Friday - February 20, 2009

Python Business Rules Engine

Several questions on Stack Overflow indicate a fundamental confusion about dynamic languages like Python.  It's strange how people try make things way more complex than necessary.

Author: Steven Lott
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Wednesday - December 17, 2008

My Favorite Appliance

There's nothing like no power for 65+ hours when it's hovering around 17°F (-8°C) that makes you think about which electrical appliance is most important

Author: Steven Lott
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Monday - November 17, 2008

Concealing the code base -- in Python.  I think not.

The "how do we protect our intellectual property?" question comes up from time to time because we're using Python.  It also came up on Stack Overflow.  Here's the approach we're taking.

Author: Steven Lott
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Thursday - November 13, 2008

To GUI or not to GUI, that is a question

We have a couple of sales demo scenarios.  Currently, they're packed into a Django "fixture" that rebuilds the database in the known configuration.  What if the sales folks need more?

Author: Steven Lott
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Wednesday - September 24, 2008

"The Business Analyst Lied" Or "Python To The Rescue"

It's not like the lied maliciously.  They got caught up in the romance of web services and totally missed the use cases where business value was created.

Now we've got software that -- viewed objectively -- isn't very close to what's really useful.  What next?

Author: Steven Lott
Technorati Tags: Design Architecture Python Django ORM
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Thursday - September 04, 2008

The Lean Architecture

If this project weren't serious, it would be funny.

Author: Steven Lott
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Tuesday - September 02, 2008

Lean Projects — Not Deficient Projects

A reader notes that I omitted mentioning budgeting, metrics, personnel and documentation.  True enough.

Of these, three are management practices (budgeting, metrics and personnel.)  What's important is that we need to be careful not to add management junk to Agile practices.  Not all legacy management practices are actually good ideas.  Some are just legacy.

We can very easily manage ourselves out of Agile.

Author: Steven Lott
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Tuesday - September 02, 2008

The Big Plan For Change™ -- Since it never works, what's the alternative?

I'm biased against Big Plan For Change™.  It's embodied in PowerPoint presentations, project plans, farcical schedule and comical budgets.  Change could start out as a simple thing, but, for some reason, it has to start out as complex, overwhelming planning exercises.  With rooms full of consultants.  People like me.

I don't think you should invest too much in a "plan for change".  I think you have to just change.

Author: Steven Lott
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Friday - August 15, 2008

The Technology Obsession 

Hoare's Law:  Inside every big program is a small program struggling to get out.  

Lott's Corollary: Less code is better; no code is best.

Author: Steven Lott
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Friday - July 18, 2008

Technology and Compromise

"I can't use [X] because of this small feature which I find objectionable."  I have some other places where a sensible compromise was discarded in favor of an "all-or-nothing" strategy.  I don't know why someone would take an all-or-nothing demand for the impossible.  But it does tell me how valuable the software is if they'd prefer none of it when they could have had some of it.

Author: Steven Lott
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Thursday - May 29, 2008

My Peers Don't Get PL/SQL, What Can I Do?

Give up.   First, no amount of "evidence" -- like blog entries -- will change their minds.  Second, PL/SQL isn't a very good programming language.

Or, rewrite things in your preferred style and quit explaining to your peers how wrong they are.

Author: Steven Lott
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Saturday - May 24, 2008

Some "Duck Typing Can't Scale" crap-ola

I've run into this vague hand-wringing that lifts up "trust" among programmers.  They use the buzzword "scalability" to differentiate between a small team (where there are no trust issues) and enterprise-scale programming where "someone" doesn't "play by the rules".  What?

The paranoid claim that these "others" can't be trusted, and specific defensive measures are required to protect "us" from the malfeasance of "them".  They call it defensive programming and waste endless brain calories on writing pointless junk code.

It's simpler than that.

Author: Steven Lott
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Tuesday - April 01, 2008

POPO and GOPS - Plain Old Python Objects and Good Old Python Syntax

While wrestling with XML and X12 (again) I found out about the strengths of lxml and ElementTree.  I also learned something even more important about the distinction between Plain Old Python Objects and having some other object model, but keeping Good Old Python Syntax.

Author: Steven Lott
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Monday - February 04, 2008

Python's Duck Typing Not General Enough; SQL's Minimally Typed Foreign Keys Not General Enough.  Debugging Hilarity Ensues.

Yes, it's true.  I did get a question on how best to create an uber-meta-general-purpose many-to-many hierarchical association type.  I suggested they lay off the caffeine.

Author: Steven Lott
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Monday - October 08, 2007

SOA, Reuse and The Unmeasurable

I think I finally understand why SOA has only a coincident relationship with reuse.

Author: Steven Lott
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Monday - September 24, 2007

SOA: Cheaper?  Simpler?

Why opt for a Service-Oriented Architecture?  "Better" seems vague an unsatisfying.  "Better than..." is a start.

Author: Steven Lott
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Friday - August 17, 2007

SOA, Web Services, and Other Religious Experiences

A colleague dropped a line to chat about SOA.  The questions were interesting.

Author: Steven Lott
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Thursday - June 28, 2007

KTLO Management

Another follow-up to Berkun's ADD posting.  I find the "Keeping the Lights On" school of budget control to be particularly infuriating.

Author: Steven Lott
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Tuesday - June 19, 2007

Methodologies we love to hate.

Check out Scott Berkun's book (The Myths of Innovation) and Blog. 

Author: Steven Lott
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Tuesday - April 03, 2007

Business Analysis vs. Architecture

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