Today in my travels I came across Codd’s 12 rules. They are rules for what qualifies as a relational database. Apparently these rules are discussed in RELATIONAL MODEL DATABASE MANAGEMENT 2 but as that is $486 I will not have a copy any time soon…
Category Archives: Programming
Stop checking for NULL pointers!
Read this great article Stop checking for NULL pointers! It mentions that there are many other invalid pointers than NULL, which is the same idea I had recently with regard to foreign keys in databases.
Technical debt as a lack of understanding
Technical debt as a lack of understanding popped up on lobste.rs today, and I thought it was pretty good. An interesting admonition of a corporate wiki that I’m not sure I agree with… also a brief YouTube video of Ward Cunningham who invented the term “technical debt” after reading, of all people, Lakoff and Johnson, my heroes! :)
Math keeps changing
An interesting article on lobste.rs today on the JavaScript Math implementation: Math keeps changing. The comic really resonated with me: 
CSS Box Sizing
Read a good article about Box Sizing over on CSS Tricks.
In summary:
html {
box-sizing: border-box;
}
*, *:before, *:after {
box-sizing: inherit;
}
How Did Things Ever Get This Good?
I read How Did Things Ever Get This Good? today. Nice, short, optimistic piece.
How to download a web page with wget
To download a web page along with its scripts and styles etc:
wget --page-requisites --convert-links --execute robots=off https://www.example.com/whatever/
Data Visualization with JavaScript
Today I discovered Data Visualization with JavaScript. I would like to read that one, I will see if I ever find the time.
Falsehoods programmers believe about time zones
Today on r/programming an interesting article about the complexity of time zones: Falsehoods programmers believe about time zones.
What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL
This old chestnut What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL popped up on HN today.