Chuck Lathrope was a finalist for the Exceptional DBA of the Year award in 2009. We contacted him to find out more about how he became a DBA and for his views about the profession. What is the making of an excptional DBA?… Read more
Peldi is one of the most likeable of the new hybrid IT generation; part entrepreneur, part geek. Balsamiq is Peldi's creation, a tool for creating mockups of software. Balsamiq has shown what a good framework Adobe Air is, and how successful single-purpose software that completely fills a need can be.… Read more
It is hard to categorize Josh Klein. Author, Technologist, Developer, Entrepreneur, polymath? He has participated in several startups, and is a popular speaker at conferences. He describes himself as an expert in 'taking things apart or putting them together again', reworking existing systems in unorthodox ways.… Read more
Our resident expert in current advances in Computer Science, Professor Bin-Haad, reviews the first details to emerge about the experimental language IM1, which has been a remarkable University project jointly sponsored by the major players in the battle for the Desktop. On this special day, we hear about the radical features of the new language, designed once and for all to resolve the apparently irreconcilable demands of the proponents of all the different computer languages required in order to create portable applications.… Read more
Arduino is cheap and simple way that desktop computers can monitor the physical world, and control devices. It is an open-source platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a software development environment, ideal for teaching. We decided to find out more from Tom Igoe, from Arguino's team.… Read more
Glenn Berry works as a Database Architect at Avalara in Bainbridge Island, Washington. He is a SQL Server MVP, and has a whole collection of Microsoft certifications, including MCITP, MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD, MCAD, and MCTS. As well as working as a DBA, he is an Adjunct Faculty member at the University of Denver, where he has been teaching since 2000. He wrote chapters in the SQL Server MVP Deep Dives books as well as 'SQL Server Hardware' for Simple-Talk.… Read more
Ola Bini is one of the core developers for JRuby, and creator of the JvYAML and RbYAML projects. He is also well known for his work on promoting YAML as an alternative markup to XML.… Read more
Seth Godin has transformed our understanding of marketing in IT. He invented the concept of 'permission marketing', sees the end of the "TV-Industrial complex" and the techniques of 'interruption-marketing' Instead he sees a sunny future, one where the consumer has the power to drive sales on merit… Read more
With the arrival of F# 3.0 Microsoft announced a wide range of improvements such as type providers that made F# a viable alternative to their other .NET languages as a general purpose workhorse. So what exactly are type providers, and why are they a killer reason for using F#? Why should we be considering F# for data-rich applications? To find out, we caught up with Don Syme, F#'s creator, to ask him about the latest developments in F# 3.0 and canvas his views on functional programming in general.… Read more
Scott Shaw was one of the finalists to the 2011 Exceptional DBA Award (XDBA). The award was founded in 2008 to recognize the essential but often overlooked contributions of DBAs, the unsung heroes of the IT community. In this interview, Scott describes the challenges of being a DBA in a busy Healthcare company, and his work for the DBA community.… Read more
Chuck Moore is still the radical thinker of Information Technology, After an astonishing career designing languages (e.g. FORTH), browser-based computers, CAD systems and CPUs, he is now energetically designing extremely low-powered 'green' multi-processor chips for embedded systems. Behind everything he does is a radical message: 'Embrace the entire problem, Keep it simple'.… Read more
The extent of malicious hacking on the internet, in pursuit of political or economic advantage, crime or just plain mischief, threatens to escalate the cost of even basic IT infrastructure. In the emerging economies, organised hacking is now beginning to impede economic growth so much that organised counter-measures are now required. Our Pakistan correspondent describes the problem there, and suggests some solutions.… Read more
What is it about C++ that makes it one of the most important computer languages for systems work, yet so reviled by so many? Like Marmite, or Miracle Whip, nobody seems to take a neutral opinion of it. We asked the languages' creator, the great Bjarne Stroustrup.… Read more
Jeff Moden's election to the Exceptional DBA of the Year award for 2011 was a popular one. Although all the finalists were exceptional, Jeff has impressed everyone with his energy, stamina and wit, particularly with his work on SQL Server Central. In conversation with Richard Morris, Jeff comes up with several nuggets of advice and opinion that are valuable for any DBA or database developer.… Read more
For a large number of .NET developers, Subversion is Source Control. The book they go to to find out how to use it is O'Reilly's 'Version Control with Subversion'. Both Subversion and the book owe a great deal to the Subversion open source development team, including Michael Pilato of CollabNet, who has worked on the project for many years, almost since the project was founded in 2000 by Collabnet.… Read more
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
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
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
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.
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