A stored procedure isn't really very easy to understand. There's a profound fascination with triggers and stored procedures, and they're both really bad ideas. I can't say enough bad things about stored procedures. See PL/SQL vs. Java - Which is REALLY faster? and Over-Solving the Problem or When your architect …

Python is Batteries Included ™ programming. These analysis tools are either Python Out Of the Box , or they are straight-forward downloads of other open-source components.

Here are some analytical situations where Python has saved my bacon. I'll present some code for several of these.

1. Legacy Data Domains. There are legacy (in …

My approach to preventing IT insignificance begins with firing the good programmers, since they're saddled with low-value work to begin with. In order to see what that means, let's look at the three phases of an IT organization's collapse to irrelevance. Then we'll see why some specific reorganization steps can …

Yes, it's an omission and, yes, it's a mistake. I should have said something along the lines of "risk is an uninteresting complication" or "risk is just a euphemism for bad management."

Why is risk uninteresting?

First, the seeds (Chad Fowler's "The Big Rewrite ", and CodeCraft, "To Rewrite or not …

In "It's Strategic -- but it's not -- but it was -- now it's a burden ", I rambled about the situation I encounter on a regular basis. Here's a Haiku that captures the situation.

Please Replace It

It's heavily customized,

We can't install an upgrade,

We don't dare touch it.

The maintenance costs …

Binstock does a quick compare and contrast between Ruby and NetRexx, showing how an active community promoted Ruby, and NetRexx's lack of a community left it languishing. I think that this analysis is only partly true, and misses part of the value of open source.

Specifically, IBM's proprietary NetRexx can't …

Here's the scenario I see:

1. The customer bought something, and then customized it. The customization -- by definition -- must have had significant strategic value.
2. The customer set it aside, making no more changes of any kind. Okay, there were bug fixes, but nothing significant. The developers were re-assigned to something new …

Here's a novel point of view on open source software.

'In fact, one of the things Google likes about open source software is that it facilitates secrecy. "If we had to go and buy software licenses, or code licenses, based on seats, people would absolutely know what the Google infrastructure …

My thesis is that CIO's are herd animals, making purchasing decisions based on the perceived direction of the herd. They sense this through Gartner research reports. There are many competitors, but Gartner is the name-brand.

If Gartner signals a shift in the herd, then alternatives may become interesting. How will …

See /dev/null 's post "And the Braindead Award goes to... " for an interesting tale of things that turn up in spite of 100% test coverage.

Here's the recap:

1. They have 100% test coverage.
2. Yet, they uncovered an error in an abstract superclass.

How is this possible? How was it …