I’m working on some code that determines the IP address of a given piece of equipment.  This is currently driven by a series of queries, several arrays to contain the values and code like ‘#ip_inside[4]#‘ in the CFM pages, which are pretty cryptic and not easy to read.

We recently updated another area of the application to get the IP addresses in a different way.  This change reduced the run time for a specific report from several hours to 3.5 minutes (so I’m quite pleased about that – especially as this was on my first day!  Great first impression!).

My task now is to update these diagram pages so they use the same method to determine the IP addresses – hence the custom tag.

This CT takes 4 parameters, like so: <cf_getIPAddress subnetcode=”encr” vlan=”1″ compsub=”1″ comptype=”5″>.  Using these 4 parameters, the CT will return the IP address of the component, along with any component-specific labels (such as a prefix of ‘Virtual’ for certain components).

The problem is that I have to put this code snippet into 30 different files, with a total number of 1,116 insertions!  That in itself is a lot of work, but when you consider that for each of these I also have to update a DB table (as one of the parameters isn’t currently recorded), insert the CT code, check and update the four parameters, save, upload and test, the task grows exponentially.

It’s taking about 2 minutes per insertion, so by my reckoning, it’s going to take about 37 hours to complete what my boss and I both thought was going to be a fairly simple task.

I wonder how long it will actually take?  I’ll report back when I know.

So, while I have almost 20 years of experience with various DBMS’, I have very little experience with the client’s choice of database engine, Oracle.

Some history: I started my development career (back in the stone age that was the mid 80’s) building very complex spreadsheets in Lotus 123 for a merchant bank, but soon convinced them to consider ‘proper’ databases, as Lotus wasn’t up to the job of handling such large datasets.  The demo I set up to illustrate the differences literally shocked a few folks there – they had no idea you could do this kind of processing outside of a spreadsheet!

So we moved to dBase, then Paradox (which I continued to develop with for quite a few years), then Turbo Pascal and Visual Basic.

Fast forward to 1995 and I’d started developing pure HTML web pages, quickly employing VB again to create static HTML from form inputs in a VB app – elementary stuff now, I know, but a lot of folks I worked with at the time thought it was revolutionary!  B->

In the meantime I had to develop for MS Access and Lotus Notes – these can hardly be filed under databases IMHO, but this was what I had to deal with.

By ‘97 I’d discovered CF and I honestly haven’t looked back. Of course, using CF pretty much requires a database to make it dance and sing, so MS Access soon gave way to MS SQL Server and eventually MySQL.  On occasion I’ve needed to interface with Ingres and a couple of other less mainstream DBMS’.

My Oracle experience has been restricted to one short term contract for a particular client, where there was a DBA – one of the old school, who wouldn’t let the ‘pleb’ developers create anything in ‘his’ database and had to review and manually create everything himself from a command line – I’m sure you’ve all come across the type.

So, on the desk next to me are several books on Oracle – two on the DBA aspect, two on the SQL syntax etc. I’ve spent the past few weeks learning Oracle in some depth and I’m both impressed and horrified by some of the things I’ve found. I’m impressed that Oracle has been built to be such a resilient, hard-working beast, but am horrified by how cryptic and complex (and sometimes damnably infuriating!) even small things can be.

I don’t expect to become an Oracle DBA overnight, but I expect it to start becoming easier, now I have my reference library here and now I’ve been digging under the hood a bit. I’m sure it will be a useful skill in the long term, even if I don’t get a chance to use Oracle again, purely from the discipline I’ll need to deal with this beast and the need to learn how to do things ‘properly’.

On a related note, here’s a great blog post from Ben Forta on the subject of letting the database do what it’s intended for.

Hardware
I use an Apple MacBook Pro as my main development machine.  I also have a Mac Mini, which is sometimes used as a testbed server or client, depending on my needs at the time.

When working from home, I usually have an external 19″ monitor connected and run my browser on the right-hand side monitor and my IDE (or whatever else I may be using) on the left-hand side.

Software
I use the following pieces of software:

Operating Systems

• OS X 105.5.5 – Naturally!
• Windows XP SP2 – In a couple of VMWare Fusion 2.0 VMs, purely to host MS SQL Server 2000/2005

Browsers & Plugins

• All the usual browsers, although Firefox 3.0 is my weapon of choice.
• Web Developers Toolbar
• Firebug
• ColdFire – If you’re a ColdFusion developer, these three plugins are essential
  

Servers

• Apache (from the XAMPP package)
• ColdFusion 7.02 (or 8.0, depending on the clients platform)

Databases

• MySQL – running natively (from the XAMPP package)
• MS SQL Server 2000/2005 – running in separate VMs
• Aqua Data Studio – Not a database itself, but a wonderful tool for managing databases, especially in an hybrid environment, where you may have more than one type of DB, or where you are transitioning from one DB to another

Editors & IDEs

• CFEclipse & Aptana, running on the Eclipse platform
• Textmate – for adhoc edits
• CSSEdit – easiest way to maintain stylesheets
  

Graphics

• Adobe Fireworks – Great tool for preparing web graphics
  
• Pixelmator – neat little graphics tool – much less ‘busy’ than PhotoShop
  

Source Control

• SubVersion – Version control system of choice
  
• Versions – SubVersion client
• SubClipse – Eclipse plugin

Development Resources

• Ant – Great tool for automating deployments and testing
  
• jQuery – Cool JavaScript library – makes JS development much simpler
  
• qForms – Wonderful JavaScript form validation library
  

Note taking, Administration & Documentation

• Circus Ponies Notebook – Really useful for keeping all those notes which normally live in .TXT files or on Post-it notes – I keep a separate file for each project
  
• iWork Pages ‘08 – No, I *WONT* use Word to produce your spec/report/docs!  B->
  
• NovaMind Pro – Mindmapping tool – absolutely essential!
• OmniFocus – Todo list manager
• OmniGraffle Pro – Used to create Visio-like diagrams for documentation
• OmniPlan – MS Project compatible Project management suite

Communications

• Adium – MSN/ICQ/GTalk-compatible IM clent
  
• Skype – VOIP client
• Spark – Jabber client
• MS Remote Desktop Client – For when I have to remotely access Windows servers for clients
• Vine Viewer – For my more enlightened clients who use VNC, as I do on all my machines at home
• Thunderbird – Email client of choice
• Transmit – FTP client, with synchronisation capabilities

Other Tools

• Dropbox – used to synchronise the code on my two Macs together
• Guiffy – file/folder comparison tool – similar to Beyond Compare, but not as good.  I have been known to use BC on one of my VMs, as it’s a far superior tool (apologies to the author of Guiffy, but it just is!)
• Quicksilver – provides fast access to docs & apps without using the mouse – normally the first piece of software I install on a new Mac
• Mozy – offsite backup tool, used for my docs and code
• ARRsync – Secondary backup tool – mirrors the same folders as Mozy, but to a server I control, rather than into Mozy’s ‘cloud’

This list isn’t a ‘best of breed’ collection necessarily, just the tools that I’ve found that work for me.  If anyone has any recommendations about anything better than anything I’ve listed, please feel free to comment.

Speakers on day one include:

• Andy Allan
• Mark Drew
• Gert Franz
• Peter Haak
• Harry Klein
• Luis Majano
• Darren Pywell

For a fee of €35, including food, this is a steal!

Day two is given over to training and the subjects being taught are:

• Advanced ColdFusion Administration and Configuration
• ColdBox
• Getting the most of SVN
• Build your own YouTube with Railo 3.1

Each course has it’s own associated cost, as detailed on their site.

I wonder how far it is to drive from Belgium…?  B->

It can also be arduous, thankless and stressful, but for the most part it's fun!

Especially when you get an award! B->

I was awarded one of these today:

..by my colleague, Kola – thanks, Dude!

These dynamically named queries return a single column of data, which I need to place into a list, which again would be dynamically named, using the passed value as part of the name.

The problem is that the ValueList() function doesn't accept dynamically generated parameters: Dan Switzer blogged about this problem last year.

I have a dim memory of hitting this problem before – a quick grep through my old code library leads me to believe it was early 1999 when I ended up using a complex series of cfloops & cfsets to achieve what I needed.

I find it difficult to understand why this seemingly glaring omission still hasn't been corrected after all these years.