Tinsology

Throughout the life of a database there may come times when it needs to be updated to incorporate changes or new features. This may involve adding new attributes to existing entities; adding new columns to tables. The problem with this is that in a populated database, modifying the database schema can be very expensive with regard to performance. This is not something you want to do frequently on a live site. One method which not only makes your database more resilient to future change, but also improves modularity is the use of metadata. You don't have to look very hard to…

Making a custom login system is a common task for beginning PHP developers. Jumping right into it, however, may not be the best approach. There are several important aspects do building a login system that not only makes it work, but makes it safe.

Occasionally I'll see someone make a point of distinguishing coding in a particular language as scripting as opposed to programming. Often times the distinction is arbitrary. I've seen justifications for this distinction ranging from scripting languages not being as strict as programming languages, to scripting languages not being turing complete. Web languages in particular (HTML, javascript, PHP, etc) seem to have the stigma of being scripting languages. To this day, however, I have not seen a non-trivial definition of the difference (or perhaps just one that satisfies me). This does not mean that I don't think there is a difference…

In my experience, one of the most common pitfalls for beginning programmers is not understanding the relationships between objects in their environment. This is especially the case in web development where there is in almost every case a blend between multiple client side and server side scripts. Failure to understand the the way browsers and servers communicate or the relationships between (X)HTML (or javascript or CSS etc) and PHP (insert alternative language here) will certainly lead to a poor or incorrect implementation. If you are an experienced programmer you probably won't gain much from reading this, but if you are a beginner, hopefully I can provide some insight that will save you a lot of trouble.

F.I.N.A.L.S. F%*k I never actually learned s&^t. Back in one week…

It is not too often in the real world that you have to implement your own sort. Generally, whatever language you are using has a library with this functionality built in. If the occasion does arise, however, it is important to understand which algorithms are applicable in which situations. As with most choices, there is no absolute correct answer; there are many trade offs to consider. When choosing an algorithm there are three things you should consider: performance, overhead, and ease of implementation. You should give equal consideration to each of these factors, disregarding any one of them can lead to…

If you've ever read a magazine you've probably noticed that often the first character on a page stands out. Usually its larger, a different color, or stylized in some way. This effect is called an initial or a drop cap. Using CSS it is fairly simple to achieve this effect. CSS supports the pseudo element "first-letter" which allows you to modify the appearance on the first letter of a paragraph...

I often see people asking how to do things with a given programming language that it was not intended to do. Recently I read a post from someone who wanted to know how to take a java program and compile it to a .exe. For anyone who is not aware, Java programs are not compiled in the same way a C++ program is compiled. The java source code is first compiled to bytecode. That bytecode is then interpreted by the java virtual machine. The writer was intending to get a performance boost by having the code compiled rather than interpreted. While…

If you are at all familiar with PHP you are probably aware that you can put variables inside double quotes. For example:

If you are a programmer you should do yourself, and anyone else working with your code, a favor: stop using copy and paste. If there is a case where you need to use the exact same, or very similar, code in multiple places, that is a sign that you should be using a function, object, or other structure. I say this not for the sake of 'proper coding practices', but to save you and anyone else dealing with your code a massive headache. I admit that there have been cases where I have copied code (I was young! I didn't know…