I wish happy independence day to all Pakistanis. Our azadi may not be perfect, but it is a gift we must cherish nonetheless.
As ﾠsome of ﾠyou already know, Pakistan has beenﾠdevastatedﾠby floods.ﾠAt least 1800 people lost their lives. Hundreds of thousands are rendered homeless. The magnitude of this disaster is enormous.ﾠThe devastation continues as according to UN, the number of people suffering in the floods in Pakistan exceeded the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005ﾠKashmirﾠearthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.ﾠWhile the death toll in the three earlier tragedies was much higher than the 1,800 people killed so far in the floods, the UN estimates that some 13.8 million people have been affected at least 2 million more people than in the other disasters put together.
ﾠ
I urge my readers to please donate generously to help victims who are suffering through this tragedy. The mostﾠconvenientﾠway is to text the word "SWAT" to the number 50555 to donate $10 per SMS message to theﾠUNﾠHigh Commissioner for Refugees to provide tents, clothing, food, clean water and medicine to Pakistan. (Dipnote) So please, share the gratitude. Send that text to donate. It only takes a minute to help.
- American Red Cross seeks to raise $100,000 to aid its Pakistan equivalent - Pakistan Red Crescent - with teams on the ground providing food, other relief items and medical care. To donate, go to their website
- UNICEF is providing help with water, sanitation, health and nutrition for displaced children and families. To donate, please go to their website
ﾠ
An inspiring and thought provoking short video on what motivates us. In my second semester at MBA School, we read an interesting article Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work which discusses a similar topic although with a broader application . My initial reaction to Kahn's article was utter surprise and refusal although as I started analyzing it more deeply (since I was required to critically review it), my reaction became greatly subdued.ﾠ
After a successful CFinNC, the folks at Triangle Area ColdFusion's User Group (TACFUG) are organizing NCDevCon 2010. The conference will be held May 22-23, 2010 at my favorite school - Centennial Campus of NC State University in Raleigh.
The conference will cover a wide variety of web development and design topics including ColdFusion, Flex and AIR, ﾠJavascript and CSS.ﾠ
Just like CFinNC the registration for this event will be freeﾠand includes entry to the weekend event and to all presentations. Since attendance is limited, please register early so that you do not miss out on this fantastic conference.
Register @ﾠﾠhttp://ncdevcon2010.eventbrite.com/
Thanks and hope to see you at NCDevCon!
We are still using ColdFusion 8 at work so I have not had a chance toﾠpracticallyﾠuse any of ColdFusion's ORM feature aside from writing simple applications. I just wanted to use this post as a personal resource. Anders Sveen has written a short and useful blog post outlining certain things you should consider when looking at performance and optimization of hibernate driven applications.
http://blog.f12.no/wp/2010/02/16/hibernate-performance-and-optimization/
Happy new year to all readers of this blog. With new year, I decided to move this blog to Mango Blogﾠfrom BlogCFC. BlogCFC has served me well over the yearsﾠandﾠturst meﾠthere is nothing wrong with the application.ﾠKuddos toﾠRay Camden for his valuable contributions to CF community. ﾠ
I just needed a little change. I downloaded Laura's Mangoblog last night and was up and running in few minutes.ﾠThe setup was quick and painless. ﾠBlogCFC migration alsoﾠran well althoughﾠI hit a snag whenﾠcategories were not imported. I didn't try to investigate the root cause and created categories manually. Mongo blog is definitely outstanding especially I am amazed that how easy it is to change themes/skins. Terrific work Laura Arguello.
Great list of various tools/applications that are free and open source. Includes categories like programming, web development, photo/video editing etc 100 Open Source Applications Check this out
We recently have a position open up in my group for a Software Engineer. The work is mostly ColdFusion and must be done onsite. For further details and application process. please follow this link http://sra.com/careers/search.php and search for requisition number "24542BR". Please feel free to contact me at qasim At qasimrasheed.com for any questions.
I was just looking at an interesting blog post titled "Laws of Source Code and Software Development" and I couldn't agree more. Here are the few highlights
- Commented out code are not comments - When you are using version control, code changes should be tracked by version and not code comments
- Don't make excuses for your code - Your code is the reason for you being paid and not excuses. "It worked on my machine" is one of the most lame excuse. You will never ship out your computer to client with an application. Use unit tests and integration test to ensure that the code is working according to it intent
- Don't take code personal - Code reviews are meant to improve the quality of application. No one is pointing finger at you for writing a piece of code. As a matter of fact, people have taken time to review your work and will provide you feedback on quality of the code
- Code is your legacy - For years after you leave, people with either curse you or thank you while maintaining your code. Don't we expect the same when we inherit someone's code
- Coding != Programming - Writing code and software development are two different things.
- Coding is learning - If you are not learning you are doing it wrong. Every project is an opportunity to learn.
- Good good produce great communication - People will read the code that you write just as emails. Use best practices and common design patterns and idioms. Your code should communicate clearly and concisely its intent.
There are few more on the author's website, so make sure to check that out as well. Happy coding
The CFUnited topic survey is up so go vote! http://cfunited.com/go/survey/166 And while you are there, do remember to vote for me as I'll be speaking about "Continuous Integration - Automation for people". See you at CFUnited 2009, hopefully :)
