An old professor of mine writes "There are lots of pathological propensities at work ..., "Gee, we've got a way to use the computer to ..." In short, automation for the sake of automation."

See jbox.dk Quotations on Simplicity . The fundamental principle is that simplicity is really important. But how do …

Here's what's great about Django coupled with the Django-REST Interface : It's almost all model. You define the model, write some tests. Add the URL mappings, write some tests using the built-in Django client.

We're almost there, but this doesn't work out perfectly. To do complete tests, we have to either …

Fundamentally, we need to provide explicit version identification on a schema. This is technically easy, but organizationally nearly impossible.

Technically, we need to use some kind of version control software for our model and the resulting DDL. We need some meta-meta-data to track schema names and version numbers. If we …

I've been asked about the proper location of Stored Procedures more than once. I've come down very strongly in opposition to triggers and stored procedures.

First, PL/SQL is slow . Anecdotally, people claim that introducing PL/SQL made an app faster. I submit that they restructured the application significantly to …

In the Small Not-for-Profit Web Presence posting, I identified a software portfolio for a small NFP. Basically, it was a list of cheap (or free) web resources that would provide a solid web presence with relatively low cost. More importantly, it would move them off a legacy web presence that …

Here's a great summary of Agile techniques. It's in ComputerWorld's Development section, in an article by Heather Havenstein: "Five Web 2.0 app dev lessons for enterprise IT ". I think the article is mis-titled, since it's basically "Agile for Big IT."

Some of the five techniques are motherhood and apple-pie …

Let's talk about a Small Not For Profit that has a number of web assets, but a web presence that isn't working well.

First, they have a Domain Name (pretend it's www.smallnfp.org). They have an associated organization which is hosting their web site. Let's call them the Associated …

Two recent conversations with the Non-Compromisers.

NC: "I can't use Yahoo! mail"

Me: "What?"

NC: "Yahoo! mail has a "Home" tab which isn't the inbox. It always lands there."

Me: "Yep. That's a javascript thing. The tab isn't bookmarkable."

NC: "The fact that I can't land directly on the "Inbox …

The requirements are a sequence diagram showing a complex back-and-forth with the vendor's web service. Each request and reply is detailed, but there's no overview or summary stated. It's implied, and all of the business folks can articulate it, but no one wrote any of it down.

This looks like …

I'm trying to make sense of the "Voice of the Customer" as the 6σ folks term it.

I get email once in a while on my books (Programming , Python and OO Design ). The volume of mail indicates that I have a few hundred readers. I'm honored to have readers who …