After nearly a month off, I believe it is time for me to institute a new way I am going to blog. Topics range from a ton of different items, and I think we should have a specific way of what I am doing. So, starting today, and hopefully I…
When I was a younger kid, I would watch different shows with my parents. A couple of these shows had a similar gag. The Muppet Show had a segment called "At the Dance", which was similar (a homage maybe?) to Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In cocktail party segments. These segments were…
I have been taking the last week to review my posts and see what I have written. And I must say I am really long winded at times. So in an effort to make more posts, and to keep them more targeted, I am going to do my posts with…
So in this post, I will cover what I did for a data model on the resume part of the site. When I was looking into this part, I was looking to see what I needed, or what needed to happen for this to be effective and capable of doing what I wanted. So I started to look at my own resume, and some of the other sites out there that do this. In any application, it is important to understand exactly what data needs to be captured and why. I think that is where most people usually skimp on, is the why. They think once the data is identified, then that is all they need. but it is not so. One need to understand the “why” of the data in order to properly map and design the DB schema.
Take for example a simple address. It consists of a name it belongs to, number, street name, may or may not contain an apartment/suite number (address line 2), city, state and zip code. Now if we have this information we could maybe say that the name is part of a “Persons” table, and they would be linked to the “Address” table where each field is contained. And normally that may work. But why are you collecting this data in the first place? Is it a basic business application to store customer shipping addresses? Or is it for the city planning, emergency response and police units? Could it be for a post office application, or even political boundary application for a government unit? Each one of these questions may alter the way the data is stored, drastically. For a basic customer database, you could get away with two tables, and in the “Address” table you have one field for address1, address2, and so on. For a city-use application, that may not be normalized enough, and you may have to switch out to three or four tables, and break up address fields into three or more including one field for the number, one for the street name, one for the direction of the street, and one for the type of street. And they may be linked to other tables that contain that data. So just knowing that you have the data identified is not the end. You need to understand the “why”.
So, now we go on to this resume application. And remember, I am building this for me, and only me. I am not building a resume repository so others can create theirs and post it online and via Facebook. This is applicable to me. So I need to find the data that will work for me. I also need to find the data that will work for the people looking to hire people like me. What do they want to see, and why? So after I searched through to see where that would be, I came to the following conclusions. . .
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OK, after the long break I took, I want to refocus on the Resume/personal web application I am building, and how to integrate with Facebook using the Graph API. But before we get into the nuts and bolts of the application, I just want to go over some of the design and focus for this application.
This application is mainly a learning tool, and way to get familiar with the Graph API and keep going with CakePHP. The main user for the administration sections are going to be me. So certain aspects can be adjusted, while others should not. One thing that I can be a little more relaxed on is the input fields. I will allow certain content, but not all. Sanitation of the input data does not need to be paranoid, and I can allow other things to slip through. However, I still want to have security in the back end and allow for checking of proper field id’s and other items that will allow the form to be secure, but give me the flexibility to enter different items in the backend.
Then there is the front end. This will be the forward facing end of the application and will also be the Facebook front. We have added in comments to the application. The next focus is the resume portion. And here is where we can look at the design and focus. By design I mean the design of the application. The UI can be really anything, and I will focus on a simple UI that utilizes HTML5 and CSS3. However, some people I talk to seem to question the aspect of resume portion, as in “why do that when there are countless other sites out there that already allow for this”? That is a good question. And I am not taking anything away from Monster, CareerBuilder, or any other site. LinkedIn provides a way to post your resume as well, and provides a social aspect for it. All of which are great. Remember, firstly, this is a way to experiment and learn more, grow in Graph API and CakePHP. But look at how the world is trending right now in technology.
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As you may have noticed, I have taken a little break from posting. I am having to refocus some of my extra time, what little there is, on some other projects. However, I will be starting posting again in January of 2011. I will continue the Facebook API integration, CakePHP…
ORM, that magical acronym that can send developers into a flurry of excitement, or the rolling eyes of grief. ORM stands for Object Relational Mapping. Used correctly, this can really help applications convert data into objects ready to use. While it does cause some overhead, the key thing to remember is that used properly, it can be really helpful. But that is also the way it is with anything related to code. Since I focus mainly on the open source areas, examining an ORM tool will be limited to the PHP view and aspect.
When designing the data objects, it is important to understand the data and how it relates to the application and other objects. Usually it is the planning sessions that get overlooked, or hurried, and create a problem for later on. This is why using a tool to help with this is always good. I specifically look for more of an ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram) type of tool that can help me visualize and document the data objects. Never underestimate the power of a visual diagram for data. This is worth everything when coming on a new project, or bringing in new resources to a major project. It can drastically decrease the learning curve. There are different tools out there that can help with ERD and ORM design, with the basic Visio diagrams (a Microsoft product), to more robust ERD tools that include different UML (Unified Modeling Language) tools integrated with it like MagicDraw. Each tool will have its pros and cons, no matter what the toolset is, no matter what the project is. I have found that there is not a single tool that is perfect for every project. But finding a good tool that can help in designing the database is a must. If it can even generate code, that is a lot better. One tool that is available that can help with ERD, and generate code, and help with ORM is ORM Designer. And I will examine this tool as it relates to Symfony, CakePHP and non framework applications.
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As I have been going through different code bases, I keep seeing things that just really amaze me. It all surrounds coding standards, or the lack thereof. Different places have different ideas of what is best, and I can only offer mine to the fray. However, once a standard is in place, no matter how odd it may be, it is important to keep to those standards. This is for a few reasons.
First, it is important for readability. By seeing the code in the same format and structure it helps to get through lines of code quickly. It helps because all of the code is in the same format throughout the code. The person looking at the code can quickly understand without having to go back and figure out what is happening because the code is all of a sudden out of whack and what you may think is happening may not be happening. Especially when indentation may also be out of line and brackets are not used. Take for example the two examples below
$fin=0;
foreach($var as $v){
if($v==3){$fin=$v+3}
unset($fin);echo $v;
}
As a stand alone example it may be easy to decipher what is happening. In a file that has over 3000 lines of code, it may be overlooked and even cause issues if changes are made that affect that block. By breaking from the set coding standards and doing it “your own way”, sure it may be quicker for you, but it creates havoc, even for you later on.
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Just a quick post here. Not a lot of time to do anything really earth shattering in this post. I have recently purchased a book to help me start to code some apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I am starting out slow, then going to work my way…
Just a quick note about the change. Needed a change to the site. So I downloaded a good theme, and changed a couple things about it. More of a minimalist approach, not as gimmicky as the old theme, and is a whole lot more "neutral" in color. Hopefully it will…