"API first" apps are the future
Apps tend to become very complex beasts, especially when they start to scale. Part of the complexity is due to the fact that the users could be a diverse set of people with multitude of tastes and preferences which could all be conflicting. A classic example here is this recent...
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How to handle long-polling of XHR requests in PHP
A common need you often face in PHP scripting these days is writing a long-polling endpoint for things like sending notifications or other kinds of responses back to the client. While using something dedicated like node, cometd or websocket makes ideal sense for such things, there are use-cases when you...
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Common sense keyword research: the quickest way to find niche ideas for free
Of late, I’ve found that a lot of unnecessary time and effort is being wasted on keyword-research activity by most new bloggers. Most bloggers do keyword research primarily for finding a niche i.e. they try to find a (relatively low-competition) topic related to their own where opportunity to rank is...
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How to handle multiple queries in SQLite using CodeIgniter
My earlier article dealt with multi-query issues of MySQL, this one is dedicated to SQLITE. Multi-queries are often discouraged to begin with but there are times when you find yourself using them. One typical use case is populating the database initially when it’s empty. You do this by running an...
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From userscript to Chrome extension: say goodbye to Greasemonkey and Tampermonkey
Userscripts are a very useful and handy tool in the hands of power users. Just like customized garnishing, salt and pepper, etc. we put on our food before we eat, we can add custom javascript tweaks on the websites we visit. For example, you may want Reddit to automatically highlight...
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How to set default date to current date in MySQL
The most typical way people set default values to mysql date fields is by using the CURRENT_TIMESTAMP constant as follows: create table ledger_entries ( id int(11) not null auto_increment, entry_date datetime default CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ); This will obviously work if you need both date and time parts in the value. But...
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How to execute multiple queries in MySQL using CodeIgniter
Multi-queries are often discouraged with mysqli functions but there are times when you must use them. One obvious use case is initializing the database. One of the first things your app must do is determine if the database tables exist or not, and then run an initializing SQL script if...
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How to approach and evaluate programming languages for a project
While it’s a topic which has already invited hair splitting debates ad nauseam, it has also invited a lot of hype and there is a need to unclutter that hype and think about this topic objectively. The Toolbox Approach This has been the classic or traditional approach when programming used...
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How to organize your research for blog posts in 2022: A comprehensive guide
One of the most challenging aspects of blogging is how to perform research and more importantly, organizing your research. As a technology blogger, I face this problem too, so some days ago, I did some research on… guess what? Yep, on how to organize research for writing articles or blog...
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Why I think "Sponsor Only" repositories introduced by Github is a terrible idea
Today morning, I woke up to this dull news that Github is soon going to introduce “Sponsor Only” feature, which means the ability for an open source project to hide its source code from everyone except the one who sponsors them. This incident shouldn’t be taken in isolation but as...
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