xajax - PHP Notices/Warnings

Today we were playing with xajax trying to eliminate some redundant page reloads and also keeps some divs hidden based on user input without having to manage their state.  All was working as expected on our Linux box (Fedora) but when we tried to get it running on IIS it was dying.  It looked like no response or anything was coming back from some simple AJAX calls.  So we did as every good web developer should do - bust out FireBug.  Looking at the NET results we noticed we were in fact getting a response from our request but with an additional “PHP Notice undeclared variable message” (not show in the pic). It didn’t really dawn on us that this was the culprit until we opened IE 7 and it returned with a dialog box saying it could not parse the XML because of a space, pointing out the “Notice” message was returned before the XML response.  A closer look at our PHP.ini file resulted in use turning off Notices and turning on Errors only.  This was the issue.  Goes to show you having two browsers for debugging is a good thing

Written by Tim on June 25th, 2007 with 5 comments.
Read more articles on php and web 2.0 ish.

Safari on Windows

Thanks to Scott for clueing me in on the Safari 3 for Windows Public Beta.  I must have been hiding in a hole, cause I did not see this coming at all.

First Impression

• When I click on the top bar to expand the window, the dang thing disappears. Wait - Actually if I move it to my dual monitor and click the expand button the dang thing disappears.  Guess the dual monitor code hasn’t been put in.
• It is fast, very fast.  Although reports are FF is faster then IE, I’ve found IE to render quicker (maybe because of the extensions I have going on FF), but this thing is really fast.
• Finally, no more VNC to a MAC to make sure things are working correctly on Safari.  This is great.
• Font rendering is nice - not clear type, but pretty close.
• Hey the backspace keyboard doesn’t move you back in history - not cool.

I’m not switching from FF because of the extensive plugins I use but for some fast web browsing this might make take over my IE.

Written by Tim on June 11th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on unix and web 2.0 ish and windows.

Stored Procedures vs Ad Hoc SQL

Stored procedures debate from my point of view:

Pros of using Stored Procedures

• Cleaner code.  Thousand lines of logic and sql statements can be traded in for hundreds.
• Push more work to someone else besides developer.  If you have a dedicated DB guy, this can really help in your timing. 
• Put much more logic into Stored Procedure then Ad Hoc SQL
• Faster. Ok, maybe a little bit, but with processing power and RAM does this really matter anymore?
• Permissions are centralized and encompassed.
• Trips to the database server can be reduced.

Cons of using Stored Procedures

• Much harder to debug.  No UI debugger, stepping thru the code. 
• Harder to tell were errors lie. Does this lie at the stored procedure or my code calling it?  Plus the error codes returned by SQL are cryptic - “Error 512 was called” - Oh yeah, good old error 512.
• Parameter list can be really long, which takes away from the cleaner code.
• “Stored procedures also will open up a maintenance problem. The reason for this is that they form an API by themselves.” This is the main point that causes me to stay away from Stored Procedures.

I’m not entirely sure which side of the fence I lie.  Right now I’m more comfortable with not using stored procedures because of the maintenance factor.  I really think LINQ is going to make stored procedures deprecated.

.NET specific - Here is a nice line of code to keep around when working with stored procedures that I end up using when getting the the dreaded “Parameters do not match” error.  You can put this on your datasource Inserting Event.

Written by Tim on June 1st, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on asp.net and database.