Tom Nunamaker

Imagine that your client, Fast Eddy's Auto World, asks you to build a data entry form for his inventory. There are several models of cars that use combinations of many options. No two use the same combination. How can you efficiently design the form and database to display the correct options and store the information in a database without constantly adding and deleting fields in your data table? The answer is to use integers and bitwise operators. We first need to understand how integers are stored in binary format. Our society teaches base 10 to manipulate numbers. We are so familiar with it that we sometimes forget that behind its familiarity lies a system for expressing numbers by using columns representing different values. For example, the number 12 looks differen... (more)

<CFIF> Performance Measurements

It was an article by Michael Dinowitz, "Comparisons with CFIF," that made me reevaluate how I was writing my CFIF statements. Since the common was the slowest way to compare two strings, the table of data presented in the article (see Fusion Authority, 1/10/00, www.houseoffusion.com) seemed incomplete to me. I wondered what the performance data would show for integer... (more)