Someone sent this question to their manager and included me on the CC: list.

"Would you consider tools like Django to quickly build web apps ?"

My suggestion is that a bald query like this can only get on of two possible answers: "No" (and a large number of unsubtle variations …

TC's full quote was "We consume a significant portion of the overall contract generating a functional specification whose sole use is to serve as the outline for the acceptance test. Those who choose to argue this point might like to explain the recurring customer comment 'You did an excellent job …

TC Writes "With 30 years in the biz, I’ve experienced all the pains associated with a rigid linear approach (functional spec -> design doc -> code -> integrate -> acceptance test, always being sure to maintain a current version of the traceability matrix). An iterative approach is inherently more appealing, but I’m …

Time is simple. You can make it complicated with any one of a large number of dumb-as-dirt decisions.

In the Real World™, time may be a quantum field (read stuff by 't Hooft ). For that matter, space itself may have some quantum granularity. Or, this could be a handy hack …

The money quote was this "It’s not a big leap then for me to consolidate all three of those into one uber relationship table...".

The question was a good one because it involved the classic higher-order database relationship.

The canonical SQL relationships are binary equi-join relationships that can be …

There aren't too many variations on the open-ended date range problem. We have a table of events or rules or policies that have start dates. Some have end dates, because they've been replaced or superseded. Others don't have end-dates because they apply for the foreseeable future.

There are two kinds …

I've upgraded my Building Skills in Python to cover the 2.5 release. It didn't take as long as I'd anticipated.

The new features list for Python 2.5 is mercifully short. I did a fair amount of reorganization to consolidate some things that had grown or split needlessly.

Changes …

Background: I'm looking at parsing certain X12N messages. There's a Perl program on CPAN to do X12 parsing ; the program itself isn't useful, but the X12 messages are defined via INI files. There's also a Python X12 parser with the X12 messages defined via XML files. I don't really like …

I hate to complain, but there's a Python syntax rule that has slightly cramped my style. The problem stems from a need to describe a really complex and extensible structure.

We need to describe X12N messages, which have a rather complex structure, and the structure can be customized. While the …

See Sean McGrath's Spot the warning signs in configuration file design for thoughts on the ever-gnarly problem of how to provide a workable set of configuration parameters to a program.

A programming language has all the advantages as a language for encoding parameters. I see why it's rare -- too many …