From time-to-time I hear a few mentions of MapReduce; up until recently, I avoided looking into it.

This month's CACM, however, is chock-full of MapReduce goodness.

After reading some of the articles, I decided to look a little more closely at that approach to handling large datasets.

Interesting thoughts: http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201001/d_richard_hipps_software_universe.html

I use SQLite heavily. Time to look into Fossil.

Completely revised Building Skills in Object-Oriented Design. Cleaned up many of the exercises to make them simpler and more sensible to the n00b designer.

Also, to make it easier to follow, I made use of the Sphinx "ifconfig" feature to separate the text into two parallel editions: a Python edition …

I made some fundamental changes to the text processing pipeline. I think I've corrected all of the typographical and production problems. (Plus, I fixed some content errors, too.)

I've republished the Building Skills in Python, both HTML and PDF.

Hopefully, this is considerably better and more usable.

Next step -- revising …

Completely revised the Building Skills in Python book.

It now covers Python 2.6 and is much, must easier to maintain in ReStructured Text markup, formatted with Sphinx and LaTeX (via TeXLive) than it was in XML.

XML -- while modern and clean and uniform -- isn't as convenient as LaTeX and …

I've updated Building Skills in Programming -- an introduction to programming for non-programmers.

The entire thing was redone in RST and Sphinx, leading to an easier-to-read, more colorful layout. The cross-references are generally better and more complete. I also get Sphinx's indexing and search capabilities.

Everything was touched, chapters were added …

I work with a CIO who calls the DBA's "The Data Cartel". They control the data. Working with some DBA's always seems to turn into hostage negotiation sessions.

The worst problems seem to arise when we get out of the DBA comfort zone and start to talk about how the …

Folks like to say that there's a "Software Crisis". We can't build software quickly enough, cheaply enough or well enough.

I agree with EWD -- software is really very, very complex. See EWD 316 for more justification of this position.

Is my conclusion is that the cost of software stems from …

First, there are several tiers of mutability in requirements. These tiers define typical levels of change context of the problem, the problem itself and the forces that select a solution to the problem.

1. Natural Laws (i.e., Gravity, Natural Selection). As well as metaphysical "laws" (i.e., reality). These don't …

See this story of King Cnut ruling the waves.

The King Cnut School of Management is management by fiat. Declaring it so.

PM: "When will this transition to production?"

Me: "After the firewall and VM configuration."

PM: "So, can we say Thursday?"

Me: "You can say that, if you want …