Graceful Exits

Reinventing primary keys, one horrifying integrity error at a time.

CCK is Drupal’s way of making rich content. It means that nodes of any content type can have any kind of data attached to them, so you can have e.g. a directory of superstore outlets, where the outlet records have their longitude and latitude (editable by a Google Map widget) whereas the contact records (e.g. [...]

Will wonders never cease? I’m helping a friend build a website for his driving school, and decided to give Drupal a try so he could have all the whistles and bells he might want. It seemed a bit like overkill, but it would also be instructive for me and would mean that he could always [...]

If your web application ensures that all your incoming CGI variables are free of the most common source of malicious site damage, can you stop worrying?
I wondered this as I got far enough into a PHP publishing system that I had to start thinking about adding new content through the system (rather than just jamming [...]

Ever wondered just where in a complex database you stored that particular bit of information? Or ever had to reverse-engineer someone else’s database, about which you know nothing, with only the output from an application to guide you? In these cases it’s handy to be able to search every text cell, in every column, in [...]

Database design, as an intellectual exercise, can be tremendously satisfying. As one builds up relations and constraints, making your database just rigid enough to support the more intelligent model soon to be layered over it, it’s possible to feel a sense of future-problems-solved: this check will prevent the model from trying to call a service [...]