I have decided to rework my local version of the PEAR SQL parser to overcome some limitations. The main features that I will be adding include:
Proper handling of sub-selects
Maintaining order of fields when some fields are actually function calls
In order to do this I have had to add a ‘columns’ array and a ‘tables’ array that hold information about all columns and tables respectively whether they are simple identifiers or not. That means that some information is duplicated in these arrays (from the column_names and column_aliases, etc.. arrays).
When this conversion is complete, it will pave the way for surrogate views in Dataface.
OK.. so I haven’t been keeping up with my blog posts. Here’s one for the new year 2006. I spent boxing day through January 1st in Calgary with my girlfriend’s family. It was nice and relaxing. Didn’t really even notice the cold. I did, have to endure the airplane from hell, however. (A short ‘aside’ – I this was my very first plane travel experience). — on the last 20 minutes or so of the flight home was like riding a roller coaster blind.
By God’s grace I survived and did not throw up (although my breakfast was beginning to surface in the back of my throat. At one point I even yelled out "Holy f**k!" when the plane hit some major turbulence. From now on, call me BA Baracas and tranquilize me before stepping on the plane.
Back at work now for another semester of web development and mathematics studies. I will be taking Math 443 (Combinatorial Theory) and Math 439 (Algebraic Systems) this semester. Looks interesting …
I went to a fundraiser last night for a local comedy troup called Classholes. A good friend of mine, Mike Berdan, is part of this troup so I may be a little biased in my opinions of the troup. All I can say is that if you are looking for top quality live entertainment in Vancouver, it doesn’t get any better than Classholes. They do a mixture of live comedy sketches and recorded sketches similar to the Saturday Night Live format. In fact, the comedy is generally of higher calibre than SNL. In fairness to SNL, they have to produce something once per week, and Classholes takes months to perfect a show. Anyways, their next show is in February 2006. Check it out. For more info check out http://www.classholes.com
Just went to see Aeon Flux tonight. Thanks to Beverly’s Auntie Nona for the tickets. Aeon Flux, starring Charlize Theron was an exciting (but somewhat typical) science fiction film set 400 years in the future after man-kind has survived a plague that killed 99% of its population. I don’t want to give away any spoilers here, but I will say that it was a fun movie to watch, even if the acting suffered from the stereotypical scifi manufactured seriousness from time to time.
I purchased the newly released He-man DVD last week. It has 33 episodes from season 1 (1983). A total of 65 eps were made for each season so there will be more box sets to come. In addition to the episodes, there is a documentary on the making of He-man that is quite well made. All I can say is that this box set will keep the nostalgic fires burning for quite some time.
On a sad, note, my beautiful girlfriend Beverly fell headlong into a grand piano and cracked her nose. Fortunately her nose is very maleable and no permanent damage was done.
I have been working as the Web Services Developer in the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Simon Fraser University for the past several months. It has been an awsome experience so far as it has given me the opportunity to work with the latest and greatest in web technologies. Quite honestly, I’m getting paid to do the same things that I would be doing on my own time (and still do on my own time).
My duties vary widely and I have a lot of flexibility to choose the projects that I think will be the most beneficial for the Faculty. I inherited a number of systems from my predecessor, including the Plone powered Faculty website. Prior to starting this job, I had not worked with Plone. I had heard of it and I had read an article or two, but aside from that it was foreign to me. Plone is a web based content management system written in Python and running on the Zope application server. In plain English, that means that if allows people to edit their own web pages on the site without the assistance of a tech person like myself. It is, quite frankly, the best I have ever used, as I rarely need to delve into menial content editing duties. This means I have more time to spend on interesting projects.
I have decided to keep a respectable website after years of allowing mothballs to build up. Previous attempts at blogs (on Xanga, using PHPNuke, and using static HTML files) were all doomed to neglect. I have chosen to try WordPress for a while to see how it goes. It has a good reputation for being easy to use and provide good support for web standards. The style sheets look very nice I must say.
Ramblings about Xataface, Java, and other software development issues