Isaac Dealey

I don't like browser-based WYSIWYG editors. There are a reasonably large number of them and several of the recent versions are even cross-browser-compatible with Mozilla and even some less popular browsers (although Safari continues to be problematic). The technical issues surro... (more)

I must admit to having been excited at the prospect of the Pet Market frameworks project when Simon proposed it to us at the Fusebox & Frameworks Conference in September. I once tried to do something similar by creating a small blog application using the three popular frameworks ... (more)

In a book entitled Finite and Infinite Games in 1986, James P. Carse wrote "Finite players play within the rules, infinite players play with the rules." We play finite games every day, from checkers and chess to Yatzee and Monopoly. Finite games have a familiar pattern: a beginni... (more)

In my experience, the majority of client change requests for any given application have to do with the presentation layer. This makes sense if you're a client, because the presentation layer is the only part of the application you see. Thus, it's the one part of the application ... (more)

Programming is hard work, or it can be. For developers there seems to be a tendency to write and rewrite the same code. Often it seems most of our work boils down to the fundamental four: Create/Read/Update/Delete (CRUD). This portion of the application development life cycle can ... (more)

Using JDBC metadata, it is now possible to analyze databases and automate database tasks with ColdFusion MX in ways that were problematic or at best difficult in the past. Although Java can be rather intimidating, you don't need to be a Java expert (or a database expert) to use t... (more)

If you've ever worked on a licensed application you know how prepackaged applications rarely meet enough of the client's needs to be implemented without modification. Whether the application is intended for your own use or someone else's, there's usually a feature or two missing,... (more)