While doing some AJAX programming, I discovered a serious and extremely frustrating bug when using XMLHTTP in Internet Explorer. It appears that IE is prone to malfunctioning, unless a document accessed through AJAX has its HTTP header set to disallow caching. Beware!
Every gardener has a little patch of this planet that he or she loves and tends to. To these people, a patch is more than just a rectangular plot of land filled with dirt and flora. It is a living thing that needs care and attention; and in return, it brings great beauty and a feeling of fulfilment. The same is true of programmers the world over, and of the countless patches of code that they lovingly maintain throughout cyberspace.
The novel is considered the most ubiquitous of all forms of literature. You can find novels by the truckload in any old bookstore. But what is the true 'novel style', and just how common are 'real novels'? Read on to find out why novels aren't quite so common as you might think.
Last week marked my first Drupalversary: I have been a member of drupal.org for one year! Since starting out as yet another webmaster looking for a site management solution, I have since become an active member of the Drupal community. Now it's time to look back at the past year, to see where Drupal has come, to see what it's done for me (and vice versa), and to predict what I'll be up to Drupal-wise over the course of the next year.
The concept of a 'draft version' has always seemed rather alien to me. Without ever even realising it, I always correct and analyse my writing as I go, making sure that my first version is as near to final as can be. It recently occurred to me that I am incapable of writing in 'rough form'. Is this a blessing or a curse?
I've been working on a project at University, in which my team had to produce a large number of software design documents, which now have to be translated into working code. Wouldn't it be great if I could write just one design specification, and if from that, numerous diagrams and skeleton code could all be auto-generated? What the world needs is a plain-text program design standard.
Attending the Web Essentials 2005 conference (others' thoughts on WE05) was the best thing I've done this year. I'm not kidding. The Navy SEALs, the heart surgeons, and the rocket scientists (i.e. the best of the best) in web design all spoke there. But guys, why did you have to overuse that confounded, annoying buzzword Web 2.0? And what's with the MacOcracy?
All things in nature are like a river: they flow from their source, down their long-established river-bed, until they reach their destination; they then journey until they once again reach their source, and so the cycle continues. Is humanity a river that has run astray of its river-bed, and that now follows its own course, for better or for worse?
Some words are perfectly suited to their alternative definitions. The word 'mean' is one of these. 'Mean' refers to the average of a set of numbers. A mean is a cruel, unforgiving, and brutally honest number: in short, it really is a mean number. Read on for more about 'mean', and about other words that have multiple but related meanings (polysemes).
There are plenty of weird proverbs in the English language, but this one would have to be among the weirdest. Seriously, who swings cats? How does someone know that there's no room to swing a cat? Have they tried? Join me as I seek the answer to these and other questions.