2007 September » Jasny · web development

RE: How to choose an Ajax Framework

Sep 302007

This is a reaction to article (or is it a commercial) ‘How to choose an Ajax Framework’.

The idea behind client side only AJAX is that you don’t have to do a lot of complicated javascript work yourself. The difficult stuff is done by the lib and you only have to call it upon HTML event.
Since the code is actually executed on the client, having client-side code, makes the code base simpler. The lines of code will most likely be less than with a server side solution. The only drawback is that you do need to program some javascript. This might be a new language to you and therefore uncomfortable.

There is a third key of AJAX framework not discussed in this articled. These framework are usually described as RIA (Rich Internet Application) platforms. These frameworks parse XML much like how XHTML is parsed by the browser. The XML contains a lot more nodes types than HTML and is usually extendible. So instead of only having having an <input> tag, you will have things like <tree> and <datagrid>.
Ajax calls are also represented as XML and neat things like databinding is also supported.

RIA frameworks:
Abode Flex
Ajax.org PlatForm
Dojo Dijit
OpenLaszlo

If you’re working on a web based application and not at a website RIA platforms are certainly worth having a look at. OpenLaszlo has got a good screencast, which is representative for all of these frameworks.

Wrong PHP prediction: you don’t need to patch PHP to run multiple versions

PHP, Ubuntu 3 Responses »

Sep 072007

I read an article on Michael Kimsals blog about how he is waiting for a patch to run different PHP versions on the same Apache server. I think he is misinformed and I highly doubt than someone will write that patch. The solution is here already.

You simple can’t have PHP4 and PHP5 both run as Apache2 module in the same process, because they use a lot of the same internal symbols (variables, function names, etc). If you would change that, nobody would be able to write any extensions which run both on PHP4 and PHP5. However you can run multiple PHP versions as CGI modules and there is no patch required for that.
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Log Buffer #61: A Carnival of the Vanities for DBAs

MySQL, Sphinx and NoSQL, PHP 30 Responses »

Sep 072007

This week I have the honer of write Log Buffer. If you’re a fan of everything new and shiny, just sit back, because you’ll enjoy this weeks edition.

For those who’ve never heard of Arnold Daniels. I’m a software engineer at Javeline, an active member of the MySQL community and the author of lib_mysqludf_xql which is part of the MySQL UDF Repository. Well thats more than enough about me. I’m not here to get a job or a date, but to bring you the latest news.

Dreaming of Oracle features
Oracle has recently brought out version 11g of their database server. Just when you thought other DBMSs were catching up in the feature departement, Oracle goes and leaps ahead. It’s packed with new and useful features. Arup Narda has started a series of articles about the top new features for DBAs and developers. But before start migrating all your servers, Yahoo reported of ‘Stupid’ holes in 11g discovered Alexander Kornbrust. By that, Eric Gross concluded that rushing into new versions usually isn’t a good idea.

Sneak preview of PosgreSQL 8.3
In PosgreSQL land, Merlin Moncure is giving a sneak preview of the new features of PosgreSQL 8.3. In Postgres, you have the ability to create complex types and use arrays, version 8.3 will combine these 2 features. In another nice article he explained how use the array functionality to create a tree structure as a query result.

Falcon is coming
MySQL isn’t standing still in bringing new features as well. Erik Wetterberg talks a bit more about the new LOAD XML feature implemented in (the still unavailable) version 5.2.
On a bigger scale, MySQL is pushing forward the new Falcon transactional storage engine. Voices in the community though say that Falcon is not yet ready for this attention. Jeremy Cole has some critique on his blog. Ben Krug has decided to put his opinion in a poem.

More news
Fernando Nunes reports that IDS will get stronger suppor for linux. Ravi S.Maniam has an article about enhancements in date and time data types for Microsofts SQL server 2008.

Becoming a hero
Having the right answer at the right time is what can make people appreciate that you’re around.
Coskan Gundogar shows a method of restoring your data in Oracle even if you’ve lost your controlfile backups. He does not that when that happens, it’s probably a good time to use Oracle support and not try fiddling yourself. Christian Bilien found a way of moving 10TB of data from a non-RAC to a RAC system. Just image telling your boss `moving 10TB, sure no problem`.
On xaprb an article was posted, describing a cunning way to notify event listeners in MySQL.
Joe Webb has an interesting post about how the SQL optimizer can make a mistake depending on the statistics for an index in SQL server.

The end of the RDBMS
Michael Stonebraker advocates the coming of column-oriented databases and with it the end of RDBMSs. The article also got good coverage by computer world, stating that big names like Google have started using column-oriented DBs with its BigTable and more will follow.
Peteris Krumins has collected a huge amount of video links about scalability, including one about Googles BigTable. You can also get a look bind the scenes for YouTube and Wikipedia. MySQL and its cluster also pass the stage.
I don’t know if Peteris was planning to visit the Oracle installfest in Riga, but if so he isn’t getting a T-Shirt.

That wraps it up for this weeks Log Buffer. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Many thanks to Dave Edwards for giving me this opportunity and helping to collect articles. And remember don’t be shy, you may visit my blog anytime.

A better token algorithm with PHP

PHP 6 Responses »

Sep 062007

Maxim Chernyak posted an article on his blog about creating an authentication token using PHP. I wouldn’t recommend using this method to do that though. Even if the pattern looks quite complex, a computer will figure out the pattern using a hand full of valid keys. It’s very difficult to come up with an algorithm which is difficult to hack.

If you can keep information from the user, which Maxims article assumes as well, you can use MD5 to generate keys. Simply add a string you keep secret to each key.
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Migrating from PHP4 to PHP5: A strategy for hosts

PHP, Ubuntu 3 Responses »

Sep 012007

If you have a shared hosting company and are still running PHP4, you might feel the pressure rising. Articles like ‘Now showing: PHP’s true colors’ basically tell you to make the switch and take the hit, but they do not give any advice how to handle this.

The basic problem is that you can inform your customers that you’re migrating to PHP5, but if you can’t provide a testing platform for your customers, how are they going to know if migrating will break their sites.

A few months ago I’ve posted an article about running multiple Apache instances with different PHP versions. In that article I showed how to make multiple configurations running Apache on different IP addresses. By using different ports instead of different IP addresses, we can give our customers a way to check their site before it goes live.
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