However, being wasteful is bad, so in the interests of saving dolphins and all other good things, I decided to give it a go (wow, Ajax last week, ROW_NUMBER this week!). Everything was quite simple, with more than enough helpful examples found through Google. That was, until I realised that there’s no way to identify the total number of records available. I like to show something like “Showing records 11 – 20 of 57″, but using ROW_NUMBER only returns the actual number of rows, eg. 10 in this example.

The most common solution was to create a stored procedure encapsulating the query, which then includes an OUTPUT variable assigned using something like ”SELECT COUNT(*) FROM…”. I didn’t like this solution because if I have a huge complicated query, I have to write it out twice (and potentially edit it twice each time I make a change). Plus I’m sure that this doubles the workload on SQL, since it’s essentially running the same query twice.

I fiddled a bit with CTEs, and found a solution which works quite nicely.

WITH List AS (
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY ClientName ASC) AS Row, ClientID, ClientName
FROM Clients
),
ListRecordCount AS (
SELECT *
FROM List, (SELECT MAX(Row) AS RecordCount FROM List) AS RC
)
SELECT *
FROM ListRecordCount
WHERE Row > 10 AND Row <= 20

As you can see, the record count is joined as a new column to each row of the existing query. So just read the “RecordCount” column from any row of the results, and you have your solution. I’m not much of a SQL expert, so I can’t say for sure that I haven’t committed some SQL sin, but I would guess that since the query only runs a single time, it must be more efficient than other solutions I have seen. At the very least I don’t have to write a stored procedure for every query, and I only have to edit it in 1 place.

.::S::.

So with all the hype about Ajax, and the fact that I’ve been itching to find the time to give it a go (yes, I know it’s been around for ages, I’ve been busy), I thought it was about time to figure it out. I had a quick look at a few different ColdFusion AJAX implementations, and chose JSMX - mostly because it looked the simplest and I could actually understand the implementation after reading through it once.

I used the ActiveSelect framework as a foundation, which will reduce code change as I migrate. I’ve only got my version up on a single test page so far, but it looks like it’s working quite nicely. I’m looking forward to gettting my feet more into the whole Ajax thing, but I’m busy with a huge ”re-factoring” project at the moment, and I’ll only get around to play with the interface later this year, or beginning of next year.

I’ve zipped up the code I used in case anybody else is looking for a ColdFusion component / custom tag to dynamically fill drop down boxes. I tried to find something similar at first so that I wouldn’t need to do it myself, but couldn’t, so perhaps this will help someone else out. It’s version 0.0.0.1, so I’m not responsible for anything that goes wrong. I’ve called it AjaxSelect until somebody sues me for stealing their name. You’ll need to customise it to get it working in your environment, but it should be a start. And if you think I code badly… ”tell somebody • who cares” :)

.::S::.

PS… doesn’t look like I can upload while I’m not hosting with my own provider, so I’ll find a place to host it later. Who knows, maybe I’ll be up to version 0.0.0.2 by then!

Typically on the way to work in the morning or back home at night, with the sun sitting quite low and shining through their windscreens, people are blinded by the glare of dust and dirt on their windscreens that has accumulated in the 3 months since they last washed their car. So with me driving behind them, they decide it would be a good time to use their windscreen wipers. Of course, the water and dirt from their windscreens must go somewhere, and since they aren’t standing still, it is propelled over their car… directly into the windscreen of my car, that is actually clean… well, it was, until then.

On a similar subject is people that water their garden, leaving the sprinkler on for 4 hours until they have flooded the entire street. Driving through the muddy water produces a nice spray of dirt all of the sides of the car. If you’re really lucky, you’ll have somebody in front of you who races through the water, spraying a muddy mist all over the front of the car. And when you hit the jackpot, a truck will come past in the opposite direction and catch any spots that have been missed so far. I’m tempted to knock on the door of the garden’s owner, and make them clean my car again. Or at the very least take a swipe at their head with a baseball bat. Maybe spend an hour lecturing them about droughts in Africa or something.

Enough bitching. I’ve been noticing something quite clever and long overdue. One of those things that when you see it for the first time you wonder why they haven’t been doing it for years already (well they probably have in the rest of the world, we’re always a couple of years behind schedule here in South Africa). It’s LEDs for traffic lights. They’re much brighter, and I’m sure the biggest advantage is that they don’t burn out. Plus if one LED dies, there are a couple of hundred others that carry on working. All the fancy new cars like BMW etc have been using them as brake lights for a while, so somebody was bound to think of it sooner or later.

.::S::.

Also, there’s something egotistical about capturing random thoughts and expecting anybody else to be interested enough to read them. Nevertheless, I often find myself wanting to tell people things, so I thought I might as well give it a go. Consider it cheap therapy and a bit of self-indulgence.

.::S::.