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Recent Blog Comments By Matt Gutting

• Object Calisthenics In JavaScript - My First Attempt

  Posted on May 9, 2012 at 10:19 AM

  @Sean, What gets me is that the original phrasing of Rule 9 is "No getters/setters/properties". I'm having a problem with downloads so I can't see what Ben is doing, but he didn't mention "No properties" in the discussion. I'm very curious now and frustrated because th... read more »

• Ask Ben: When To Provide Default Values In ColdFusion

  Posted on Jun 8, 2011 at 8:19 AM

  @Ben, I like that quote! But what happens when you're writing an insert function to a table with ten fields? Certainly you can pass a single argument - an object with ten properties, say. But then what about the constructor for that object?... read more »

• Ask Ben: When To Provide Default Values In ColdFusion

  Posted on Jun 6, 2011 at 10:59 AM

  Whoa, cool - I've inspired a kinky blog post! That's more or less what I've arrived at: If I need to use the value, I need to raise an error if it's not provided. If not, then I can make a reasonable assumption about what it should be if it's not provided. The question was raised wh... read more »

• Using JavaScript's With Keyword To Create A Dynamic Scope Chain For Method Execution

  Posted on May 31, 2011 at 1:14 PM

  Funny. I used the equivalent of "goto" all the time in my first programming class in college. Of course with assembly language you don't have much choice ;-P... read more »

• One Man's Search For Love - My cf.Objective() 2011 Lightning Talk

  Posted on May 18, 2011 at 11:00 AM

  @Ben - This is really well thought out and well presented; congratulations! The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis takes a specifically Christian approach to discussing love, but it reaches many of the same insights you have. You might be interested.... read more »

• Man Down: Proof Beyond A Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better At Everything By Dan Abrams

  Posted on Apr 5, 2011 at 9:56 AM

  @A CF Fan, A quote from Chaucer seems appropriate, describing a young man of about 20 who is a character in "The Canterbury Tales": And he hadde been som time in chivachye [on cavalry expeditions] In Flandres, in Artois, and Picardye, And born him wel as of so lite... read more »

• The School Of Practical Philosophy: Philosophy Works - Week Eight

  Posted on Mar 9, 2011 at 8:17 AM

  @Mike, No, the truth doesn't set you free in movies because you still have to pay to see them. I was going to come up with a good quote about truth too, but the only one that came to mind is Peter Schickele's "Truth is just truth; you can't have opinions about truth."... read more »

• The School Of Practical Philosophy: Philosophy Works - Week Eight

  Posted on Mar 8, 2011 at 11:00 AM

  @Ben, I agree that you can have a load of information and not be wise; but I'm not sure I'd say that you can have a load of understanding and not be wise - does that make sense? To have understanding, I believe, is to have a knowledge not only of something in itself but o... read more »

• The School Of Practical Philosophy: Philosophy Works - Week Eight

  Posted on Mar 8, 2011 at 10:08 AM

  A few things came to mind as I read through this. As far as your comment that "'wisdom,' as we well know, is necessarily the expression and application of understanding": That sounds a bit like what Aristotle calls "phronesis", which is usually translated "practical wisd... read more »

• Seven Languages In Seven Weeks By Bruce Tate - What An Adventure

  Posted on Jan 31, 2011 at 8:48 AM

  Oops, that should be for i = 1 to length(names) <b>do</b>... read more »

• Seven Languages In Seven Weeks By Bruce Tate - What An Adventure

  Posted on Jan 31, 2011 at 8:46 AM

  Euphoria: sequence names   names = {"Matthew","Mark","Luke","John"}   function Insert_IsSo(name, adj) return name & "is so" & adj end funct... read more »

• Seven Languages In Seven Weeks: Prolog - Day 2

  Posted on Dec 6, 2010 at 3:20 PM

  @Ben, Look at all your talk about rules at the beginning of your post. I see Prolog being less "revolving around queries" as "revolving around rule systems." You give it a number of rules ("here's how you reverse X, here's how you reverse Y, etc."), and a que... read more »

• Seven Languages In Seven Weeks: Prolog - Day 2

  Posted on Dec 6, 2010 at 11:40 AM

  I know nothing about Prolog, and I'm posting this immediately after looking at your "reverse list" problem. I think I understand why you're getting three "reverse lists" when you have three starting conditions; the three are redundant. Given that the reverse of [] is [], Pro... read more »

• Thoughts About XDOM For Easier ColdFusion XML Manipulation

  Posted on Nov 16, 2010 at 11:19 AM

  Interesting! This is not immediately useful to me, but (like so many other of your ideas) I'm bookmarking it in anticipation of possible usefulness. Thanks!... read more »

• What ColdFusion Teaches Us About The Ultimate "Roll Your Own" Solution

  Posted on Sep 9, 2010 at 11:14 AM

  @Ben, Thanks! But it does show off my point, which is that a developer has to be able to think about a problem in terms of related problems that have already been dealt with "well enough".... read more »

• What ColdFusion Teaches Us About The Ultimate "Roll Your Own" Solution

  Posted on Sep 9, 2010 at 10:13 AM

  Which means, of course, that one skill needed by a developer is the ability to analyze a problem in terms of tasks that may already have been accomplished - like the famous joke about the mathematician turned fireman. What, you haven't heard about the mathematician who applied for a job at... read more »

• The Arbor Day Web Development Team Planted Me Some Trees

  Posted on May 20, 2010 at 9:08 AM

  @Wendy, Why did I read that as "Shave the Children"? @Ben, Congratulations!... read more »