Binary Search for Javascript Arrays
If you need to search through a large array, or you search arrays frequently in your Javascript code, or if you do both, chances are a binary search will give you better performance than a linear search (read: for loop). One caveat, however, is that binary search algorithms only work on sorted arrays. Here is a binary search function I sometimes use in my code:
High Performance Comet on a Shoestring
I’ve had my eye on the advances that are being made in the Comet arena for a while now, but it was only this past weekend that I finally sat down and used it for a project. In doing so, there was a particular configuration problem I needed to address, and that was…uh, addressing.
Introducing Comet to an existing architecture assumes there is already a web server in the neighborhood, and that it is, in one way or another, receiving traffic from port 80. Due to the fact that many site visitors will likely be positioned behind a firewall unwilling to accept connections on ports other than 80 or 443, we also need to get our Comet server running on port 80 as well. This normally wouldn’t be much of a problem at all, unless you don’t want to fork over the money for an extra IP address. I don’t & I didn’t. So let me show you how I did so.
CouchDB View Generation
An alternative technology quickly gaining popularity these days is CouchDB, a document-based database system for semi-structured data. I wasn’t sure what that meant at first, so I read as much as I could about it. The result? I couldn’t wait to use it.
I decided CouchDB would be a good fit for my next project (which I should be releasing sometime this week BTW) and rolled up my sleeves. Because of the amount of data I’m working with, I hit a few snags along the way with regard to CouchDB view performance. Some of the things I learned, although they make sense, were not what I was expecting initially (even after reading all the docs). So for the benefit of others, I thought it’d be a good idea to share my current understanding of the way views work in CouchDB, and share some of the tips & tricks Jan, Chris, and others have given me along the way.
MySQL SELECT Entries Before NOW()
I’m in the business of making things faster. Using NOW() in a SQL query is something I’m going to complain about. Here’s a familiar scenario from the online publishing industry where future dating articles is a commonality:
You have a news site. You need to display only articles that have been published, and one of the criteria is that they need to have a publish_date before now. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.
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About
Sean Murphy is a freelance web application developer currently living near Orlando, FL. Aside from building his own applications and contributing to open source projects, he works with clients to provide top-notch consulting & development expertise.
