For Windows programmers, Linus Torvalds work has suddenly become relevant. No, we don't mean Linux, but Git. This distributed Source Control system now works sweetly as a nut on Windows. We contacted Linus for a second interview; this time to talk mainly about Git, but also to catch up with his thoughts about computer languages.… Read more
It is almost seven years since Microsoft announced the sensational news that, with their new SQL Server 2005, you could do data manipulation in Visual Basic or C# as well as SQL. The marketing people got overexcited, stabbing out clichés from their keyboards such as “new era”, and “revolutionary”. However, they had run off barking … Read more
Jez Humble and David Farley achieved fame through a book that tackled the least glamorous but most intricate part of the application development cycle, Deployment. It was no accident that the book achived so much attention, since it was a lively and iconoclastic take on a vital but neglected aspect of development upon which the ultimate success of software projects so often depend. We found Jez to be an interesting guy, too! … Read more
Developers, by every natural instinct and training, strive to make their code reusable and generic. Dissuading them from doing so, in certain circumstances, is akin to trying to persuade a dog not to fetch a stick. However, when Gail Shaw commented on Twitter last week that “For the record, code reuse in SQL.is not always … Read more
There is a saying amongst welfare agencies that one can tell how well a family is functioning by looking at their dog. If the dog is neurotic, neglected or maltreated, one fears for the welfare of the children. Likewise, you can tell a lot about the skills of a team of DBAs and developers by … Read more
There are good reasons for the management of the release of applications. Businesses see it as a safety-net to ensure the success of software deployment. This is a process that requires a different mind-set and set of disciplines to development, and is best handled by small specialist teams that are responsible for getting software delivered … Read more
Bug metrics are a notoriously erratic way to judge the performance of a development team and project, but despite this almost all software projects use them. There is a lot of data you can get from an electronic bug-tracking system, from bugs per lines of code, bugs per component, to defect trend graphs and bug … Read more
As a DBA and hiring manager, Chris Shaw has been on those sides of the recruitement process. As an MVP and active member of the SQL Server community, he knows what resources are available to help DBAs hone their abilities. Who better to guide you through the many paths to developing your DBA skillset?… Read more
Does it strike you odd that, despite the outage of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Elastic Block Storage on April 21 2011, many of the customers who were affected are still so keen on the service? It puzzled me until I considered the huge diversity of applications out there. If these customers had been … Read more
Benjamin Pollack is well known for his work on Fog Creek Copilot, and Kiln. He is famous amongst young geeks for his role in a documentary film and website 'Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks', which plotted his internship with Fog Creek back in 2005.… Read more
Eric Sink became well-known for his work with the Spyglass browser, which was acquired by Microsoft and morphed into Internet Explorer. Since then, he has succeeded at the difficult double-act of combining programming and the software business. He is living proof that it is possible to master both skills.… Read more
Where’s Oracle VM 3, and why should you be waiting for it? Here lies a puzzling story. On May 13, 2009, in the course of developing Oracle VM 3, Oracle acquired Virtual Iron Software Inc and with it, their rather good VM product Virtual Iron. In June 30th 2009, scarcely a month later, they had … Read more
If ever there was an irresistible programmer's platitude, it is that code-reuse is invariably a good thing. Unfortunately, even the best of advice can be taken to a ludicrous extreme, the construction of generic frameworks within organisations. Mike Mooney gives a warning, based on painful experiences.
… Read more
When Agile meets 'Big Design', the result can be frustration on both sides. Is it possible for database development to to easily coexist with Agile methodologies for application development? Nick suggests that the technical solutions already exist, and the dissonance is more due to cultural and organisational problems… Read more
The ideal Agile application developer welcomes changing requirements, even late in development. The DBA or Database Developer doesn’t. Why is that? You can’t create complex databases in the Agile way, by breaking tasks into small increments, with minimal planning. Building a database that will perform quickly, reliably and securely over time, as it grows, is … Read more
Professor Stephen Byram Furber CBE, FRS, FREng was one of the designers of the BBC Micro and the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor. The result of his work, the ARM chip, is in most mobile phones, calculators and other low-power electronic devices in the world. At the University of Manchester, he is working on the radical SpiNNaker project which could one day change the whole nature of the personal computer. … Read more
How many people, when their car shows signs of wear and tear, would consider upgrading the engine and keeping the shell? Even if you’re cash-strapped, you’ll soon work out the subtlety of the economics, the cost of sudden breakdowns, the precious time lost coping with the hassle, and the low ‘book value’. You’ll generally buy … Read more
One of the more difficult tasks, when virtualizing a server, is to determine the amount of memory that Hypervisor should assign to the virtual machine. This requires accurate monitoring and, because of the consequences of setting the value too low, there is a great temptation to err on the side of over-provisioning. This results in … Read more
Nokia’s alliance with Microsoft is likely to be good news for anyone using Microsoft technologies, and particularly for .NET developers. Before the announcement, the future wasn’t looking so bright for the ‘mobile’ version of Windows, Windows Phone. Microsoft currently has only 3.1% of the Smartphone market, even though it has been involved in it for … Read more
Grant Fritchey, The Scary DBA, has now taken the leap from being a Simple-Talk author and FoRG(Friend of Red Gate) to being employed by Red Gate as 'product evangelist'. As Bob Cramblitt finds out, it means that Grant gets more time to do what he enjoys doing; talking and writing about SQL Server topics that fascinate him, such as query tuning, execution plans, performance monitoring and backups.
… Read more
