIN rather than in the WHERE clause... read more »

  • The UX Of Prototyping: Low-Fidelity Is The New High-Fidelity

    Posted on May 10, 2013 at 11:34 AM

    This is why I prefer Balsamiq for my wire-framing. It supports simple colors, but the default is line-drawing style. This help to reinforce that the design is still just a sketch, rather than a finalized implementation. Its more "breakable".... read more »

  • ColdFusion Query-Of-Queries vs. The Group Attribute In CFOutput

    Posted on Jun 14, 2011 at 11:14 AM

    While I have to say that QoQ does offer additional support, you've now written three queries rather than one, and have to change all three queries if the base one is altered in the future. This is a maintainability nightmare. A <cfloop query="x" group="y"> uses functionalit... read more »

  • ColdFusion's Application.cfc Session Events Are Not Session-Specific

    Posted on Feb 18, 2010 at 3:03 PM

    @Ben: I think we're saying the same thing, but with different points of view. I prefer not to use conjoined applications in ColdFusion because I don't feel that they are a complete solution. I'm not really a fan of the fact that you can declare the same application in two or more different Applica... read more »

  • ColdFusion's Application.cfc Session Events Are Not Session-Specific

    Posted on Feb 18, 2010 at 1:14 PM

    This is actually exactly what I would have expected to happen. I think the mistake here is that you're looking at the OnSessionStart/End methods as being a part of the session, but really they are part of the application. Although you've declared that these two applications are the same application ... read more »

  • Using $Variable In jQuery Code Is Just Hungarian Notation

    Posted on Dec 10, 2009 at 10:18 AM

    I'm right there with you Ben; I held strongly to Hungarian notation for a long time, but abandoned it because it looses meaning in loosely typed languages such as CF and JS, and in strongly typed languages, the compilers wont let you make a mistake any way. Strangely, I still use the $ prefix in o... 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