Rusty Badger

Life as a developer can be fun.

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!

My cousin Andy just sent me this link via FaceBook:

Priceless! I've been a Bob & Tom fan for years and this is a great example of their show.

I have an odd problem – I'm trying to accomplish something in CF which requires me to loop through a list of values, performing a query for each iteration and using the passed value as part of the query name. I know there are various reasons why this isn't considered a good idea, performance-wise, but I have an odd set of circumstances.

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.

This seems to be becoming a series! B->

While emailing my team about my current project, the function name “getMetadata” tripped the ThunderBird chelling specker, which suggested I might wish to replace this word with “vegetated”!

I didn't know whether to be amused or insulted! B->

Last night myself and a few friends went to see Bill Bailey's Tinselworm show at Wembley – I hadn't laughed so much in years! Next day my sides still ached.

The show was being recorded for a DVD release, so I look forward to watching this show again and again, like I do Bill's other DVDs.

There are a few video clips from the show on You Tube, but I did spot this classic moment from Bill's Part Troll show:

Wonderfully talented chap!

This looks like any other Dutch online shop, but just wait a moment (or mouse over the blue cup on the right-hand side).

I'm not sure whether to be surprised, concerned or amused that when I typed an email in Thunderbird this afternoon, the spell checker didn't recognise the word 'Firefox'! B->

My friend and colleague and fellow blogger Kola Oyedeji's wife gave birth the a baby girl early this morning.

All three of them are doing well.

All the best to the family, Kola.

Here's one for the Prog fans!

As a developer, you sometimes get to have fun during the long hours coding by using silly words as variable names or adding funny comments that the end users never see, but yesterday I surpassed myself!

I was helping a fellow developer complete a system which automatically built a form from entries in a database – something I've done before and am about to start working on for my current client.

We needed a name for the main control component, which called several 'Builder' components (one to build a select field, another for radio buttons etc.), so I suggested we call it 'MasterBuilder'

(Note for the techies in the audience: Right about now, most of the Prog fans are laughing or going 'Yeah!', but you have no idea why that's funny! B->)

Basically, for the uninitiated, the stand out track on the 1974 album 'You' by Gong is called MasterBuilder.

More information about this stunningly good album can be found in this review.

It's just a pity I couldn't get a comment into his code about 'Pot Head Pixies'! B->