The Nazg Speaketh

Using TKPROF? Don't Rename Your Trace Files!

2013-04-16T16:23:00.000-05:00

Note to self: an Oracle trace file must still be named its original name if you want TKPROF to accept it for processing. I received two Oracle trace files, after both had been renamed to be more meaningful in the current troubleshooting context. I then churned butter for 30 minutes, trying to understand why TKPROF would not do anything except say "could not open trace file". Eventually, I

Turn Those IF Branches Around

2012-10-31T12:23:00.002-05:00

When I find a conditional structure of IF-ELSEIF-ELSE or bigger, in most cases I've noticed that the first things being checked for are the exceptional conditions, the exclusionary conditions, and then the expected follow-the-rules condition will be the last piece. In effect, the branch that gets chosen the most is the last one reached. In looking for refactoring opportunities to simplify these

Improving My Use of Database Lookup Tables in PHP

2012-10-31T10:17:00.000-05:00

When you're deep in code and realize that each item of a batch needs to check some other info from somewhere else, the most straightfoward way to get the info you

Overcoming LDAP "Size Limit Exceeded" Query Limitations in PHP

2012-08-15T16:47:00.000-05:00

My experience with large LDAP query result sets left me looking for a good workaround for the server-side Size Limit setting, which can't be overridden from the query client. I found several examples online that basically just split one large query into alphabet-based individual queries that aggregated results. I've modified this approach into something I think is more elegant, and in practice

DocBlox Is Unmasked ... It Is Really phpDocumentor 2 !

2012-03-16T08:10:00.001-05:00

Announcing phpDocumentor 2 -- the merging of the old (phpDocumentor) and the new (DocBlox). With the first alpha release of phpDocumentor (2.0.0a1), the new "Responsive" default template sports a new page layout, along with the useful layout improvements that the original DocBlox templates provided (which remain available) over the old phpDocumentor templates (which will retire with old

CodeWorks '09 - Atlanta

2009-09-30T13:17:00.014-05:00

I was lucky enough to hit the Atlanta stop of the 2009 CodeWorks conference tour earlier this week. It was great seeing faces I'd not seen since php|works nearly a year ago, and I greatly enjoyed the sessions I was able to attend. In particular, I've learned about several PHPUnit features that I was unaware of which will come in handy with the varied continuous integration work I'm involved in

Configuring Builds for PEAR Packages in phpUnderControl

2009-02-04T08:00:00.000-06:00

As my key goal for 2009, getting my own phpUnderControl (hereafter referred to as "pUC") instance up and running was very satisfying. This was made much easier by having Matthew Turland's post about his experience setting up an instance on Debian, since my setup on Ubuntu Hardy LTS was architecturally nearly identical.Following the "Getting Started" instructions at pUC's site was easily enough

Looking Ahead... 2009

2009-01-05T13:03:00.023-06:00

My retrospective on 2008 naturally led me to pondering what goals I hope to achieve in the coming year.Professional goals:Setting up my own continuous integration box specifically for my PEAR development is an open item I've had for myself for a good long time. One thing that's complicated this dream of mine is that since I want it specifically for my PhpDocumentor development work, I want to

Looking Back... 2008

2009-01-05T13:02:00.048-06:00

After first entering the PHP world in 2006, then getting involved with PEAR via PhpDocumentor in 2007, I'd say 2008 was my big PHP year, though I hope to go farther in 2009.Big stepsI was elected to the 2008-2009 PEAR Group during the summer.I became a technical reviewer for Travis' Git book over the fall. While not technically a "PHP moment", the experience has infected me with a "get published

Seven Things - Tagged By Jeff Jones

2009-01-03T22:50:00.053-06:00

Whoa, someone actually did tag me. And there I was thinking I'd managed to get myself shunned by the #phpapp/#works crowd as punishment for not getting an talk idea in for #tek ;-P So then, my Seven Deadly(-to-my-rep) Nazgbits:Due to being a "Jr" named for a middle-named "Richard" that goes by "Dick", I had the memorable experience of my dad proclaiming to my extended family right after my high

Remote CLI Debugging via Eclipse PDT

2008-12-02T07:34:00.016-06:00

About a month ago, I finally sat still long enough to get "PHP Web Page" debugging via Xdebug figured out in Eclipse PDT. As far as my Eclipse setup went, this involved installing PHP itself locally with xdebug added, and telling Eclipse where I put it all. From the very first remote PHP file I ran through the debug session, I could tell I've been missing out on a very useful tool. The only

php|works 2008

2008-11-15T16:02:00.023-06:00

After attending my very first PHP conference in October (php|appalachia), this past week I attended my first "has the open bar switched to cash bar yet"-level conference, php|works... what a great experience it was.With the huge lineup of sessions available, I found myself torn between choices more than once. I enjoyed a nice mix of new concepts (traits, map-filter-reduce), improvement

Next Bug Triage Days for PEAR

2008-08-20T10:05:00.002-05:00

PEAR's next Bug Triage days are this weekend:Saturday 4 PM - 9 PM UTC (that's 11a - 4p for me on US Central time)Sunday 4 PM - 10 PM UTC (11a - 5p for me)The agenda is posted on the wiki. Join us on EFNet's #pear-bugs IRC channel if you can help out!

Next Bug Triage Days for PEAR

2008-08-01T08:59:00.004-05:00

Polyphasic: FAIL

2008-06-19T07:29:00.003-05:00

Family responsibilities over the last few days trumped my nap times, especially yesterday when I had to bring my youngest son with me to the office... try telling your energetic seven year old "Daddy has to turn out all the lights in the room and sleep for 30 minutes... you just sit there and do nothing, ok?" My babysitter informed me at 10p the night before she wouldn't make it, so I planned

Faltered: Polyphasic, the Events of Week #3

2008-06-09T08:31:00.015-05:00

My week at the beach was a great vacation, though it unexpectedly put a temporary halt on my polyphasic pattern halfway through. Now that I'm back home, I'll recover my pattern... but what led to such failure?Preparing for the drive down to the beach was slightly tricky, in that I needed to plan around my naps. With six people traveling together across two vehicles, I didn't want to impose any

Update: Polyphasic, Night #12

2008-05-27T23:36:00.004-05:00

The past week has seen some triumphs and some failures, though I must concede that I have not yet reached the true polyphasic rhythm. In preparation for an overnight visit from my mother on Thursday, I did an excellent job keeping myself busy all night Wednesday night cleaning the house. Then on Thursday, I let myself miss my 5:30p and 9:30p naps, to get in more visiting time while she was here

Update: Polyphasic, Night #5

2008-05-20T23:07:00.005-05:00

So, tonight begins my 5th night following the polyphasic sleep pattern I'd mapped out. Staying awake between naps during the overnight hours is definitely proving to be the hardest part. My brain is in enough of a fog during those hours that I come really close to dozing off, thinking "it's perfectly normal to doze off when I feel this sleepy"... i.e. I'm forgetting about my experiment! To

20 Hour Days, Here I Come !!!

2008-05-16T09:17:00.017-05:00

Thanks to seeing Travis' post earlier this week, I discovered this oddity called "polyphasic sleep". After reading Steve Pavlina's entire journey he blogged back in 2005 and the success he found, I can't help but give this a shot. The only thing higher than "more time!!" on my "want want want" list is "hit the lottery" :-PIn comparing Steve's lifestyle with my own (based on other postings on

Eclipse Mylyn - Sync to PEAR

2008-04-21T12:50:00.002-05:00

After figuring out how to tie Mylyn to Sourceforge's trackers, and learning via observation how its screen-scraping regexp worked, I moved on to configuring a Task Repository tied to the PEAR bug tracking system.Rather than rehashing the explanations of what Mylyn elements I am configuring, this time I'm just going to provide the config settings that worked for me. Once again, my configuration

Eclipse Mylyn - Sync to Sourceforge

2008-04-15T12:30:00.001-05:00

The task tracking plugin Mylyn has proven to be a useful addition to my Eclipse layout (I'm using the Europa release). Luckily for me (and my PhpDocumentor work), I'd found a wiki post outlining how to create a "task repository" that ties in to Sourceforge.net, but I think the instructions were old enough that the Sourceforge HTML pages no longer matched. The key point to understand when making