Having used Solaris and Oracle products in an Enterprise environment, I can’t say that I am surprised. When the rumors of Oracle’s purchase of Sun, I realized Java was dead. “The End of Innovation” should have been the headline.
Why?
Sun was bleeding money, badly. They had lost focus and drive. A hardware company that also does operating systems and supports an open source development platform? WTF? (Almost sounds like Microsoft, but in reverse). I digress. Sun needed a buyer. The existing model wasn’t working. If it had, they wouldn’t have been bought out. Right? Right.
Oracle has NEVER been an open company. Big Larry learned early that once you’ve got their data, no company is interested in moving to a new platform. A decade ago Microsoft’s SQL Server wasn’t as stable as Oracle. It couldn’t scale up “enough” to handle the data load. Oracle had a better product. (The religious zealots enter stage left.) A different kind of deal with the devil was the only real option for some organizations.
So here we are. The Open Source movement has suffered a huge set back. It may not be noticeable today, but I believe we are swinging the pendulum in the other direction. And I thought SCO’s legal actions were distasteful.
The King is dead.
Long live the King.
There are days when I really wonder about people and their thought process. OK. I wonder every day, but that’s a different issue.
Please read: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/12/swat-team-takes-down-man-armed-with-lego-gun/
First thought: I gotta get one of those!
Second thought: Why do people freak out so badly when there isn’t a problem yet act like total sheep when there really IS a problem? His own office mates didn’t think anything of it. They already know about his LEGO obsession. Yet some nosey woman spots his from outside the building and makes the mad dash to call 911. SWAT comes blazing in. It’s amazing to me that no one was shot. <sigh>
We can’t be bothered to take care of our children or create an open society where disagreements are allowed and even encouraged. Yet, we can narc on anyone without a single scrap of fact.
Wonderful.
Jumping to conclusions is the only sport we excel at. Maybe that guy with the LEGO gun needs to do a few laps for his shortsightedness. After all he was playing with a toy in his own office, with the door closed.
It is a crazy world.
What can I say? The water is warm. The days have been relaxing.
We arrived on the island two days ago. We met up with the rest of the group on Wednesday then loaded into a van for the drive down to Playa Del Carman. The ferry crossing was easy enough. After a little confusion we found the house. I watched another stingray working its way across the ocean floor.
Yesterday, I had an ear plug malfunction. I tried a new pair of ear plugs and they immediately leaked. With the tubes in my ears the water flowed straight down the back of my throat. Needless to say, it was time for me to get out of the water. I’m carrying everything I need to handle problems like this. That sidelined me for the rest of the day. I finished reading Daemon.
This morning, I was feeling fine and I joined the others on a snorkeling charter. Pizza over cards, naps all around and here we are…
Tomorrow, we have reservations to go parasailing. I wonder how that will turn out…
We made it to Dallas without any trouble. My new Timbuk2 bag rolled right through the TSA scanner without any extra drama. Netbook, external DVD drive, external harddrive, power adaptor, extention cord, half a dozen USB cables, blah, blah, blah. What can I say? I’m a geek. Read more…
Good Enough
Hi. My name is <withheld> and I have a coding problem. I’m an obsessive/compulsive programmer. For every feature request, I can think of 5, No 10! (so-called) improvements.
You say you need a knife to cut a tomato. I think Swiss Army knife with a saw, scissors, tweezers, multiple screwdrivers, leather reamer (yes I’ve actually used it for its intended purpose), can/bottle openers (including wine) and oh yeah a couple blade that could cut up your boring tomato.
Am I thinking ahead?
Am I simply showing off?
Am I getting my nerd on?
Am I ignoring the needs of my users so I can mentally masturbate?
Is there any real difference in any of these questions?
Let the war in my head begin…
Yes. I mean, No! I’d never do that. Well, maybe I would. But it’s cool.
So how does it end?
How do I find the disciple to develop a widget that is good enough without anything extra?
Read more…
So I was getting this error:
Error while trying to run project: Unable to start debugging.
The components for the 64-bit debugger are not registered. Please repair your Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger installation via ‘Add or Remove Programs’ in Control Panel.
A little surfing and I found a solution. Install the debugger! The 64-bit debugger is not installed by default. The installer is on the Visual Studio install disc. “<Drive Letter>\Remote Debugger\x64\rdbgsetup.exe”
Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something really wrong about this image. Why is Glenn Danzig surrounded by lilies?
From coding horror: The Only Truly Failed Project
Been there. Done that.
I guess my approach is to not even see failures as such. Failure is an opportunity learn a way to not solve a given problem. 10 failures? Nope. It’s learning 10 ways to do something that doesn’t fix your problem.
Software development is a process that requires continual forward movement. I try to learn something new with each and every line of code that I write, even the bad lines and expressions of much larger bad ideas. I don’t WANT to write bad code, but it happens. And sometimes it takes months before I realize the mistake. It’s all a learning process. And when I do “get it right” the first time, I’m unhappy, paranoid, and unsettled. You never want a successful first test, per TDD. The first pass through should result in a failure condition then when you have a successful test you have confidence that the issue has truly been resolved.
What was that cheese-ball line from Galaxy Quest? “Never give up. Never surrender.”
I found a simple fix for my problems with Media Player in Win7. Download the CODECs. Duh. Here’s where I downloaded a working CODEC. The files originally came from Shark007. Emigrate now fills my home office.
For some unknown reason, I ended up reading through interview questions/jokes today. I know the real reason I ended up here. We’re having some churn on the team and I’ll be participating in the face to face interviews.
I really enjoyed the “You don’t bury survivors” post. (Answers) Jeff Atwoods write-up is interesting. Actually I think all of this started with a post by Atwood on separating those that can program from those that can’t. Which in turn lead me to this draft paper (pdf).
Here’s my FizzBuzz code. I think I spent maybe 5 minutes from firing up VS to rereading the requirements to make sure I wrote what was assigned. I am assuming the first number to be printed it “1″ and not “0″.
for(int i = 0 ; i < 100 ; )
{
i++;
if ( i % 3 == 0 && i % 5 ==0 )
Console.WriteLine("FizzBuzz");
else if (i % 3 == 0)
Console.WriteLine("Fizz");
else if (i % 5 == 0)
Console.WriteLine("Buzz");
else
Console.WriteLine(i);
}
Another question I have been asked was to write a palidrome finder. I was in a bad mood that day and evaded the request. Obviously, I didn’t get the gig. The gig was writing software for a collections company so my conscience must have been screaming at me. <shrug> Anyway, the solution would look something like this:
static bool IsPalindrome(string palindrome)
{
palindrome = palindrome.Trim().Replace(" ", "").ToLower();
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(palindrome))
return true;
if ( palindrome.Length == 1 )
return true;
// this could also be done with substring. I think this is more readable.
char[] chars = palindrome.ToCharArray();
if (chars[0] != chars[chars.Length -1])
return false;
return IsPalindrome(palindrome.Substring(1, palindrome.Length - 2));
}
Tags:
I suppose it is a fundamental topic. Why do need to fully understand how our data is being used?
“Because we do” doesn’t seem to work.
So baffle them with BS or at least bury them in jargon. Phil Factor has a couple posts of this topic.
The Joy of Data Modelling
The Data Dialog
I haven’t really slept in weeks. OK. Almost a month. I’ve tried sleep aids. I still wake up a couple hours later to wander downstairs and re-start working on computer builds and software issues.
I think that time is coming to an end. Read more…
I started looking through my stuff (parts inventory) and realized I don’t have a compatible video card or DVD burner for my new machine. Oops. Back to computer shop to get more doodads.
Have I told you lately, just how much I hate dealing with hardware?
