Salesforce, Python, SQL, & other ways to put your data where you need it

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My goal is to help you work faster.

I must speak and teach until I hear 10 people say, "That thing you taught me? I used it! And it saved me time!"

(Ahem ... although maybe blogging slower than I'd hoped. Ugh, coders' repetitive stress injury.)

So check out the tutorials. Play with code. Tell me about your triumphs.

Algolia attributes are flexible

15 Oct 2020 🔖 architecture jamstack web development 💬 EN

Ohhhhh, I GET IT. There’s nowhere in Algolia’s web UI, as you create an Algolia index, to define a schema for the data you plan to send it. Why not? Because it doesn’t care. 🤯

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Ellucian Banner fan wiki, OMG

14 Oct 2020 🔖 databases tips 💬 EN

Why didn’t it occur to me that Higher Ed folks would be this nerdy? There’s a “fan wiki” for Ellucian Banner hosted on a web site usually meant for listing characters in TV shows and such.

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Re-indenting with Notepad++ regex replace

08 Oct 2020 🔖 tips 💬 EN

The other day I came up with a ridiculously inefficient regex replace for Notepad++ to re-indent some code from 3 spaces per indent (my team’s standard for a certain codebase – no idea how they settled on 3) to 1 (for tight display on this blog).

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Anonymous PL/SQL to write a CSV from SQL

05 Oct 2020 🔖 csv sql databases 💬 EN

As mentioned earlier today, I transformed Tim Hall’s Oracle PL/SQL “CSV” package into a block of anonymous PL/SQL, for times when it’s just not practical to create a “csv” package in your database. Below is my adaptation, with sample executions of it at bottom in the BEGINEND block.

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ORA-29283 hello world

05 Oct 2020 🔖 sql databases 💬 EN ( FR )

Recently I hit an “ORA-29283” or “invalid file operation” error when editing a long Oracle PL/SQL script. A shorter “hello world” PL/SQL script helped me narrow in on my problem.

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ORA-29283 salut le monde

05 Oct 2020 🔖 sql bases de données 💬 FR ( EN )

J’ai reçu récemment un message d’erreur « ORA-29283 » (« opération non valide sur le fichier ») lorsque j’ai fait éxécuter un logiciel Oracle PL/SQL assez long. J’ai trouvé très utile un petit script genre « salut le monde ».

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Setting up Windows Store Python with Pandas in VSCode

01 Oct 2020 🔖 python tutorials vscode windows salesforce beginner 💬 EN

My beloved Spyder IDE suddenly stopped working on me, and I needed to install Python + Pandas on a new computer anyway, so I decided to explore installing Python (and various packages I use with it such as Pandas) out of the Windows Store, executing code in VSCode as an IDE.

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Infrastructure as code homework #1

21 Sep 2020 🔖 linux devops 💬 EN

I’d like to get involved in a project at work that involves taking a tool comprised of a lot of databases and web servers (running Java in Apache Tomcat) and putting them into “the cloud” using best-practice architectures for installation, upgrade, maintenance, patching, backup, & recovery considerations.

After reading this helpful background about Tomcat by Secure Any Cloud, I think I’ve just come up with my first “hello world” homework assignment.

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Configuring public-private key pairs so 2 Linux machines can talk

16 Sep 2020 🔖 linux tutorials integration 💬 EN

Recently, I needed a sysadmin colleague to set up an ETL tool to make Linux Server #1 (on which the ETL tool runs) send a file to, and execute commands on, Linux Server #2. I had the privilege of watching and taking notes.

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Study plan for GraphQL in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

15 Sep 2020 🔖 marketing cloud salesforce databases graphql api integration tips 💬 EN

I’ve been collaborating again with Salesforce Marketing Cloud expert Kyle Griffin, this time thinking through what it would require to build SFMC data extensions from queries against an Oracle database.

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