Python's Duck Typing Not General Enough; SQL's Minimally Typed Foreign Keys Not General Enough. Debugging Hilarity Ensues.

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 …

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SOA: Cheaper? Simpler?

My experience is that an SOA has the potential to be cheaper and simpler. However, cheaper and simpler may not be the only value proposition.

Kontrawize says: "there is only something to gain with SOA for the parts of your software that genuinely have re-usable functionality, and are expected to …

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KTLO Management

We wind up in this situation from time to time.

Customer:
[X] is broken, what will it cost to fix it?
Us:
Depends, but put $$$ in your budget.
Customer:
I can't afford $$$, I can barely afford to Keep The Lights On™!

At this point, the conversation is usually over. There …

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Business Analysis vs. Architecture

Much of the work called "Business Analysis" conflates business problem discovery and technical meddling. I draw a firm line between the discovery part of analysis and the non-discovery (or design) part. Discovery is all about managing ignorance; this can be ignorance of the business need or ignorance of the available …

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