Misfeatures #1

From http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/extensions-to-ansi.html:

MySQL Server understands the || and && operators to mean logical OR and AND, as in the C programming language. In MySQL Server, || and OR are synonyms, as are && and AND. Because of this nice syntax, MySQL Server doesn’t support the standard SQL || operator for string concatenation; use CONCAT() instead. Because CONCAT() takes any number of arguments, it’s easy to convert use of the || operator to MySQL Server.

Which brain-dead moron came up with this gem of a misfeature?   What’s C got to do with anything? (And I like C).  What they meant to say was “Because of this nice syntax, seasoned users of other systems will waste their time trawling through the docs to find out why on earth a most basic SQL standard doesn’t work as it should.” I shall limit myself to saying that this example epitomises the MySQL philosophy, and is frankly the kind of mindset more commonly associated with Redmond.

Sanity-saving tip for database-upgrade-migration hell

As a web app in beta, phuser.com is still evolving rapidly. This means that I am often faced with the trauma of migrating a dataset from one version to another, sometimes with substantial changes in the database schema. I’ve developed various tricks for this – some are ugly but effective and involve things like sed, whilst others score more highly on the cool-o-meter.  Being the nice fellow that I am I will spare you the former and show you one of the latter.

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

Peter Norvig’s article Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years is not new, but I want to flag it up because it really is dead on the money and full of sage tips for the budding software engineer. In fact, as Peter says, the basic principal seems to apply to many acquired skills. Natural talent is a always a great start but there’s no short-cut to solid experience. And that means getting your hands dirty. It means learning the tools of your trade as well as the techniques, the practice as well as the theory. And, like Donald says, it means knowing that most of what’s out there is unknown unknowns, even after ten years of dedicated graft.