Joseph Tinsley » Projects http://www.josephtinsley.com Trying to build applications that I think are useful Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:36:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 My First Mongo PHP APP http://www.josephtinsley.com/2011/02/26/my-first-mongo-php-app/ http://www.josephtinsley.com/2011/02/26/my-first-mongo-php-app/#comments Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:08:23 +0000 Joseph http://www.josephtinsley.com/?p=468 Today I created my first MongoDB application. Please no applause, this app is incredibly boring.  At the time I was fresh out of cool ideas, especially ideas that required a nice amount of data.
So I went with a simple US Population search script. I actually had a copy of the 2009 census data in a mysql table from some time ago. I have no idea why, I guess I’m a hoarder like that.
But basically I built this just for the experience. I’ve been hearing a lot of hub bub about MongoDB and thought I should give it a try.  I have to say from what I’ve fiddled with so far it is pretty interesting. If you’re coming from a RDBMS like I was, it’s going to take some time to change your thought process.

MongoDB store its data in what they call documents which are somewhat like table rows. I’m not going to go down that road because I’m still a newbie myself and I don’t want to put anyone on the wrong path. But what helped me get along was that I envisioned accessing data from a XML feed. Of course MongoDB documents are not XML feeds but they are structured a bit like a feed.

For example goto Buy.com and view the source of one of their product feeds (Example Product Feed) look specifically at each product node. When accessing data from MongoDB document I put myself in the mindset as if I’m grabbing data from a XML product feed.  Crazy, but it works for me.

Mongo Document Mongovue

Bottom line I think MongoDB is pretty interesting, I’m still new to it so I’m not quite ready to ditch MySql.
During my quest for knowledge I found myself looking for examples to help me get started. In my opinion there wasn’t that much out there but that’s probably because it’s fairly still new. But here are few sites that help me get started.

]]> http://www.josephtinsley.com/2011/02/26/my-first-mongo-php-app/feed/ 0 New SMS Project in Scope http://www.josephtinsley.com/2010/05/20/new-sms-project-in-scope/ http://www.josephtinsley.com/2010/05/20/new-sms-project-in-scope/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 17:29:45 +0000 Joseph http://www.josephtinsley.com/?p=339 I have a new project in mind, it’s SMS based. I’m going to take this weekend to scratch it out on paper before I actually start coding the thing. This is still a new approach for me. On my last project I flow charted everything out before hitting the code and things actually went a tad bit faster. Plus I found that if you don’t have a well documented process before you start then it’s actually harder to determine the projects end date because you will be constantly added bits and pieces or modifying things.
Overall I’m really, really excited because this project will be solving one of my longtime dilemmas. And that’s remembering things. So if I can bust this one out in less then a month that would be incredible. But honestly the coding has never been an issue, it’s the designing, that’s my Achilles heel. I’ve always thought if I could some how team up with a web designer I would kick some major ass. (Please take that as a hint)

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