I first became aware of database migrations a few years ago when I was exploring the world of Rails. However, it has not been to recently, with a gentle nudge from SE-Radio (Episode 186) and a large web application build that they have re-entered my development lifecycle. As a result of current events I for one do not wish them to leave any time soon.
Setting up a single-user web development environment is easy. One-click (OS)AMP installers do all the work and internal domains are all stored in one easy to reach host file. However, expanding this to a multi-user development team, all of which needing access to the same resources, is a whole different beast. On-top of this, they may require access from multiple devices, some of which may not include a host file, such as a mobile phone.
Unfortunately as a web developer you will undoubtedly encounter the need to support one (or more) of the three browsers mentioned in this article’s title. It is a sad but true state we are in and making it as seamless as possible goes someway in taking the sting out of it.
Sphinx (SQL Phrase Index) is an open-source, full-text search engine, independent of any one data-store implementation. The origin of the data does not concern Sphinx, as interaction with the data-source is abstracted by the many drivers available. Currently built-in to the product are drivers for MySQL, PostgreSQL, ODBC-compliant databases and the ability to parse XML formatted streams (via pipes). It must be noted however, that each data record is required to have a single unique field ID.
In a recent job interview I was asked to write a simple C# function that would reverse a string and return the result. However, there was a catch, I was unable to use the provided string objects ‘reverse()’ function. I successfully created a function that did as requested (using a decrementing for-loop and concatenation), though I realised that using concatenation would result in a new string being created in memory upon each iteration - as strings are immutable objects. I solved this by using a StringBuilder to append each character to and returning the result. On the way home I began to think of the endless ways in which you could reverse a string in code (extremely sad I know).