DevOps isn't a particular technology, nor a job role. It is more of a software development method, initiating originally from system administrators, that promotes ways of enhancing collaboration and communication between development, QA, and IT operations throughout the entire software delivery pipeline with the aim of faster software delivery. Adam Bertrand answers the four most common questions that IT Pro's wonder about, but seldom ask publicly.… Read more
"Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering" by Robert L. Glass has become a classic of Software Engineering as cherished as 'The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering' by Frederick P. Brooks. They seem as radical today as when first written, mainly because the software industry repeatedly fails to learn from its mistakes. Dwain Camps reviews the book.… Read more
Michael Fal is a huge advocate of automation and many ways it can improve the lives of developers and DBAs alike, but you can't just automate all your problems away. The real challenge is breaking down barriers and having developers and DBAs functioning smoothly together. You may have heard of DevOps, and so Mike explores what the buzz might mean for database administrators.… Read more
In a development team, there are times when the relationships between developers and testers can become strained. How can you turn this potential conflict into something more positive? Is it part of the skill of team-working to find ways of avoiding friction, or should one blame a system that relies on good social skills to work well?… Read more
What is IT Compliance and is it really necessary for contemporary Agile applications to be constrained by the requirements of compliance? William Brewer argues that if the objective is rapid delivery of applications, then compliance controls must be understood as early as possible in development.… Read more
XP is no general panacea; but for the right team, and for a product that needs to release bug fixes and new features as fast as possible, its benefits are obvious. Working on one of Red Gate's most popular tools, SQL Prompt, Aaron Law and David Priddle use Extreme Programming (XP) . But is their adherence to XP a personal preference or does it bring real benefits? We sent Matt Hilbert to find out.… Read more
The current popularity of the Salesforce software development platform has taken the industry by surprise. The current IT culture favours the esoteric, yet here is a development platform geared to the idea that anyone can use it: a populist language like BASIC. Does this threaten the careers of professional developers? Paradoxically, not at all, says Dan Appleman. … Read more
There's a joke doing the rounds at SQL conferences and seminars: three DBAs walk into a NoSQL bar and leave when they can't find a table. You may have heard it before, but it made Matt Hilbert sit down and ponder. What's happening? Is there a division opening up between the newly fashionable NoSQL followers and DBAs? Matt bravely enters the shiny new world of NoSQL to investigate.… Read more
As a society, we have an unrealistic respect for data, especially if it has a decimal point somewhere and uses metric units. We who are in the business of data need to cultivate a renewed interest in the sceptical and rigorous science of statistics: it is too important to leave to 'Data Scientists'. If the data is wrong, or the way we analyse or report it is misleading, much of what we do is pointless… Read more
What do Technical Architects (TAs) actually do when in a development role? Are they just senior developers 'pushed upstairs' into a management role? Is there a clear distinction between a TA and a product, or project, manager? In an increasingly automated and joined up development environment, the role is important, varied and wide-ranging; as Grzegorz Strzelecki explains… Read more
NuGet is the standard package manager for the Microsoft development platform including .NET. It has transformed the ease of getting and installing the latest version of .NET packages, tools and frameworks. It relies on NuGet package authors to get packages right but there is little documentation for them to go by, and there are a few inevitable problems. Ed Charbeneau offers advice from experience … Read more
'Immutable' databases operate under the principle that data or objects should not be modified after they are created. Once again they hold the promise of providing strong consistency combined with horizontal read scalability, and built-in caching. Are Immutable databases a new idea? Are they different in any way from the mainstream RDBMSs.… Read more
For many developers, does DBA really stand for Don't Bother Asking? David Poole thinks it is time to end the unnecessary conflict between developer and DBA, and explains how to deal professionally with the inevitable friction between development and operation activities in IT… Read more
Chris Date is famous for his writings on relational theory. At IBM in the seventies, and afterwards, he was a friend and colleague of Edgar Codd, who invented the principles of the relational database. Chris took on the role of communicating and teaching Codd's relational theory, and reluctantly admits to a role in establishing SQL as the dominant relational language. Richard Morris interviews the well-known author and computer scientist… Read more
Alex and his team at Inedo are developing a game - inspired by development strategies like Lean, Agile and DevOps - about software and some of the people who make it. In this opening of a short series, Alex looks at how games affected his office culture, what he's learned about designing games to do more than just be fun, and how his team are hoping to share their passion with the developer community.… Read more
Oftentimes you will be forced to learn how to write proposals without a whole lot of help. You can learn, and be taught, the skill of writing an outstanding proposal, but you can't do it without a fair amount of practice. Today, Dwain explains how to write proposals that can be judged to be outstanding and what, specifically, that means.… Read more
In the course of rescuing a development from 'merge misery', it became increasingly apparent that there were a number of practices for managing branches in the Version Control System that would have reduced the pain and effort of the subsequent merge, and made the dream of continuous delivery come closer to reality. From the experience comes some well-tested ways of making branches and merges a stress-free part of application development.… Read more
Ops and Development people are busy, and focussed on their jobs. They have plenty of ideas for improving the whole software delivery process but the task of developing, maturing and communicating a different way of working isn't often in their job-description. Others are only too keen to do so, but on their own terms. So, let's get clarity. What is the central DevOps idea really?… Read more
We asked several well-known readers of Simple-Talk to write about their all-time top ten favourite articles from
Simple-Talk, and why these articles had particularly appealed to them. First off the blocks is Jonathan Allen, a working DBA who has done so much for the community of SQL Server users in the UK. … Read more
It is a question that almost anybody working in IT occasionally ask themselves. 'How can I best develop my career to make sure my skills and experience remain in demand?' The questions may be spurred by a variety of reasons, including job-insecurity, dissatisfaction, or a wish for career advancement. So what advice would you give? Buck Woody tackles the difficult question with some straight-forward advice..… Read more
