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development

Why Relational?

July 25, 2011 16:35:47.000

This response from James Gosling on relational databases almost sounds reasonable:

In the enterprise space, things like Sandra and Baltimore and some of the NoSQL database. I’ve never got it when it comes to SQL databases. It’s like, why? Just give me a hash table and a shitload of RAM, and I’m happy. And then you do something to deal with failures. And you look at the way things like the NoSQL movement is. It’s various flavors of large scale distributed hash tables and trying to deal with massive scale and massive replication, and you can’t back up the database because no tape farm is big enough. And you find scale and reliability can fit together at the same time. So a bunch of those things are really cool.

Until you work on a real project, that is. I used to have pretty dismissive take on relational databases. Then I noticed (late in the game, sure, but sooner than Gosling, apparently) that people want reports.

Here's the thing: a non-relational database works if you have an isolated project, or don't have data that other people need reports on. If the data you have is of interest to anyone else in your organization, and you don't use a relational database? You just bought a world of report writing along with your oSQL database.

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posted by James Robertson

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Creating Your Own Blog Software

March 4, 2011 6:39:19.579

Way back in 2002, I started writing the software that drives this blog - at the time, I was thinking of it as a promotional tool for Smalltalk. When I left Cincom and needed a new job, it became something more useful: a promotional tool for me. I publicized my situation, and that effort led to a job offer from the place I'm working now. This aspect brought up by Rob Conery also came up:

It’s ubiquitous. What a perfect interview topic: “I’d love to see how you handled asynchronous pings to Technorati and oh do you have a POP feature? Also did you use MetaWeblog or Wordpress?”

One of the things I got asked about was my technical chops - since I'd been working in software promotion, did I still have any useful skills from a development perspective? Well, the blog is a living, breathing example of the fact that I know at least a few things. The code is in the public repository, so it's easily accessible as well.

Having a public project like a blog turned out to be useful for me in multiple ways.

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posted by James Robertson

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Build Tools and Process

January 12, 2011 10:05:36.379

It's one thing to come up with a few simple tools to automate a build - all things considered, that's not a terribly difficult thing (which begs the question: why hasn't the vendor of VW, Cincom, come up with something better than RTP?). The harder problem is fitting the technical siolution into the process that your project has evolved.

That's where I am today. I have a simple tool that reliably creates a build, using this set of steps:

  • Starting from a base image, load Store, then load the master application bundle
  • Do some baseline "cleanup" - close the various windows that got opened as part of the postLoad process, then save the image as a development snapshot
  • Fire up that saved image, unload a set of development packages, and then put it into a runtime state
  • Execute a perm save of the resulting image
  • Finally, fire up another image, load the image compression tools, and compress the saved runtime, yielding the final build.

All of that happens from a "driver" image - it's straightforward to launch a new image and hand it a command line argument to file in a script. That's the easy part though - now I need to get it integrated into the process, and that's the far more interesting piece of the project :)

posted by James Robertson

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development

Simberon Design Blog

January 10, 2011 22:05:03.136

David Buck has set up a new blog to discuss the sorts of issues he raises in his regular "Simberon Design Minute" segment of the IM podcast:

In this blog, I hope to provide food for thought for software developers and suggestions for helping developers improve the quality of their code. I also enjoy teaching about software development and encouraging people to have fun with software development.

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posted by James Robertson

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Language Wars are Back

November 4, 2010 7:58:24.849

There was a point a few years ago when many developers thought that the "language wars" were over: Java (or at least the JVM) was the new standard, and everything going forward would revove around that. Oh sure, things like Smalltalk would still exist around the periphery, but the thinking was that "everything" would end up on the JVM.

Things didn't quite end up that way, and Apple's dominance in the mobile space has a lot to do with that. While they are no longer forcing their favored languages on IOS developers, it's clear that most IOS work will be in Objective-C. That left Apple free to deprecate Java for the Mac, which makes a rather large dent in the Java "write once, run everywhere" story".

Not that Java is hurting - it's the preferred language for Android development, and Android is surging. There are a few issues, notably Oracle's lawsuit - but Java will remain one of the main development tools.

Another consensus changer over the last few years has been Ruby - it didn't all end up on the JVM. Meanwhile, Microsoft has had bigger problems with .NET than they thought they would. The upshot? It's still a diverse landscape for software developers.

posted by James Robertson

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Expanding the Playing Field

October 26, 2010 8:55:27.178

Javascript 4 U

I've decided to expand the playing field for myself (in terms of the screencast series). I launched "Smalltalk 4 U" on October 15th - next week, I'll be launching "Javascript 4 U". The format will be similar - short screencasts that try to get one point across in 3 minutes or less.

I've set up a landing page, but it's not populated with any screencasts yet. The series launches on Monday, and it will be an iTunes enabled feed. Look for it then!

The Smalltalk series will be continuing as well - I plan to push out Smalltalk and Javascript oriented screencasts on alternating days.

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posted by James Robertson

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No Iron Anything

October 22, 2010 13:30:22.376

Looks like dynamic languages on the .NET platform are dead - oh, wait, they are "out in the community" now. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for much VM support though :)

Microsoft has officially ended a half-decade flirtation with building its own .NETized scripting languages, and it lost a languages guru to Google in the process. The company has handed code and project responsibility for IronRuby and IronPython to "the community," six years after it started the projects and then stuck them in limbo.

The guri reference is to Jim Hugunin, who is on his way to Google. Since Android is heavily Java dependent, and Oracle is trying to throw sand in Google's gears there, who knows what that means for dynamic languages on the JVM. My guess: nothing good.

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posted by James Robertson

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Avocado - Self in a Browser

September 21, 2010 8:36:41.000

The Lively Kernel has been used to produce a self-like language: Avocado:

Adam Spitz and Alex Ausch have incorporated the ideas of the Self language into the Lively Kernel code base. The result is Avocado: an in-browser JavaScript development platform and GUI.

Chris Cunnington did a screencast on it.

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posted by James Robertson

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Xerox PARC is 40

September 21, 2010 5:34:00.000

The birthplace of Smalltalk (and a ton of other innovations in software and hardware) turned 40:

PARC researchers devised the world's first WYSIWYG editor, the GUI, bitmapped display object-oriented programming methodology, and, yes, the first commercial mouse, all of which were quickly rolled into the Alto workstation - a recognizable modern PC. PARC's boffins also gave us Ethernet and laser printers.

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Workflow Beats Everything

September 15, 2010 12:44:47.520

Ted Leung has this very right:

App developers of all kinds, giving me neat features is good. Streamlining my workflow is better.

Supporting new libraries and features is cool, but if the end result is still a workflow that stalls at some point - then it really doesn't matter. Developers need to be able to go from working code to deployable systems quickly, and it shouldn't have to involve chewing gum and baling wire....

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posted by James Robertson

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