The Cave

Variable length DECIMAL type in SQL Server 2005 SP2 and 2008. Nice for most uses, where you need a potentially huge value but typically store smaller ones. Think: vardecimal is to decimal as varchar is to char. Nice.

SQL Server 2008 will finally support real date/time data types. I never liked the “datetime” (timestamp) only model Microsoft’s offered for over a decade. To be honest, I’m not sure if SQL Server inherited DATETIME from Sybase or Visual Basic, or if VB got it from SQL Server, but it’s still wrong. I want a [...]

Jeff’s SQL Server Weblog, though some things are universal across all DBMS such as this article on composite primary keys.

Excellent post that’s half praise, half tutorial and half citing jQuery design and implementation patterns as a model for JavaScript developers in general. Recommended read, for any of those halves

Nice wiki.

Python 3000 isn’t quite the same animal. Of course, it is rather impressive. After all, how many languages manage to break their canonical Hello World

I unearthed Baldur’s Gate (yes, the original) and it’s almost as much fun as the first time around. Loaded up with all the latest mods it’s a bit richer than the original and fun enough in its own right. A full walkthrough is handy, for those of us impatient to wander around in the woods [...]

C Preprocessor written in Java. Looks useful, if you need a pure C-style preprocessor.

How to use Umdh.exe to find memory leaks

Well, yes, in many ways it is: Yes, at one point Java was definitely a god-send. It rescued me from the Microsoft hell I was dealing with at the time (this is back in 1999) and opened up a whole new world of options, as well as lead me to Unix, etc. But many years [...]

VC8 added a new feature: the CRT will not load unless it’s (a) staged in a specific location and (b) the caller binary includes a manifest resource. Details can be found here. This is part of Microsoft’s Side-by-Side (SxS) suport, but lordy is it a PITA. Starting with the well-but-obscurely documented process to make this [...]

Remarks about Stripes, Struts 2, Tapestry, Seam, jRoR, Grails, Spring and Wicket. Best comment, regarding Seam: JSF makes me want to vomit. Maybe Seam makes it not suck as bad. I read the early Seam examples and wandered away shaking my head. I know people who love it, though, so would probably eval it for [...]

Several claims regarding the current state of affairs: David Chapelle recently claimed that the REST vs WS* debates moved from ideological to practical territories: Since both approaches to Web-based services offer benefits, developers can pick either approach on practical grounds without declaring allegiance to one side or the other. Are the REST/WS* wars really over? [...]

NIO-based library for client+server-side applications. Looks nifty.

Here’s an interesting idea: A technique I have used with great success in the past is what I have so cleverly named “Friday Afternoons”. Friday afternoons are probably the least productive part of an employee’s week. They are watching the clock in anticipation of the weekend. It happens to everyone. Experienced sales people will tell [...]

A Guide to Hiring Programmers: The High Cost of Low Quality and followup.

Gavin’s suggested improvements for JSF. He forgot the mention the primary solution: Shoot it and use a far-less-braindead web framework.

CsvReader for Java. Seems to be almost as good as Python’s csv module.