Are Relational Databases Obsolete?

I found this hilarious.

Michael Stonebraker, co-creator of the Ingres and Postgres database management systems, recently made a blog posting suggesting that column-oriented database engines (example: Vertica) might someday triumph over the traditional row-oriented engines (example: every other database engine you know) in some situations, perhaps most notably the data-warehousing field. It's an interesting post, and well worth reading.

Somebody else thought so. Computer World reported the story under the title:

Relational database pioneer says technology is obsolete.

Slightly sensationalist, but whatever. And so naturally the story turned up on Slashdot as:

Are Relational Databases Obsolete?

Did anybody read TFA? I doubt it.

The real shame is that, I suspect this is how most 'real' journalism happens too.

JsUnit

Just a quick post to mention that, yes, my commitment to TDD show no signs of abating, especially in the face of the various unfamiliar technologies with which I've been working recently.

Today I came across JsUnit. Which may be old news to many, but I don't stray into JavaScript territory very often, and when I do, I'm usually quite frightened!

And how do developers reduce fear? Yup, we write some tests.

JsUnit has a nice UI, has maybe a 5 minute install/learning curve for anyone familiar with xUnits and just works. The only downsides I've found so far are that i) it doesn't work with my adored Opera and ii) some of the debugging messages are written in the sort of cryptic, broken English that suggests that the contributions of a native speaker might be welcome here.

Anyway, long story short, it's nice to know that even in the dark, dark world of client-side scripting, the gospel is spreading.

All Change

Yep, the time has finally come. In the new year I'll be heading off to pastures new, and starting work over on the other side of Covent Garden, with the guys at Pitch. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about that.

I always said it would take something pretty special to tempt me to leave my current employer - it has been an invaluable experience - and in the end, it did.

I Use the Word 'Diametrically' in This One

One of things I've enjoyed most about my work over the last few years - one of the privileges of being a developer, as it were - has been working so closely with talented, driven people. It doesn't really matter whether you're speccing out a gritty DB schema with other developers, stepping through wireframes and storyboards with an interface designer, or having a heated debate about the place of PDFs on the web with senior management.

What's great is that everybody has an opinion, often diametrically opposed to your own. That's a great way to open your mind, and a great way to learn.

For the record, I didn't change my mind completely about PDFs, my views being somewhat akin to Jakob Nielsen's. But I accept they have a place, and can have a value to the paying client.

And if opening your mind can help to bring in a few more pennies, so be it.

...and keeping them

I'm finding more and more excellent, and very pertinent, content on Rob's site. In Nine Things Developers Want More Than Money he raises a few issues that will make a huge difference to a company's rate of developer 'churn'. And once again he hits several nails square on the head.

He doesn't mention chairs, but I think Joel has that one covered.

Still, I wonder how Rob finds developers who have stable family lives and yet are willing to work until sunrise...without being asked and without extra pay!

Finding them...

I enjoyed Rob's definition of Web 2.0 companies as being the ones that show up in your browser every time you mistype a domain name. I don't know what you would have to type wrong to find either of our portals, so I guess we're not Web 2.0. But I can live with that.

Anyway, it's from a great article called Personality Traits of the Best Software Developers, which I found particularly interesting, since we're recruiting right now. I can see myself in at least a couple of those (I shan't elaborate!) so maybe I'm not doing too badly.

I am Not a Resource, I'm a Free...Oh Wait...

For a while now I've been taking exception to programmers being described (by management, by recruiters) as 'resources'. "We're hoping to take on a PHP resource", "I hear you're looking for a PHP resource?".

No, I'm really not looking for a resource, I'm looking for a programmer. Programmers have brains and ideas and solve problems and rarely stop thinking about creative ways to do complex things. They're not interchangeable programming units. At least, not here in Great Queen Street. To misappropriate something Martin Fowler said:

"that would be true if the hardest part of programming was typing".

Which, of course, isn't the case.

Try Ruby!

I'm intrigued, perhaps even impressed by Why's Try Ruby!, an interactive, in-browser Ruby tutorial. It really is quite a fascinating collision of technologies.

It's almost painfully Web 2.0 - I'm pretty sure most of the buzzwords are there - Ruby, Ajax, that sort of thing. All sat on top of the ubiquitous Json and Prototype libraries.

It's a neat idea, and a useful tool in learning what is a very interesting programming language, but it displays something which is has become alarmingly common in the Web 2.0 landgrab - a complete disregard for the usability conventions and metaphors that have made the web such a success in the first place. Want to bookmark a particularly useful page of the tutorial? Oops, no, sorry - you can't do that, best start again. Want to hit your 'back' button and run over that tricky last section again? No such luck.

I don't want to sound like a miserable old bugger (well, maybe just a little), but I'm starting to fear for the future of HTTP. I'm nostalgic for TBL's original design.

Still, everyone has the sense that we're in a fascinating and exciting phase in the Web's development - even I can't deny that. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

URL File Extensions Considered Harmful

A recent conversation with a colleague reminded me of just how much I hate seeing programming language file extensions in URLs. You know - .php, .asp, .cfm and the like. There are several reasons why we avoid them like the plague.

'lo world

'lo world