Okay, one thing I hate in JavaScript code is all the code around AJAX requests.

jQuery has a wrapper. And AngularJS has a wrapper. And RxJS has a wrapper. And...

Why don't we just use XMLHttpRequest? Then our services, which are often fairly UI-templating-agnostic already, can live anywhere we want.

There are at least two good reasons... The first is to handle JSONP. I'm ignoring that for now.

The second is to handle async code in a manner that's conventional for each templating engine. $http in AngularJS, for instance, uses $q in place of Promises to ensure changes are communicated correctly to AngularJS. RxJS returns things as Observables (RxJS specific, give or take) rather than Promises (which is a standard), though this is easy to work around.

It's probably worth saying that, well, first that I stole the framework for this code from a SO answer, and second that this is a great example of how to hand-roll a Promise. Just call resolve or reject when you're ready and poof, you've got a Promise.

For the most part, however, you can pass the data event back into the templating system's change detection scheme fairly easily.

So I wanted to write a quick XMLHttpRequest library one could use for the vast majority of CRUD operations. I've only got CR below (give or take. Let's not get into POST vs PUT for the time being), but you get the picture.

I'll try to edit this as I make changes. Comments welcome.

The bottom line, though, is that this is not difficult code. Why we thought we needed wrappers to make AJAX calls I'll never know. The longer you can resist context-specific code, like library-specific wrappers, the longer your original code can live.

(See Exhibit VanillaJS (or the more useful, but strangely mascoted, competing Vanilla JS project).)

Yes, this is, in contrast to my original goals, in TypeScript. It's a pretty easy port. But seriously, you should be using TypeScript.

export default class BaseService {
    getOneUntyped(url: string, id?: string): Promise<any> {
        return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
            let request = new XMLHttpRequest();

            request.onerror = function () {
                reject(`No response was given.`);
            };

            request.onreadystatechange = function () {
                console.log(request.readyState, request.status);

                // 4 === DONE
                if (request.readyState === 4) {
                    // 200 === OK.
                    if (request.status === 200) {
                        resolve(JSON.parse(request.response));
                    } else {
                        // https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/XMLHttpRequest/status
                        // Before the request completes, the value of status is 0.
                        // Browsers also report a status of 0 in case of XMLHttpRequest errors.
                        if (request.status !== 0) {
                            reject(`${request.response} ${request.statusText}`);
                        }
                    }
                }
            };

            let urlToUse = url + (id ? id : "");
            request.open("GET", urlToUse, true);
            request.send();
        });
    }

    postOneTyped<T>(url: string, payload: T): Promise<boolean> {
        return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
            var request = new XMLHttpRequest(); // new HttpRequest instance
            request.open("POST", url);
            request.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
            request.send(JSON.stringify(payload));

            request.onerror = function () {
                reject(`No response was given.`);
            };

            request.onreadystatechange = function () {
                console.log(request.readyState, request.status);

                // 4 === DONE
                if (request.readyState === 4) {
                    // 201 === Created.
                    if (request.status === 201) {
                        resolve(true);
                    } else {
                        // https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/XMLHttpRequest/status
                        // Before the request completes, the value of status is 0.
                        // Browsers also report a status of 0 in case of XMLHttpRequest errors.
                        if (request.status !== 0) {
                            reject(`${request.response} ${request.statusText}`);
                        }
                    }
                }
            };
        });
    }
}

Labels: code, javascript, noteToSelf, typescript

From Jslint Is Not A Code Quality Tool For 3rd Party Code – Hugh FD Jackson:

Crockford is an opinionated, experienced and charismatic guy. As such people often do, he has gained significant influence. In this post, I’m going to focus on what Crockford thinks the role of JSLint is, as typified by this suggestion:

“There is one reliable, objective metric of JavaScript code quality that can help you in making your choice [… of library …]: JSLint. If JSLint finds problems in a library, then dump it and move on to the next one.”

I firmly believe that this attitude is damaging; and worth focusing on given his potential influence.

Yeah, wow, no. That is bad advice.

As I've said on Stack Overflow before:

As a rule, you should exempt 3rd party libraries from your linting. There's nothing you can do about external libraries unless you want to fork them and lint them yourself, which is, well, insane. ;^) And, again, minified code often takes shortcuts that aren't lint-friendly.

Lint your code before you minify to keep its quality high, but don't worry about QAing libraries you shouldn't be touching anyhow. Assume they have another method for ensuring high quality, which might include using a different linter, or a linter with a different set of rules.

I'm a huge fan of linting your JavaScript code, and there's no more thorough linter for less investment on your part than JSLint. Nothing it forces you do is objectively wrong, and you don't have to worry about getting everyone in a room to set up an ESLint rule set before you get started.

But there's absolutely no reason not to use libraries that aren't themselves lintable in their original. There's a clear interface between you and that code. It's sort of like how RMS wishes you wouldn't use any non-GNU code. A proscription from using non-JSLinted libs is more political than rational.

Labels: code, crockford, ESLint, JSLint, style

From Netscape Goes Bonkers – Joel on Software:

The sheer volume of bugs, it seems, proves that rewriting code from scratch does not make for a better code base, it makes it worse. Old code doesn’t rust, it gets better, as bugs are fixed.

Someone should tell that to StackOverflow.

Oh, I know, I know. This is design, you say, not code as such. But riddle me this, Batman: Was anyone not using SO because of the design?

I'm going to hazard a guess that the code behind that menubar/toolbar was heavily refactored too. Could be wrong. Hope I'm wrong. Idk. But in either event, I'm not sure the old site's design had rusted.

Labels: code, design, refactoring, stackoverflow

From Microsoft's How to: Verify that Strings Are in Valid Email Format

Oh please, heavens, say it isn't so.

EDIT: Some decent advice:

Defence in depth only works if each level of your security onion is not rotten. One rotten layer means you spoil the whole onion. Rejecting "foo@example.com.au" because you want to defend against vulnerabilities in Sun's µ-law encoding doesn't make sense, does it? Don't laugh, it's happened to me. The reason I am here commenting is that Medicare Australia doesn't allow ".au" addresses, only ".com". Also read Mark Swanson, "How not to validate email, ", mdswanson.com/blog/2013/10/14/… – ManicDee Nov 22 '13 at 5:21

And then from the linked post, "How now to validate email":

Or maybe you will find a regular expression that looks something like ^[_a-z0-9-]+(\.[_a-z0-9-]omg-whyyyyy$. ... So what should you do instead? Just check for the existence of @. Every email address will have at least one of them and it is trivially easy to write this code.

As I mentioned on SO...

The buttoned up coder in me is trying to resist, but the rest is surprisingly convincingly arguing that anything else is a sad tragedy of micro-optimization.

Just fwiw, I'm also checking for a length of at least one before and after the last @, though I haven't looked at the format for comments inside of an email address [sic!!].

public static bool IsValidEmail(this string str)
{
    // See https://myfreakinname.blogspot.com/2016/10/spaghetti-code-leads-to-suffering.html#emailValidationEdit
    // for the reasoning behind this.

    int lastAtLoc = str.LastIndexOf('@');
    return lastAtLoc < str.Length - 1 && lastAtLoc > 0;
}

Labels: code, microsoft, style, yoda

public static string ToQuotedPrintable(this string self)
{
    byte[] bytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(self);
    StringBuilder sbInner = new StringBuilder();
    StringBuilder sbOuter = new StringBuilder();

    foreach (byte byt in bytes)
    {
        int charLenQP = (byt >= 33 && byt <= 126 && byt != 61) ? 1 : 3;
        if (sbInner.Length + charLenQP > 75)
        {
            sbOuter.Append(sbInner + "=\r\n");
            sbInner = new StringBuilder();
        }

        if (1 == charLenQP)
        {
            sbInner.Append((char)byt);
        }
        else
        {
            sbInner.Append("=" + byt.ToString("X2"));
        }
    }
    sbOuter.Append(sbInner);
    return sbOuter.ToString();
}

Labels: c#, code, encoding, noteToSelf

PnlCustom = Ext.extend(Ext.Panel, 
{
        title: "Title",
        html: "spam",

        initComponent : function(){
                PnlCustom.superclass.initComponent.call(this);
                if (null == this.someVal)       {
                        this.someVal = "NOTHING";
                }
                console.log("#" + this.someVal + "#");
        }
});

Ext.onReady(function()  {

        var pnlCustom = new PnlCustom({
                someVal: "3"
        });
        var pnlCustom2 = new PnlCustom({});

        var pnlPlain = new Ext.Panel({
                title: "TITLE",
                items: [
                        pnlCustom,
                        pnlCustom2
                ],
                renderTo: "uiHook"
        });
        //Ext.Msg.alert("test","test"); // compulsory test that Ext is set up correctly.
});

Labels: code, ExtJS, javascript

window.onload = function() {
        document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].onkeyup = function(e) { 
                var ev = e || event;

                if (ev.keyCode)
                        keycode=ev.keyCode;
                else
                        keycode=ev.which;

                console.log(keycode);

                // http://tinyurl.com/y8jjah3
                if (keycode==113 && (ev.charCode ? ev.charCode : 0) == 0)       {
                        console.log("hello F2");
                }
        }
};

Labels: code, javascript, noteToSelf

SELECT
CASE
    WHEN TRIM(FIELD_MAYBE_NULL) is NULL THEN FIELD_NEVER_NULL
    ELSE FIELD_NEVER_NULL || ', ' || FIELD_MAYBE_NULL
END AS CONCATTED_FIELD

FROM TABLE

Labels: code, oracle

Labels: code, javascript

Option Explicit

Public Sub createSql()
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim intStart As Integer
    Dim intEnd As Integer
    
    Dim strInsertSql As String
    Dim strUpdateSql As String
    Dim strLine As String
    
    Dim strOut As String
    
        
    intStart = 2
    intEnd = 963
    
    i = intStart
    While (Not "" = Cells(i, 1).Value)  ' assuming there are no blanks in the first col
    'While (i <= intEnd)  ' if you'd rather hard-code
        
        
        strLine = "INSERT INTO TABLE1 " & _
            " (FIELD1, FIELD2) " & _
            " VALUES " & _
            " (" & _
                CStr(Cells(i, 1).Value) & "," & _
                CStr(Cells(i, 2).Value) & _
            ")"
           
        strInsertSql = strInsertSql & strLine & "; -- " & (i - intStart + 1) & vbNewLine
        
        
        
        strLine = "UPDATE TABLE2 SET " & _
            "FIELD1 = '" & CStr(Cells(i, 1).Value) & "' " & _
            "WHERE FIELD3 = '" & CStr(Cells(i, 2).Value) & "'; -- " & (i - intStart + 1)

        strUpdateSql = strUpdateSql & strLine & "; -- " & (i - intStart + 1) & vbNewLine
            
        
        
        i = i + 1
    Wend

    
    strOut = strInsertSql & vbNewLine & _
        vbNewLine & _
        "--------------------------------------------------" & vbNewLine & _
        vbNewLine & _
        strUpdateSql & vbNewLine & _
        vbNewLine & _
        "--------------------------------------------------" & vbNewLine & _
        "--------------------------------------------------" & vbNewLine & _
        vbNewLine


        
    '============================================
    ' making this so I don't have to set up the
    ' danged userform and textbox any more
    '============================================
    UserForm1.Height = 800
    UserForm1.Width = 1000
    With UserForm1.TextBox1
        .Top = 10
        .Left = 10
        .Height = UserForm1.Height - 40
        .Width = UserForm1.Width - 20
        .MultiLine = True
        .ScrollBars = fmScrollBarsBoth
    End With
    '============================================
    '============================================
    
    
    UserForm1.TextBox1.Text = strOut
    UserForm1.Show
    
End Sub

Labels: code, excel, noteToSelf, vba

Scott Hanselman: Yeah. I’m looking at Jason Gorman’s Twitter feed and he has a wonderful re- tweet from R. Tyler Croy who says “Let's all argue about whether Haskell or Clojure is better while someone else ships a product with PHP and duct tape.”

Scott Hanselman: I wonder if, you know, there's been books on software architecture that have drawn long and extended analogies with software design, with building design, and they do... I think that buildings and how you put up a building and these kinds of things, how do you put up a building without it collapsing, are pretty well understood. Is that because we've got 2,000 years of practice, and with software we've really only got maybe 50 to 100 years?

Labels: code, metaphors, pseudo-academic

In the MVC paradigm the user input, the modeling of the external world, and the visual feedback to the user are explicitly separated and handled by three types of object, each specialized for its task. The view manages the graphical and/or textual output to the portion of the bitmapped display that is allocated to its application. The controller interprets the mouse and keyboard inputs from the user, commanding the model and/or the view to change as appropriate. Finally, the model manages the behavior and data of the application domain, responds to requests for information about its state (usually from the view), and responds to instructions to change state (usually from the controller). [emph mine]

Essential dependencies between model, view, and controller. (I call this essential because in fact the view and controller do link to each other directly, but developers mostly don't use this fact.)

Communication Within The MVC Triad
...
The Passive Model

In the simplest case, it is not necessary for a model to make any provision whatever for participation in an MVC triad. A simple WYSIWYG text editor is a good example. The central property of such an editor is that you should always see the text as it would appear on paper. So the view clearly must be informed of each change to the text so that it can update its display. Yet the model (which we will assume is an instance of String) need not take responsibility for communicating the changes to the view because these changes occur only by requests from the user. The controller can assume responsibility for notifying the view of any changes because it interprets the user's requests. It could simply notify the view that something has changed -- the view could then request the current state of the string from its model -- or the controller could specify to the view what has changed. In either case, the string model is a completely passive holder of the string data manipulated by the view and the controller. [more mfn emph]

Labels: blogger, code, mvc, noteToSelf

Although the domain cannot call the presentation it's often necessary for the domain to notify the presentation if any changes occur. Observer is the usual solution to this problem. The domain fires an event which is observed the by presentation, the presentation then re-reads data from the domain as needed.

A good mental test to use to check you are using Separated Presentation is to imagine a completely different user interface. If you are writing a GUI imagine writing a command line interface for the same application. Ask yourself if anything would be duplicated between the GUI and command line presentation code - if it is then it's a good candidate for moving to the domain. [emph mine]

Labels: code, noteToSelf, refactoring

WSHttpBinding		A secure and interoperable binding that is suitable for non-duplex service contracts.
BasicHttpBinding		A binding that is suitable for communicating with WS-Basic Profile conformant Web services, for example, ASP.NET Web services (ASMX)-based services. This binding uses HTTP as the transport and text/XML as the default message encoding.
WebHttpBinding		A binding used to configure endpoints for WCF Web services that are exposed through HTTP requests instead of SOAP messages.

<endpoint address="" 
        binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="IService">
        <!-- 
                Upon deployment, the following identity element should be
                removed or replaced to reflect the identity under which the
                deployed service runs.  If removed, WCF will infer an
                appropriate identity automatically.
        -->
        <identity>
                <dns value="localhost"/>
        </identity>
</endpoint>

<system.serviceModel>
        <!-- serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" / -->

        <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="false" />
        <behaviors>
                <serviceBehaviors>
                        <behavior name="ServiceBehavior">
                                <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set
                                        the value below to false and remove the
                                        metadata endpoint above before deployment
                                -->
                                <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
                                <!-- To receive exception details in faults for
                                        debugging purposes, set the value below to
                                        true.  Set to false before deployment to avoid
                                        disclosing exception information 
                                -->
                                <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>
                        </behavior>
                </serviceBehaviors>
                <endpointBehaviors>
                        <behavior name="JsonBehavior">
                                <webHttp />
                        </behavior>
                </endpointBehaviors>
        </behaviors>

        <services>
                <service name="Service" behaviorConfiguration="ServiceBehavior">
                        <endpoint address="" binding="webHttpBinding" 
                                behaviorConfiguration="JsonBehavior" contract="IService">
                                
                                <!-- original:
                                endpoint address="" 
                                binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="IService" -->

                                <!-- 
                                        Upon deployment, the following identity
                                        element should be removed or replaced
                                        to reflect the identity under which the
                                        deployed service runs.  If removed, WCF
                                        will infer an appropriate identity
                                        automatically.
                                -->
                                <identity>
                                        <dns value="localhost" />
                                </identity>
                        </endpoint>
                        <endpoint address="mex" 
                                binding="mexHttpBinding" 
                                contract="IMetadataExchange" />
                </service>
        </services>
</system.serviceModel>

[OperationContract]
[WebGet(RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, 
        ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, 
        BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest)]
string GetData(int value);

[OperationContract]
CompositeType GetDataUsingDataContract(CompositeType composite);

Operation 'GetDataUsingDataContract' in contract 'IService' has a query variable named 'composite' of type 'CompositeType', but type 'CompositeType' is not convertible by 'QueryStringConverter'. Variables for UriTemplate query values must have types that can be converted by 'QueryStringConverter'.

Labels: c#, code, wcf, xml