Imagine that we've got a collection of applications used by customers to provide data, a collection of applications we use to collect data from vendors. We've got a third collection of analytical tools.

Currently, they share a common database, but the focus, use cases, and interfaces are different.

Okay so …

First, read EWD800.

It has harsh things to say about relying on intuition in programming.

Stack Overflow is full of questions where someone takes their experience with one language and applies it incorrectly and inappropriately to another language.

I get email, periodically, also on this subject. I got one recently …

Interesting item in the November 1 eWeek: "Open-Source Software in the Enterprise".

Here's the key quote: "rather than asking if or when, organizations are increasingly focusing on how".

Interestingly, the article then goes on to talk about licensing and intellectual property management. I suppose those count, but they're fringe issues …

Yes, ETL is interesting and important.

But creating a home-brewed data mapping and conversion tool isn't interesting or important. Indeed, it's just an attractive nuisance. Sure, it's fun, but it isn't valuable work. The world doesn't need another ETL tool.

The core problem is talking management (and other developers) into …

This provokes thought: "Pythonic".

Why does Python have a "Pythonic" style? Why not "clean"?

Is it these lines from Tim Peters' "The Zen of Python" (a/k/a import this)

There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.

Although that way may not be obvious …

My books (Building Skills in Programming, Building Skills in Python and Building Skills in OO Design) develop a steady stream of email. [Also, as a side note, I need to move them to the me.com server, Apple is decommissioning the homepage.mac.com domain.]

The mail falls into several …

Lots of folks like to wring their hands over the Big Vague Concept (BVC™) labeled "security".

There's a lot of quibbling. Let's move beyond BVC to the interesting stuff.

I've wasted hours listening to people identify risks and costs of something that's not very complex. I've been plagued by folks …

For years, I've been using Apache POI in Java and XLRD in Python to read spreadsheets. Finally, now that .XLSX and .XLSM files are in more widespread use, we can move away from those packages and their reliance on successful reverse engineering of undocumented features.

Spreadsheets are -- BTW -- the universal …

Here's a typical problem that results from "SQL Hegemony" -- all data must be in a database, and all access must be via SQL. This can also be called the "SQL Fetish" school of programming.

War Story. On a Data Warehousing project, we had to load and process the organizational hierarchy …

Sometimes I think we need professional certification in this industry. I supported the ICCP for a long time.

In addition to certification, which requires ongoing educational credits to maintain, there ought to be a process for revoking one's certification, requiring them to pass their exams again.

Here's three strikes against …