Easy Reader

In hopes of stemming the massive explosion of open source database use, Oracle is preparing an “express” version of it’s Oracle Database 10g line: Oracle Database XE. Like many things on the web right now, it’s currently in beta, with a full release planned for late this year.

Courting the open source set is an interesting move for Oracle. PHP developers are the obvious target right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the focus shifted to Rails developers in the near future.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the features/limitations:

• available for Windows or Linux
• stores up to 4GB of data
• will only use one processor (crippled to keep their Enterprise clients no doubt)
• will only use up to 1GB of RAM (ditto)
• upgradeable to other Oracle Database 10g editions (of course)

I haven’t downloaded it to play yet, but there seems to be some fairly detailed instructions on both install and integration on the PHP end.

As I mentioned to Ian earlier today, Dave and I were discussing having the jsTrace window keep pace with whatever the most current line is spit out to it. A few hours later, here it is: jsTrace 1.3. I have some other stuff (read: paying projects) that need my attention, so I am putting jsTrace down for a bit. Dave & I will be posting a few more demos of its use in different situations, but as far as further development goes, I’m gonna be hands-off for a bit to let you all get a chance to participate.

And if you’re in the participatory mood, check out this site I built with Adaptive Path. I will be posting some details about the project and how I accomplished certain design features once Kel’s campaign’s over and life gets a little less hectic.

The reception for our latest script release, jsTrace, has been fantastic. From the write-up on the DOM Scripting Task Force blog to all of the emails and comments. It was great.

The past few days have seen many ideas, requests and enhancements sent my way. Some have been rolled into the jsTrace 1.1 release which I made public today. One such enhancement (brought to us by Joe Shelby) I have dubbed “memory,” as it allows the debugging window to remember both its position and size the next time it is opened (via cookies). Further enhancements have been made to the underlying code to streamline development of additional tools for the bottom toolbar and the font size of the bottom toolbar has also been increased (per several requests).

I hope you all enjoy the improvements. Keep ‘em coming.

Update: We’ve also been mentioned in DOMScripting.com.

Another update (to 1.2): I added a buffer to handle traces executed prior to the jsTrace window being generated. The buffer is written to the viewport once it is generated.

Like many of you, I’m sure, I hate debugging JavaScript. Really, it’s not the debugging, per se, as much as it’s using alert() to echo stuff out to the screen. It’s stupid and distracting and takes for ever if you’re debugging a lot of stuff.

For the last few months, I’ve been toying with a few different means of error reporting and echoing out debugging information, but hadn’t been really satisfied with anything I’d come up with. I used to do quite a bit of Flash work back in the day (before Dave came along and put my best efforts to shame) and always loved the Trace window. I liked that you could just echo stuff out to it and it acted as a running tally of pretty much anything you wanted to track: variable values, messages, etc. Two days ago I decided that was what I wanted for JavaScript.

I toyed with the idea of spawning a popup and tracing the info to that, but I don’t like popups. They are possibly more annoying than alert messages (well… maybe not). I decided to echo the messages out to a div on the page instead. Then feature creep set in. Before I knew it, it was a draggable, scalable window with some nifty features. Never one to be selfish, I thought other people could find a use for it too, so I’ve released it for anyone who wants it: here it is. Use it, play with it and improve on it as you see fit.

The script currently has the following features:

• the window drags & scales,
• you can output a delimeter quickly to help further organize your tracing,
• you can quickly clear the window,
• the system is very easy to implement (even for a novice DOM scripter), and
• it’s easily removable once your debugging is complete.

Special thanks go out to Aaron Boodman, whose DOM Drag was perfect for the dragging and enabled me to hook up a window stretcher pretty easily, Richard Rutter, whose Browser Stickies were also somewhat of an inspiration, and Dave, for helping me debug the scaling code.

Aside: one nice feature of the script is that, once it was operational, I was able to use it to debug itself… how cool is that?

Ever think you just can’t keep up with all the new technologies, scripts, applications, etc.? Truck loads of reading on the “new” best practices? You work all day, most the night, and on weekends. You’re spouse is ready to kill you, but, like being hooked on a very powerful drug, you just can’t stop… Ahhhh. I could go on, but I am sure a lot of you know where I am coming from.

Ahem, anyway, to my point. Macromedia just recently launched Flash 8 with a boat-load of new ActionScript features that are very exciting. I am torn between my daily PHP, CSS, HTML, SQL duties, contemplating getting into Rails, reading another chapter of my Flash Math Creativity book and staying up late learning the new Flash stuff and then Macromedia deals the final blow. This looks totally amazing and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

I am gonna OD for sure and self combust. Nighty night.