The SQL database offers a domain-independent NULL value. This is a terrible thing, and should be treated with a depth of respect and fear.

Before using NULL values in a database, read things like "Null Values in Fuzzy Datasets" and "Null Values Revisited in Prospect of Data Integration".

See this …

It seems so simple: use the HTTP Digest Authorization with the Quality of Protection set to "auth".

It's an easy algorithm. A nonce that encodes a timestamp can be used to be sure no one is attempting to cache credentials. It's potentially very, very nice.

Except for one thing: Apache …

Software developers get so used to their Culture of Complexity, they hardly notice it.

See Asshole-Driven Development for more thoughts on this. The comments add lots and lots of examples of dysfunctional development. Many of these are additional examples of complexity run amok.

My personal addition is Next Year's Dollars …

I sat through a great use case analysis session recently.

"Great" because I saw lots of ways to derail a simple process. Eventually, we did identify a couple of actors and a couple of use cases. But it took hours and hours.

Bonus: this was the third go-round on these …

We're not really talking about "Learning Styles" as much as "Denial Styles". This is a list of responses to "Astonishment" I've seen.

We're not talking about the Kübler-Ross model of grief, although this is similar.

However, the response to astonishment isn't a "progression" toward acceptance. Some folks simply don't like …

From a Blog that's inside a company's firewall, so this had to be heavily edited.

"The instant ON is a relief. The full page touch screen works just like on the iPhone - only better. Web pages look great.. Photographs and Movies are fabulous. The screen resolution is fantastic. Sharing pictures …

My bias is toward "printable" documents. I like the idea of an HTML document that is directly printable. I've used tools like Flying Saucer (and appropriate CSS) to guarantee printability.

I like using ReStructured Text to create HTML and LaTeX that match precisely.

When I think of Literate Programming, I'm …

A truly great question came up the other day.

"Why change passwords every 90 days? What is the threat scenario countered by that policy?"

Of course strong password policy means constantly changing passwords. Right?

Then I started to think about it. What -- actually -- does a password change protect you against …

Got this question recently.

I’m looking for an HTML editor that fits into my price range (free of course). I don’t need to do anything fancy, just vanilla HTML to run on an Apache server ..., and maybe some PHP down the line. Can you recommend any open source …

Today, we're reviewing the final and only code in the application. It's just that simple. We'll start with the data model.

CREATE TABLE STUFF(
    COLUMN1 TEXT,
    COLUMN2 TEXT,
    COLUMN3 TEXT
    );

As you can see from the enclosed table design, we have generalized the general triple-store to make it more general …