Just updated my software page to bring it a little more up-to-date with what I’ve been doing in the past few years. It’s funny to see how my coding style has evolved and grown continually over that time. There were some things I used to be showing off that were almost totally procedural; even some […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Workaround for PEAR/PECL Failure with Message “ERROR: `phpize’ failed”
Monday, May 11th, 2009 – 10:24 am
When you try to upgrade or install various PEAR (or PECL) packages, you may get the rather unhelpful error message “ERROR: `phpize’ failed”. For example, here’s the result I get when I try to install the pecl_http package: root@finrod:~# pecl install pecl_http pecl/pecl_http can optionally use PHP extension "iconv" downloading pecl_http-1.6.3.tar ... Starting to download […]
When Have You Accomplished Enough?
Sunday, May 10th, 2009 – 5:36 pm
Okay, let me see if I can take stock of the day: I started off by getting my /etc, /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin, and /var/named directories under version control. That’s good. Plus I think I’ve got things set up to where I can upgrade WordPress plugins on my local setup, then reliably push the changes through […]
McAfee: Failing at Security Since 2005
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 – 10:37 am
Back in 2005, I was a “geek for hire” and did a lot of general troubleshooting for end-users. Including malware removal and general PC tune-ups. One client wanted me to install some software, including McAfee’s main end-user product at the time — I don’t recall the name. I do recall, however, that my head nearly exploded […]
TDD and Peace of Mind
Monday, May 4th, 2009 – 9:53 am
Let’s face it, we’re not perfect. As much as I might realize that automated testing is a good practice, it still feels like a chore sometimes. In my latest round of personal-project development, just setting up a decent set of test fixtures and a working test framework turned into something of a hassle, as it’s […]
On Complexity Versus Efficiency
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 – 6:39 pm
I sometimes imagine how I would teach certain concepts, if I were put in charge of a class. (Not just in programming, either; many people who know me have said I’d make a great teacher; perhaps I’ve taken it to heart.) One of the concepts in programming that I feel has a particularly poor “ease-of-teaching […]
Why Downloadable Documentation Is Critical
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 – 10:16 pm
PHP is a kludged-together, ugly mess of a language. But its documentation is quite superlative: practically every function has documentation written in a more-or-less standardized format, plus whatever comments users have added. In addition, they have something near and dear to my heart: Downloadable documentation. This means that if I’m developing on an airplane at […]
Making a Field Required Doesn’t Make It Truthful
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 – 9:35 am
Today’s lesson for people who make fields “required” on their web forms: You can make it “required”, but you can’t force people to tell you the truth. I recently filled out a form for a service that will eventually ship a book to me. I understand why they needed my street address, my credit card […]
Back to My Usual Server
Saturday, April 18th, 2009 – 8:05 pm
After a couple of months of temporary hosting with A2 Hosting, I finally have my real server back online, at a colo space in San José. Not that I have any complaints against A2 (heck, I even just gave them a little more Google-juice); they were perfectly servicable. But I’ve really gotten used to having […]
Where Netbooks Are Taking Us
Monday, March 2nd, 2009 – 1:47 pm
If you’re working on software development, you should absolutely read Clive Thompson article in Wired, The Netbook Effect: How Cheap Little Laptops Hit the Big Time. Thompson points out that the rise of the netbooks showed us that “traditional PC users…. didn’t want more out of a laptop—they wanted less.” Says Thompson: I wrote this […]