Flutterby™! : PageADay

Next unread comment / Catchup all unread comments User Account Info | Logout | XML/Pilot/etc versions | Long version (with comments) | Weblog archives | Site Map | | Browse Topics

PageADay

2013-09-17 12:53:56.082969+00 by meuon 3 comments

Today I found the group_concat() function for MySQL, and solved a major reporting conundrum with it. It saved me from writing a lot of code. While maybe not the optimal all cases solution, it worked more than good enough for what I needed to do.

I need to read about a function or feature every day about the tools I already think I know. In some of that spare time I keep hearing people have.

[ related topics: Open Source Writing Mathematics Databases ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2013-09-17 15:14:07.839123+00 by: Dan Lyke

My problem is trying to figure out how to choose a set of tools to focus on. There are times when I really envy the NeXT coders who became Apple coders who have been able to spend their careers primarily on one widget set with largely one set of conventions. At this point even if I'd just stuck with Windows I'd be on the umpteenth different set of APIs.

And I really need to learn a functional language, just to change that thinking and get into a non-OO headspace.

So, yeah, I love that sense of discovery and "whoah, this is an awesome tool!", but I've also got a bunch of ephemera filed away that'll never be used.

Sigh.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-09-17 16:19:50.980133+00 by: markd

I'm totally shocked and amazed at the legs the nextstep toolkit has. I fully expected to use it for 3 or 4 years in the early OS X days and move on to the next set of tools (like I did during the first dozen years of my career). Now I've been using basically the same stuff (with tweaks) for the last 12 years, and am carrying it around in my pocket. It's still fun too. Blows my mind.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-09-17 18:17:21.550519+00 by: ebradway

SQL has actually been around little longer. I got really annoyed by one of our younger developers who has been building our in-house test automation platform. The platform is backed by MySQL but he wants everything to go through his REST API. I tried to say "but SQL is an API, build database constraints, views, etc, if you need to protect the data." sigh...